"This has got to be a joke," Elys muttered as she scoured every single angle of the bell in her hand. "What is a bell if it won't even ring?"
"Looks like this is the end of our diplomatic trip then," Aleksander leaned backwards, easing himself into lying on his back over the carriage's roof. He stared at the gloomy skies of the Eastern Kingdom, thinking what else were they missing.
"Maybe its broken, your highness," Cordelia said, "let me see it. Perhaps we can find a way to tinker with it and make it ring."
Elys handed over the tiny bell towards the maidservant's open hand. Cordelia peered into the slit of the spherical bell, and then jingled it near her ear to see if there was even the faintest of sounds that would come out of it.
"Still nothing?" Elys asked.
Cordelia shook her head in confusion. "I could sense the ball inside while I ringed it, but no sound was ever made even as it bounced all over inside the bell's walls."
