The Cinders of Dezu

5th: Girl in a High Tower (1)

(Audiobook listener note:
This chapter is in a combined video with chapter 4. You'll have to scrub to the chapter 5 mark if you want to listen from there.)

Raina woke up to a knocking at the door. She had been tucked under the many covers of her very large bed. The previous night, after several more shimmering transfers from sanctuary to sanctuary, the king had lead her on a short walk through the forest. Her eyes were swollen from crying when she laid eyes on a massive palace in the dark. The guards had quickly let them in and he had lead her through several winding corridors and up a few flights of stairs to a room where she was to sleep overnight.

The room was large. It had to be to accommodate such a large bed. It was clearly not meant for someone as small as her. It housed a clothes cabinet and a few dressers. She was told to make herself comfortable before she was left alone in the very dark room. She cried herself to sleep on a night she thought she'd never get any rest at all. Now, she found herself waking to the morning light streaming in through a window she hadn't paid much notice to the night before.

Someone entered with the clinking sound of dishes rattling together. Raina pulled the covers off of the top of her head and looked to see who it was. It was a man, holding a tray of assorted items. He was wearing a long navy blue thin and form fitting coat that went down to his feet. He had grey boots that matched the gloves that held the tray in hand.

"Good morning, Miss Raina," he said, "Breakfast?"

He approached and placed the tray on a nightstand near her bed, another thing she hadn't really noticed when she came in the night before. She looked at him and was taken aback for a moment. She was just waking up and realizing the night before had really happened and there was no waking up from her predicament. But this mans face was not helping her come to grips with her new reality.

Following behind him was Orion, entering through the open door. He gave her a quick smile as he walked in.

"I see you've met Caddock!" the king said, patting the man on the shoulder, "I have to call him my Head Servant as that's his title. But the real truth is he is my closest friend."

Caddock smiled as he leaned over, setting up utensils on the tray.

"You are too kind, sir."

"Please," Orion said with an eye roll, "Don't 'sir', me. I've known this man my whole life. He takes good care of me so I know he'll take good care of you."

Raina rubbed her eyes and blinked at him a few times to make sure.

"He's... purple!"

The man before her really was purple, though Raina observed he wasn't a deep purple like the kings crystal. He looked to be a kind of light purple, the kind she had colored mountains sometimes in her drawings of scenery at school. His skin was also contrasted by his white hair. Orion nodded.

"That he is."

Caddock finished straightening up the tray and turned to her, giving a slight bow.

"Will that be all, Miss?"

Raina kept staring at him and said nothing. Her mouth was a bit open. She noticed now that his eyebrows were strange too. They each came to a bit of a point at the arc.

"That'll be all Caddock. Thank you," said the king.

Caddock turned and left the room with Raina watching him go. Orion looked at her and then looked at him walk out the door and then back at her again. He sighed.