"I still don't understand why this filth has to ride in the carriage with us," Givin grumbled, referring to Jasper. We had been riding in the carriage for about two hours now, and Givin had been complaining about Jasper almost the entire time.

I was sitting beside Jasper, while Tinly, Givin, and Rorris sat across from us.

"Because my brother is not filth," I replied coolly. "Actually, if anyone in here is filth, it's you!" Picking on defenseless old ladies and men, what kind of man are you?"

"Ahh!" Tinly suddenly shouted, pressing his thumb and pointer finger to the bridge of his nose. "Quit acting so childish Givin, the carriage is big enough for the five of us!"

The five of us included Rorris, the little boy who had brought Givin his whip, and Tinly, Givin, Jasper and me, but Tinly was wrong about the carriage being big enough for the five of us, it was way more than big enough. It was probably big enough for twenty or more of us.

The circular walls of the carriage were pink with a ring of red satin seats lining them all the way around, except for where the door was. The floor was made of the same red marble as the outside of the carriage. The walls lacked any kind of windows, which I found very strange, so we were forced to either look at the wall, the ground, or each other. I had chosen to look at Rorris.

Rorris couldn't be more than eight or nine summers old, by my estimate. During the majority of the two hours, he had kept his sandy-colored head bent down, and sung his little legs back and forth slowly. I felt sorry for him, it must be hard to have to serve a jerk like Givin.

"Brother-" Tinly began.

I looked away from Rorris, "Wait, you two are brothers!?" I blurted out, and Givin and Tinly both looked over towards me

Givin smirked, "We're twins actually, but not identical twins as you can obviously see. We have this little unpleasant curse that runs in our family. The first son born in every generation is born hideous, and Tinly just happened to be the first twin to pop out of the womb."

I looked over at Tinly, who was gazing blankly at the wall, "I come second in everything else, except the one thing that it was bad to come first in," he said quietly, then looked up surprised, like he had forgotten we were all there. Silence followed.

After a minute of not talking Givin cleared his throat loudly, "I don't want that filth riding with us for another their" he said and pointed to Jasper. "It is well known that dwarf's bath only twice a year, once on the summer solstice and once during the winter solstice. It's one of their barbaric customs."

My brother clapped his hands together and smiled at Givin, "Well then you would be happy to know that I don't follow dwarven customs. You see, I was raised by a human mother and father, who believed in bathing regularly. In fact, I just took a nice hot bath this morning..."

"Then what smells!?" Givin demanded, wrinkling his nose.

Jasper glanced over at me, then looked back at Givin. "My sister was cleaning the fairy cages this morning..." he explained.

I felt my face turn red, "Well if you would've given me like a minute to get ready, I might not smell like a fairy's behind!" I shouted.

"You're right, we didn't give you any time to prepare yourself, even though you are going to be presented to the king tomorrow. Maybe we should stop and allow you some time to bathe tonight, and then get you a change of clothes."

"Wait a minute, we live far from the Blue Lake Castle. It would take at least a month to arrive there by carriage." It was true, where we lived was on the very outskirts of the kingdom of Athencus. If you went twenty miles to the east of our home you would arrive at Mersmin's border, Atticus's neighboring country.

"Yeah that would normally be the case, but we aren't getting there by carriage, we're getting there by reindeer," Tinly scooted over until he was by the door. He cracked the door open a bit, and cold air came pouring inside. I caught a glimpse of white and blue before he closed it.

My mouth fell open, "Are we flying!? But how? I didn't even feel us take off!"

"It's because we aren't being pulled by regular reindeer, we're being pulled by mist reindeer. They only live up near the peaks of the Purple Smoke mountains. Am I right?" Jasper said.

Tinly nodded and Givin looked genuinely impressed, "How did you know that? Especially since you're a dwarf. Dwarfs are supposed to be very dim creatures," Givin said.

Jasper ignored Givin's insult and answered him. "I've been studying up on many different magical creatures, so I can take over our family business someday, though I'm not sure it will happen now," Jasper frown, "Unless his majesty is kind enough to let my sister and I go, after his business with her is finished."

"I'm sure he will," Givin said, sarcasm dripping from his voice, which earned him a glare from Tinly.

"So are you saying you have no intention of letting my sister go?" Jasper said, suddenly sounding very tense, which confused me. Didn't he know we were going to escape before we reached the castle?

Tinly looked at Jasper nervously, "Well probably not, but she will have a very comfortable life at the castle. I don't know if you know the old nursery rhyme, Blood from Elves, but it goes something like this.

"Elfin blood makes elfin steel"

"Lighter than a feather"

"Sharper than steel"

"Elfin blood makes magic to fear"

"Hold your friends far and your enemies near"

"Walls will crumble"

"Kingdoms will fall"

"Lakes will boil"

"Dragons will follow"

"Elfin blood makes elfin steel"

"Lighter than a feather"

"Sharper than steel"

Tinly finished and I exploded with laughter, I just couldn't help myself.

"You don't actually believe that morbid old nursery rhyme? Do you?" I asked when I regained my composure again. He was totally nuts if he did. It was like believing that there was an actual man on the moon, who fished for the sun. I smoothed back a lock of golden hair that had escaped my ponytail and tucked it behind my ear.

