The Man Who Swallows Nightmares

bland and yet delicious | 03

Malachi

SOMEONE WAS IN MY ROOM. I knew it. It was like a hush uneasiness in my chest. My knife's hilt was cold underneath my pillow. My fingers wrapped around the ivy stems etched into my dagger. It was uncommon for someone to sneak on me. No one had surprised me since the Gift ceremony. I grinded my teeth. I didn't want to think about that day. No. I will not go there. But to remember what life was like before my power. To taste the cinnamon pastries before Madam Claudia shooed Nicholas and me away with her towels and wooden spoon as she made our ginger and pistachio shortbreads.

The bay window was cracked open to let in the early spring breeze. The curtains indicated the wind picked up its motion. The nighttime quiet was suffocating with no birds singing their melody and no animals crawling outside.

But I knew. I sat up from my bed. The bed posts stood tall on all four corners, the navy bed drapes with sapphire glitters could be seen in the crescent moonlight. My dark navy raven hair fell down in front of my eyes. Eyes that matched the color. I wasn't born with this. The Gift ceremony gave me more than just my power. My Gift took my mother's emerald and blue sky irises away from me.

The white nightshirt strings were untied. I must've tossed and turned throughout the hour or so. Flinging the annoying string, it landed near my chest. My eyes began to scan my surroundings. The cedar chest with foxglove etched in gold covered the top. The sidings where the brass handles were positioned had lilacs, vines, and roses in copper that were first carved into the wood. The lock was on the front.

Good. No one had gotten into it. Lifting up the bed sheet, intentionally twisted my hip to let my heel touch the wooden floor. Nothing was in the corners. The open hearth had small embers popping from its contained stone. The glow was faint as if a baby dragon was sleeping. And with the dragon's breath, its belly grew out with oxygen, the wood cracked and radiated and then the belly went inward, the glow dimmed.

I inhaled. A nearby guard walked the corridor, performing his duties. His tobacco and cedar overwhelmed my tongue. His fortress strength had a different tone: copper and clay. But each step he took, the further I couldn't taste. His power was out of my reach. If only I had swallowed the particles earlier.

Shaking my head, I sucked in the dust faint snowflakes that were invisible to the untrained eye. I expected the zesty blood orange from the southern regions of Moriah or the warm dark roast coffee bean with caramel tones from the western regions of Abel to determine whoever was here.

I held the taste. Swishing the particles in my mouth and under my tongue, I couldn't breathe. There was no flavor. Stale, soft, and tasteless magic.

But someone is here.

Even Non-Gifted had the snowflake particles revolving around them. Their tone always matched their personality. A person's dreams, desires, fears, emotions; all twined together in a ball of flavors that it was hard to gulp down the intensity. My stomach had difficulties the first year after my Ceremony to gulp the magic. I couldn't keep anything down let alone real food.

I stepped purposefully avoiding the creaks in the floorboards. My hand clasped my dagger. The hilt had become warm from my touch.

Did my brother send someone?

No.

His imagination and plans stayed neutral and warm to hospitality.  He wouldn't dare. Why would he? He had no sense of my plan. Nicholas grinned earlier this morning as if there were no problems in the Kingdom. He had little knowledge of what fragile state our currency had, what thin string we had on what our citizens desired and claimed they deserved, or what his own brother thought of him. He'd all but tackled me with a hug after his final studies.