A Web of Steam & Puppet Strings (Sevastyan #1)

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

We marched out in single file between the Doors that Never Open. The same corridor took us down familiar territory, made unfamiliar by the sunlight that poured in from the windows. The golden rays highlighted the immaculate detailing in the lacquered wooden trim of the wall panels. The colors of the twining floral tapestry beneath our boots shimmered as if the vines had come alive.

Instead of taking a left and passing through our regular archway, however, we kept forward. I let myself steal a peek of the room as I marched by, and caught a glimpse of the casements overlooking a garden of ivy walls that stained every surface with emerald light.

How easy would it have been to simply dodge inside and escape? I knew the garden well enough now to march through it, well, blindfolded.

But the tickle of freedom left me as soon as the room left my sight.

The unfamiliar hallway was a mirror copy of our usual route, yet the fear of the unknown flooded my palms with sweat and tightened my jaw muscles. The walls closed in, ready to come down on top of me. The ceiling dropped lower and lower. I ducked my head in fear of scraping my hair along the rafters and I squeezed my shoulders together to keep the walls on either side from forming a coffin. A deep breath and a moment with my eyes shut, listening to only the pounding of our feet, bended the walls back to normal for a heartbeat.

But only a heartbeat.

When we passed portals into other corridors, I braved a sideways glance and caught sight of other soldiers, dressed in uniform and casually discussing matters I didn't understand. They stopped only to glance us, and I turned my eyes low again.

I didn't have the blackout around my eyes. I couldn't let myself forget such a thing while staring unashamed.

Finally we deviated from the hallway and turned into a large banquet hall of towering deep red walls and a long, elegant black oak dining table. Each end of the long room bore a marble fireplace with modest fires, filling the air with the pungency of crackling pine and fir. Mounted above the ornamental mantle to my left was a needlessly dramatic portrait of a man dressed in overtly fanciful brocade robes, wire spectacles mounted on the prominent ridge of his prominent square nose, lips pursed, brow furrowed in a very self-important manner, and sunken eyes regarding the painter somberly.

But what stole my attention was the steel helmet, similar to our military man's, complete with fins and gills and whiskers, mimicking the tribal style of the native sea people and bastardizing it with what was considered 'modern classical beauty'.

Either way, the helmet turned his head into a big silver fish.

I did at least appreciate the balance of weight and curves, and the careful detail of swirls and scales. With skill like that, the craftsman would have been able to take the crude dumbbell from the weight room and produced a crown for the king.

Mounted above the mantle to my right was also a needlessly dramatic portrait, but of a woman. She dressed herself like a queen, in fabrics spun from the souls of men. So many fat rings clung to her fingers that she would have sunk faster than an anchor if dropped in the ocean.

She had also donned a helmet of pale steel, made with the same fin-like indigenous mythological accents—except less fishy, more serpentine. Large snakelike fangs curved down from the panels around her face, and the points nearly touched the fleshy curves of her chest.

A lifetime ago, I remembered seeing a fresco in one of the long abandoned native villages that crested the ocean. A painting of a serpent twined with a boat, snakelike fangs drawn to a perfect, intimidating point. Sailors fleeing into the ocean. Lighting striking the frowning clouds.