Soul Chains

Chapter 10: Into the Fire

Reine's village is a small little town framed by a pair of giant red, black, and gold Chinese gates that leads to a dirt road, cherry blossom trees, and multiple little shops, mostly food vendors, on the sides of the road. The dirt road leads up to an intersection of four roads where if you go left it leads into another part of town with housing, apartments, and more businesses. If you go to the right, there's a sacred area down the road after a few buildings and a library. The sacred area is used for training, critical thinking, magic, and so on, according to Reine. The seven of us ended up going straight ahead, the dirt road coming to an end to meet thick stone stairs that gave off a zen, ancient vibe. After going up the stairs and passing through another gate identical to the first one, there was another little village area full of housing and more market stalls. Reine led us forwards still until we came to a giant tan palace made of stone bricks with red and gold designs and multiple potted plants, trees, and shrubbery-- specifically bamboo plants, cherry blossom trees, and lotus flowers. Off to the right was a koi pond with water lilies. Reine brought us through the brown wooden doors of the palace until we were in an open courtyard with multiple Chinese styled buildings, the biggest one being directly across from us, that lined the entire courtyard in all directions. Reine waved us forwards and off to the right, beyond stern looking guards and down a dirt pathway that led down an alley-like area where she stopped in front of a shoji screen door on a small building on the left side of the pathway, glanced back at us, and slid it open.

"Welcome to my home," Reine breathed out, looking back at us.

Now, the seven of us are sitting in her living room as the dark-grey metal ceiling fan swirls above us and the large tatami mat that's placed on the wooden ebony floors, resting under two red sofas and an ebony framed glass coffee table.

After Reine recovers everything we previously talked about, Ayette takes it surprisingly well. She purses her lips into a firm line and nods, agreeing that she won't cause any trouble and says that if she can be of any help, she will.

"Alright, Queen," Renee sits with one knee in the air and her other leg down, her one arm resting on top of her elevated knee as she raises a brow, "what do we do now?"

"Now I have to search for the rest of the chain and train everyone else," Reine explains, her eyes flickering over to me before going back to Renee, "I'm assuming you and Renji are both capable of defending yourselves."

"Yeah," Renji nods, "we'll be fine."

"Good," Reine nods, "that's very helpful and a good start."

"Where do we start?" I ask, looking at Reine.

Although everyone else seems to have brushed off my odd behavior from earlier, I haven't and neither has Reine. I can see her concern in her eyes and I can tell she knows something I don't. I'm not sure what's going on with me, but I want to find out. I need to find out.

"Unpack your things in the guest rooms," Reine says, "I only have two, so you'll have to share. When you're done, meet me in the courtyard outside."

With that, Reine stands up and walks to another room in the house without another word and the six of us exchange glances before going to find the guest rooms. I walk through her small wooden house until I come to a hallway on the left beyond the kitchen. The hallway has a small bathroom and a medium sized guest room with two small beds with red sheets that have black circular emblems in the center. The beds themselves are pressed up against the back wall that has shoji screen wallpaper and a nightstand with a lamp by each bed and a wooden dresser inbetween the two. There's a small bookshelf by the entrance to the room and there's a circular shaggy carpet that's a cream color resting in the middle of the room. Off to the right, there's a wooden door that slides open to reveal a closet with some shelving and hangers already in there.