The house was dainty looking. It was a little wooden cabin and almost none of the walls were straight, curving and bending as they turned from one room into another, but also as they went up to the ceiling. When we entered, we found ourselves in a small kitchen with a small round wooden table in the middle of it. Around it stood four mismatched chairs, three of which occupied by stacks of books. There stood pots with flowers and herbs everywhere.
Under the window, which was wide open, stood a big cauldron on a fire. Smoke rose up from it, changing color every so often, slipping outside through the window. Whatever was boiling in it smelt nice and sweet, though I doubted that it was the tea. I could make out a bed in other room, covered with a colorful, flower patterned quill. And on the other side of the room was what looked like a mix between a library and a living room.
“Sorry about the mess,” Sloane apologized. “I’m not used to visitors. Put the books wherever you can, I just have to finish this real quick before it boils too long and explodes. Clean up and rebuilding after a potion exploded is the worst.”
She pushed her black hair behind her shoulder as she approached the cauldron, putting a spoon into it, she stirred a bit, whispering words. She reached out without looking up, plucked some leaves of a plant and threw them into the mixture. Then she took a watering can and added water to the contents. She snapped her fingers, the fire underneath burning lower. Turning around, there was a content smile of her face.
“Oh right, tea,” Sloane remembered.
I pulled out a chair, removing the books and putting them on the table. Robin had already sat down and Caden too, both keeping an eye either on the boiling cauldron or the magician. She moved around the mess with ease, finding four cups amongst everything with no difficulty. As she put the cups down, Robin took his and smelled, looking delighted.
“Smells like home,” he explained with a grin when he saw me looking.
“Quite possible. A friend brought me back a few ingredients from the Elfique Forest; these nifty little flowers were amongst them,” Sloane explained, holding up a bunch of pink and purple flowers. “Although they aren’t useful for potions, I found they make a best tea.”
“Your friend must like you, those flowers are hard to find in most parts of the Forest. Where I used to live they grew more abundantly, but only during certain time of the year,” Robin said, taking a sip.
“Do they now,” Sloane muttered, sounding intrigued by the idea. She hopped onto the counter, pushing over a stack of books, but she barely noticed.
“Excuse me, miss Sloane, but you said you had information for us about the prophecy,” Caden stated hesitantly after a few moments of silence. She looked up from her tea at the Dragon Knight and stared intently at him. She took him in, not hiding the fact that she seemed intrigued by him.
Then she jumped off the counter and disappeared into the adjuring room filled with books and other little things that I would never know what to use them for. When she came back, she was holding a big book that seemed to weight a ton. Immediately Caden got up and went over to take it from her.
“Thank you, just put it on the table,” she muttered, a faint blush coloring her cheeks.
As he took a step back, she opened the book right in the middle and from there one started browsing through the pages toward the back. Occasionally she paused to flip her dark hair back and went back to the book. Although I had no idea what she was looking for, she seemed to know exactly where she needed to be.
“For months now I have been having dreams and nightmares; I guess visions would be a more appropriate word for it,” She started, barely looking up. “I’m not fond of visions, and most of the time I don’t make any use of them. But because I kept seeing you over and over again,” Sloane looked up at me and then to Robin, “And you, I figured there ought to be a link between it all. At first I only saw mountains and forests, but then the Desert got mixed into it and I decided to contact King Brant.”
“Why him? He didn’t even know that the prophecy had been triggered,” Robin asked.
“No one knew we had even triggered it up until recently.”
“I had no idea that it was linked to the prophecy but I figured that if someone could make sense from my visions than it would be him. I had seen Queen Lagina in one of them; although I have never seen her in real life, I do know what she looks like. If either one of you was a royal, King Brant would know. And he did. He told me about you, Princess.” I grimaced and immediately an apologetic smile appeared on her lips. “Anyway, he asked me to keep writing him about my visions and write them down, just in case.”
She had stopped browsing the book, and turned it around, pushing it my way. There was a large drawing, covering both pages. Despite its size, it was difficult to make out anything beyond the obvious. It depicted a big battle scene; there were dragons in the airs breathing fire at dark shadowy creature that didn’t even seem to have any contours. One the ground were tiny figured that I could only just make out as humans, but they were facing things twice as big as themselves. This things I easily recognized as the monster Seelan had sent after me twice now.
What shocked me most however, was the castle it in the background. I recognized the strong base of the building, that rose a story or two. I recognized the delicate towers, slim and tall. I even recognized the large upper floor where the Dragon Quarters were. That was my home, that was my castle.
“Why is there a drawing of my castle in your book? And why does it look like a battle is happening there?”
“Because that was what I saw in my visions. It doesn’t mean that if will happen, but the odds are that it will.”
