City of Gold and Silver

House-guest

"And this is your room," Malia said with glee as she opened the last door of the north wing and pranced inside. Pixie followed at her heels, tail wagging so much it nearly sent the little dog off balance.

Ariah stepped into the guest room warily, uncertainty weighing on her like wet clothes. What the hell was she doing, taking in with the Lord Alchemist of Sosera? The blue ball of flame and the way it lit the faces of Grayson and his men filled her mind's eye. What the hell am I doing here?

Malia passed by and grabbed at her satchel, forcing her back to the present. The kid, holding onto one of the satchel straps as though she was coaxing a stubborn mule, lead Ariah over to a dresser with gold handles. She opened the top drawer for Ariah.

"You can put your clothes in here," she said, "and look -" she ran across the room to the grand, four post bed and leapt onto the mattress. "This is your bed."

The room was bigger than her entire flat. 

The bed, as well as all of the furniture - the dresser, vanity set, armchair by the window and wardrobe against the far wall - were all made out of the same dark wood, with the upholstery and linens in green and gold brocade. Malia was bouncing up and down on the bed, with Pixie deftly sniffing all about the lush, off-white carpet. Ariah padded over to the bed, reluctantly enjoying how soft the carpet felt between her toes. Don't get used to this, she told herself.

"What do you think?" Malia asked.

Ariah shrugged with a smirk, "It's alright."

Malia laughed and with one final bounce, plopped down beside Ariah. "I think you'll like it here," she said, still grinning ear-to-ear. "Today, I can show you the gardens or we could go to the marketplace-"

"Today, you have school," came the voice of the girl's uncle as he appeared in the threshold of the door, leaning against the frame. "Tomorrow, you have school." He was younger than Darius and did not approve of his brother's house guest; that much he had made clear already. "Let's go, little niece. First bell is in half an hour and if we are late again, Miss Nola is going to box my ears."

Malia rolled her eyes at the hyperbole but slid off the bed all the same. "See you tonight, Ariah," she said as her uncle closed the door behind her. Pixie walked up to the shut door and sniffed at the floor.

"I think that means we're supposed to stay in here," Ariah said to the dog. She yawned, realizing that she was too tired to bother being annoyed by the informal imprisonment. 

It felt as though it had been a long day even though it was barely mid-morning. Bright, gleaming daylight fell into the room from the tall windows behind her seemingly just to prove the point. The walls and ceiling were painted in cream and seemed to absorb the sunlight in the same way the dark bricks below Meridion drank in shadows; her bedroom was practically aglow in sunshine. It gave her a headache.

Slowly, she lay back onto the plush mattress, resting her hands on her stomach and closed her eyes. She played through the events of the past day - finding Malia on the wall, returning her home ... the attack in her flat and then waking up in the hospital, somehow, not dead. Darius Archer, the Lord Alchemist of Sosera, had stood up for her and now she was his house-guest. The only reason she believed any of it was because of the misery she felt in her gut. This wasn't a bad dream; waking up wasn't an option.

Giving up on the door, Pixie scrambled up the bed and nestled in beside Ariah. The dog was right; she could figure out this mess later; right now, she needed to rest. She imagined the pain across her abdomen as light radiating from her body, then envisioned a black night sweeping across the horizon, swallowing up that light. Darius had offered her all types of tonics and elixirs for the pain before he had left for the university but she preferred the discomfort. Pain was your body's way of telling you what not to do.

She shouldn't have crossed Bael.

The thought echoed through her brain as she drifted away ...