Tinly looked almost offended, "Yes of course I do, especially after you made a binding pack with me back there. Didn't you say you had no previous knowledge on how to work magic?

I nodded.

"A binding pack is a level five spell, it takes at least five years of training to reach that level of magic, and even then most aren't able to cast it."

I shrugged my shoulders, "Well maybe I am an elf with these amazing powers, but that doesn't mean that my blood can do all these amazing things your silly little nursery rhymes claim that it can do."

"Givin leaned forward, "Well there is only one way to find out, and that is to test it," he said, his eyes gleamed with something I didn't like at all. I found myself scooting a little bit closer to Jasper.

"We will test it when we reach the castle," Tinly said abruptly and Givin lost the gleam in his eye. He looked over at his older brother unhappily.

"So I know now that mist reindeer can fly, but why didn't we feel the takeoff?" I asked, changing the topic that was making me increasingly uncomfortable. I didn't like the thought of my blood being taken from me and then used to make weapons. Actually, I didn't like the idea of my blood being taken from me at all, and I would make sure that it never happened.

"Well, that is because the carriage has powerful movement magic weaved into its walls. We could even be flipped upside-down, and you would never feel it."

I nodded my head like I completely understood what he was saying when I actually the only kind of got it, "So how do we know when we land?" I asked, looking over to the seat beside me, where Jasper sat. Jasper had pulled out a piece of white cloth from his pocket and had begun polishing the handle of his war hammer. I began to wonder why neither Givin or Tinly had attempted to take the hammer from him in the first place since it was obviously a weapon. It probably meant one of two things.

One, they were both very stupid, or two, they were both very powerful. I bet it was a little bit of both,

"Magic of course," Tinly replied. "In fact, we just landed..." he said, with a puzzled looked on his face. Givin had a puzzled look on his face too. "I guess that means you can freshen up and get back to your normal, clean-smelling self!"

I felt my cheeks begin to burn, and I heard Jasper choke back a laugh. I leaned over and punched him in the arm. "Thank you very much, I think I will," I said just as the door to the carriage was opened by a man with gray hair and a beard. He was wearing a soldier's uniform, red cloth covered by basic armor.

"Master Givin and Master Tinly," he said and bowed.

"Why have we landed General Kips?" Givin asked the man.

The man shifted uncomfortably, "We've come to Dragon Ridge, and it is almost dark."

Rorris stopped swinging his legs and looked up sharply, his eyes went wide with fear.

"Oh I see," Givin shuddered, "I really hate that place. Tell your men to make camp for now, and set off tomorrow morning. Make sure they get enough rest and forget my orders about no dinner. They are going to need all their strength for tomorrow."

General Kip nodded and left.

Jasper nudged my shoulder and I looked over at him, I noticed how pale he was "What is it?" I whispered.

"Dragon Ridge is known as the place were even brave men fear to tread. I've read about it before in one of mom's books."

"You mean the book called Myths and Ghosts of the Deep Dark World?"

Jasper shot me an annoyed look "It's cursed, no magic works there, and the inhabitants are mutants who will eat anything they can get their hands on. Anything," he empathized when he saw the skeptical look on my face." I didn't think we would cross it, I thought that we would just travel along the Purple Smoke Mountains and then cross the Twin Serpent river."

I rolled my eyes, "Well good thing I'm a brave woman then, instead of a "brave" man."

I turned away from him and towards Tinly, "Okay I'm ready for that bath I apparently need so desperately need."

"Okay follow me," I followed him out of the carriage, but before I left I glanced over my shoulder at Jasper. I mouthed "be ready" to him.

I followed Tinly to a rock formation overlooking a huge, barren-looking valley. The rocks in which had a reddish tint to them and almost nothing except nasty looking weeds grew along with them., Beyond that, I could see a lush forest, like the one behind us. It was almost like the valley was a gaping wound, in an otherwise healthy landscape.

"So this is the place you are all scared off. I ask.

"We have a good reason to be afraid of it. We lost ten men the last time we crossed," Tinly tapped his foot hard against the rock.

At first, nothing happened, then the earth crumbled away until it formed a perfectly circular hole about two feet deep and three feet wide in diameter. Within a couple of minutes, it was completely full of water,"

"Wow," I said.

"Thank you, now disrobe and get in,"

"Umm excuse me, I'll disrobe as soon as you leave," I said

"No you're going to disrobe, and give me your dirty clothes. I won't look, you have my word. Then when you've finished bathing, call my name three times and new clothes will appear on that tree branch over there," he pointed to a branch of a dead tree, which hung over the newly formed pool, "I will come for you five minutes after that,"

"Why the specific instructions?" I asked.

"Because you can't escape without clothes."

He had seen right through me "Alright turn around," I instructed he faced away from me and I undressed. When I was done I handed him my clothes. He accepted them before walking away.

Once I was sure he was gone, I took my long blonde hair out of my ponytail and got into the pool he had created for me. The water was surprisingly warm. I began scrubbing my skin, hoping that would be enough to banish the awful scent which clung to it.

My head snapped up when I heard a noise coming from only a couple of feet away.

"Tinly! Tinly! Tinly!" I yelled when I saw what it was.