“Those things,” Caden said, pointing at the shadow creatures. “That was what we fought the first time; only they look bigger than I remember.”
“No, that is how big they are now. The ones I came across were huge. It’s a wonder that I don’t have any nightmares about them. How did you manage that?” I asked Caden.
“Who said we didn’t have nightmares? We were just about skilled enough with our magic to push them back. However, it took us a while to figure out how to do that; for months we suffered from nightmares, reliving the first fights over and over.”
We all looked at him at once. I had suddenly more respect for the old Dragon Knights. I hadn’t had the nightmares myself but I seen a little of Sofia’s memories and that had been bad enough. I couldn’t imagine seeing images like that every night; I would go crazy. Sloane turned to her shelves filled with potions, rummaged around for a little while and came back with a round vial.
“Here you go,” she said as she handed it to Caden. “That should do the trick. Now, turn the pages, go ahead and have a look.”
I looked at her, them at Robin. If this one picture was here showing me what might be, I was in no hurry to turn the pages and possibly find other images. But Robin gave me a nod to go ahead, and so I did, taking the page carefully between my fingers before I turned around. And, not to my surprise, there were more drawings. A black dragon with a Knight on its back. Seelan and his dragon. A tower in the middle of the Desert. Then a flower.
That one made me freeze. What would a flower do in the middle of all this? It wasn’t one I had ever seen so there was no way for me to place this drawing in a Kingdom. The drawing didn’t have much color, the page itself was beige and the flower seemed to be dark brown. There was no way of knowing if those were the real colors.
“What is with this flower?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you might no,” Sloane admitted. “All I can tell you is that this flower is related to something that will happen for sure; there is no way around it. Unfortunately, I have no idea what is for.”
“So, you don’t know where I could find it?”
“No, I have no idea.”
Turning the page again, I found myself staring at a silhouette of a person’s head. Honestly, the only thing I was able to make out from this was that the person represent was a man. There was just something in the shape of the shoulders, though slender, and in the shape of the head. On the bottom, someone had written something. I presumed it was Sloane.
‘Enemy? Friend? Enemy pretending to be an ally; possible traitor!’
The word ‘traitor’ was underlined twice as if it was important. And I guess that I was; a traitor? It didn’t make much sense. How could there be a traitor? The royals hadn’t known what was happening, what they were going to fight, or even who. I didn’t see why any of the Knights would turn on me. This just didn’t make anything.
The next picture was the silhouette of two women’s heads. I thought that one might have had a ponytail, the other had long hair hanging loose. There was no way to know who they were, just as with the man. Sloane had written ‘Accomplices’ underneath the drawings.
I turned the page again, this time finding myself staring at a drawing of a body lying on the ground, a double-bladed sword sticking out of his chest. My dragon sword. Without warning, I closed the book and pushed it away from me.
“What is the point of showing us all these drawings? You said they were visions; none of them might actually happen,” I said, still a bit shaking from the last drawing.
“I just thought they might help; maybe if you saw what I saw you might be able to get some wisdom from them.” Sloane looked taken aback by my actions and for the first time, she appeared a bit shy, less sure of herself.
“Sorry, I… I’m going to check on Zjarr,” I mumbled, all but running out of the house. Zjarr looked up and kept her eyes on me. They followed me as I walked around her so that I was hidden from view from the house. Then I sank to the ground, leaning against her front leg. I wasn’t sure why I had reacted to that drawing more than the others, but I hadn’t liked it.
“Because you don’t kill,” Zjarr said. “Every time you fight, you search for a way out that doesn’t involve killing. Only those shadow creatures have been the exception so far. And seeing that drawing of a dead man’s body with your sword in his chest shocked you.”
I didn’t even want to answer her but there was truth to what she said. Never had I killed anybody; I had always found a way around it, knocking them unconscious most of the time. The thought alone of killing someone made me uneasy, sick to my stomach. And being in there, confronted to an image of my sword in someone’s chest; well that was anything but pleasant.
I had no idea how long I sat out there with Zjarr, even Vasuki tried to put my mind at ease but I simply didn’t want to listen to anything. Especially since putting my mind at ease for the golden dragon consisted of saying ‘a Dragon Knight kills, get over it’ in different phrasings. That started an argument between the two dragons. And an argument between two dragons consisted of showing a lot of very sharp, very deadly teeth, roaring, and angry tail whipping. Caden told Vasuki to calm down while I tried to reassure Zjarr that the golden dragon’s comments hadn’t offended me.
Before the others headed back into the house, I saw Robin sending me a smile that obviously said I knew how to get a reaction out of dragons. When both dragons had settled down again, neither one looked away from the other, making me wonder how they could stand the penetrating and unnerving gaze of a dragon. The answer to that question was obvious.
Suddenly, Zjarr broke the silence. “Robin wants to know if you will be coming back inside? If not, he will tell you what Sloane is telling them when we get back to Sablier.”
“I’ll go with the second option. Can you ask him if he has any idea how long this is going to take?”
It turned out, it wasn’t that long actually, only about an hour. Although Sloane tried to convince us to stay here for the night because it would be getting dark soon, Caden figured it would be best if we headed back to the royal castle. He probably had me in mind when he made that decision, I noticed him glancing my way.
It wasn’t until I was on Zjarr’s back high in the sky that I started feeling stupid. Really stupid. We had gone to see the Mage because she might have information about the prophecy that could help me, but I hadn’t been there for most of it. I had only seen the pictures and I honestly couldn’t make much sense out of them. I had missed it all not thinking about the consequences! How could I had been so stupid?
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Robin yelled against the wind. Still, the words barely registered before the wind snatched them up and took them away. “Most of what she told us wasn’t directly related to the prophecy. It was more about the disturbance she has felt in the natural balance.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” I yelled back.
“Exactly.”
Although I still found myself stupid for overreacting to a simple drawing, I was a little reassured that I had missed the important stuff. It allowed me to relax and appreciate the flight back to Sablier a bit more. Leaning back, resting my back against Robin’s chest, which made him freeze, I ignored the elf and simply stared up at the night sky. The stars were always a lot brighter this high up, the sky looked more dark blue than back, and the moon was a lot bigger.
“How often do you wish this prophecy wasn’t ours to deal with?” I asked Robin out of the blue.
“What makes you think I would wish that?”
“You are the smartest of us both; and if I can see how it doesn’t have the best impact on my life, you must too,” I said simply.
There was a silence, a silent as things could be with the wind howling in my ears. But despite the wind, I was sure Robin had heard me. Dropping my head back against his shoulder, I turned my gaze to his face. From the angle I was looking at him I couldn’t really make out his expression but I could see that he too was looking at the sky.
Also from this position, Robin’s elfish features came out best I thought. It showed that his facial features were more delicate than the average human being’s. His skin was paler in the moonlight, his hair and eyebrows appearing almost like silver. I could even see the slightly pointier tip of his ear. It was strange how it had taken me no time at all to what Robin really looked like; it suited him better than all the little human details that magic had made him wear. And then suddenly his eyes turned towards me as if he had felt me looking. With only the moonlight to illuminate Robin, his eyes looked completely colorless.
He definitely wasn’t bad looking, but of course, those were not the kind of words I would normally say out loud, hence why I kept my mouth shut. Instead I offered Robin a sheepish grin because he had caught me staring.
“You are right. I do sometimes wish that the prophecy wasn’t ours to deal with. But then I start thinking about everything we have been through these past few months. I’m not stupid as you pointed out, I know that this, us,” he gestured with his hand between the two of us, “sitting like this, it would have never happened if it wasn’t for the prophecy.”
“So, you are only seeing the good?” I voluntarily skirted around what he was really telling about us, about him. I wasn’t good with it, whenever started thinking about it, I didn’t stop and it didn’t lead me anywhere but to confusion.
Robin shook his head at my question, obviously and luckily not offended that I had ignored the implication. “No, I do see the bad, but isn’t it better not to focus on it too much? The bad is so vast and so depressing to think about. The good is full of opportunities and chances.”
I thought about that. Honestly, I more often only looked at the bad than the good, simply because the bad was right there, like it was being shoved in my face so that I would pay attention to it. Our visit to Sloane had proven as much; I could only remember one picture that didn’t have a negative meaning. Sure, the tower and the flower weren’t necessarily bad, but they weren’t necessarily good. What if the flower was poisonous? What it the tower was where Seelan was?
I sighed and asked Zjarr, “Is Sablier still far? I want dinner and a bed; all this thinking about what might be or what might not is giving me a headache.”
“Be patient, young Knight,” she replied with a chuckle. “Maybe another fifteen minutes.” I sighed again, this time solely to annoy Zjarr and dropped myself against her neck, hugging it tightly. “Like I said, patience young Knight. Or perhaps you would like to fly us all back.”
“That’s okay, I think I’ll pass. No need for us all to crash down in the middle of Sable Sucré.”
-----------------------------------------
Robin, Caden and I all slumped down in our seat in the dining room. They had forced me to come, because honestly, by the time we had made it back to the castle, all I had wanted to do was pass out in bed. My obvious lack of energy meant I could be bothered with manners even less than usual, which in turn earned me a disapproving look from Anila. I grinned at her, but she didn’t take it well. Not that I cared. I munched on my food without tasting much but the moment my plate was empty, I excused myself and retired to the Dragon Knight quarters.
Before I even made it to the main staircase, Robin had already caught up with me. We didn’t say anything to each other but I didn’t mind at all, my head was pounding with a headache by now and all I wanted was to crawl into my bed. When I stumbled, Robin easily caught me and straightened me again.
“Thanks,” I whispered, not wanting my head to suffer even more. He only nodded.
When we reached the Dragon Knight quarters, I wasn’t surprised to find both dragons gone, most likely hunting. I went straight for my bed and let myself fall face first into the covers. Somewhere behind me I heard Robin chuckle but I ignored him and forced myself to hoist my legs onto the bed. Then I rolled onto my back and found myself staring at the stone roof. It was not exactly the night sky I had been able to look at from Zjarr’s back but I would make due.
I heard some moving around but I couldn’t find the strength to raise my head of the pillow. Instead I called, “Robin, come here.” I patted the spot on the bed beside me without even knowing if he was coming. Sure enough, he was and sat down next to me. “I wanted to talk about Sloane’s drawings. One in particular.”
“I thought you were tired,” Robin reminded me with an amused look.
“Why do you think I’m not getting up? Anyway, I wanted to ask what you thought about that silhouette with enemy and traitor written under it. Do you really think there could be a possible traitor amongst those who stand with us?”
“Do you really want to talk about that now?” I nodded, turning my eyes away from the ceiling, noticing the distraught look in his eyes. Frowning, I pushed myself up onto my elbows at the same time as Robin turned his eyes away from me. “I honestly don’t know if any of them might betray us; I wouldn’t expect it from anyone, except maybe Prince Ron.”
“No, that would only aggravate the reputation of Delstaten Solen. But you do know something about this. What do you know? Did Sloane say anything about this?”
“She didn’t say anything about it. And I don’t know anything about it either. It’s just a…” He never got to the end of his sentence, looking pained almost. He looked very uncomfortable to say the least.
“It’s just a feeling?” I guessed. He nodded but his mirror eyes didn’t come back to mine. “Fine, don’t explain. I trust you, if it’s important you will tell me.” I dropped back down into the sheets. “And no, that was not an attempt to guilt trip you into saying something,” I added when I say him open his mouth.
The sigh he let out was one of relief. “How about the other drawings? Don’t you want to discuss them?”
I shrugged as best as I could while lying down. “Which one do you want to talk about? The one where I supposedly killed someone, because I don’t. I don’t know what to make of the ‘accomplices’ or the flower. The tower can be anywhere, it can mean anything. The black dragon with Knight was obviously Seelan, and the battlefield in Fullmåne…” I sighed thinking about it before I let the words tumble out of my mouth, “I can’t say that it was such a shock. Seelan is from around there, he hates royals; I think it is only natural for him to bring the fight back home.”
Robin took my little rant in, looking thoughtful. “Sloane showed us a couple more. One, according to Caden, was Istana Pasir.”
“Well, we are heading there sometime soon; that one is the less surprising of all I would say.” I yawned. “That ought to be fun, getting everyone there.”
“You can fly, the rest of us can’t.”
“You wouldn’t want to.”
“True.”
*****************
The next morning when I woke up, I was greeted with a very unexpected sight. Hanging over my head, blond hair brushing myself lightly, was Sofia’s grinning face. Naturally, I screamed, making Sofia frown and back away. When my brain finally registered that it was her, I stopped screaming and scrambled into a sitting position.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d surprise you,” she grinned. “Where is the elf?”
“Why were you hanging over my face like that? Where you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Dragon, no need to be so dramatic.” She dropped down on the foot end of the bed and looked at me. “Were you that tired? I have been calling your name trying to wake you up for the past five minutes.”
I only nodded, sinking back into the pillows and covers. Maybe I could get another hour of sleep. Unfortunately, Sofia wouldn’t have any of that. She pulled the covers away from my body, making me groan in protest.
“Oh no, you don’t get to go back to sleep. We have a lot of miles to travel today. Where is the elf so that I can wake him up too?”
“Right here, and you already woke me up. Some of us have more sensitive hearing. And where are we traveling to?”
Robin just stood there in the door opening, already dressed and washed. He was looking at the sight that we must be, Sofia holding my blanket and me curled in a ball. When the blond Knight got up, and introduced herself, he did the same but made no move to approach her. He was left staring at her.
“Yeah Sofia, where are we going? And why do we have to get up so early?”
“Well we’re going to Istana Pasir of course. I’m here to accompany you.”
Her broad grin almost made me belief it was the best thing that could happen. Almost.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, I know it took a while, and I know that it is shorter than usual. Honestly, I had no inspiration to write this. On the other hand, I finished the Rogue Lady and once I finished editing that one, the Dragon Knight will go on hold and I'll publish the other story. Hopefully, in the meantime, I can get some writing done for this story.
Anyway.......
~~ Bye ~~