Shadows of Iraedes | NanoWrimo 2021

CHAPTER SIX: A TASTE OF FANCY

Her eyes opened slowly, blinking at first from the harsh light. She'd been shut away for days, maybe a week in darkness, with only glimpses of the sun for moments at a time. And just when she was free the sun wasn't out long then also. But now the sun streamed through as if someone had lit a hundred candles and she was staring directly into the center of all their flames at once. The light burned her eyes and she had to close them again. The act made her head pound and a spot on her face felt tender but she didn't want to reach up and touch it. Her face hurt and her head hurt; her eyes; her knees. Almost everywhere hurt for some reason. She lay still and listened to the quiet.

But then she sat up quickly looking around. The last thing she remembered was... she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Something out of a fantasy novel was all she could recall and shook her head. That couldn't be right.

She looked around the room and blinked a few times wondering if she had died and she was already on the other side. Everything she looked at was nothing she had ever seen before and was so elegant she could've only been in a castle.

The room was larger than her house had been, most likely she could've fit two or even three of her single room house inside the one room. The walls were parted with a dark blue color on the top half and the bottom was decorated with beautiful wood carvings. The wood molding encompassed the room following all four walls. Frosted glass lamps were placed atop a few of the tables in the room, on a long dresser, on a tall chest of drawers, and there were even a couple in the corners on their own stands. The free standing tall oil lamps were something the lesser people didn't have the luxury of.

Along the left wall was a wall of windows tall reaching to the ceiling windows that let in the full glory of the bright sun. Looking outside now that her eyes had adjusted to the immense amount of light in the room she saw a perfect blue sky, cloudless and endless; a group of small grey birds with black heads fluttered by the partially opened windows.

She looked down at the bed she was lying in and brushed her fingers over the soft silk sheets the color of the sky outside. Behind her was a pile of pillows that were lush and soft and she flopped back into them just to feel them again.

In the quiet with only the twittering of the small birds outside she dozed off letting her mind close off and she awoke a few hours later.

A movement to the right of her caught her attention and she jumped when she found someone sitting to the right of her. She blinked a couple times making sure she wasn't dreaming and what was sitting in front of her really was in front of her.

A man with silky black hair and dark eyes, skin the color of midnight without the moon, sat in a chair by the side of the bed; the motion that she had caught out of the corner of her eye had been his wide yawn.

"Ah, you're awake," he said and his velvet smooth voice floated over her like the sweetest sound on a violin, sultry and seductive without even trying.

Aurora scooted to the farthest edge of the bed. "Who are you?"

"My name is Evander, Evander Sterling," he said and gave a small bow while still sitting in the chair.

She almost spoke his name out loud but kept her mouth shut instead. "What do you want with me?"

"Nothing," he said. "Do you remember last night?"

She looked at him with disbelief but then shook her head. "What I can picture I believe is unreal."

"I imagine it must feel like that, but I was there. Ask me anything you think is false about the night before."

He went quiet and watched her. She just stared back wondering what this strange, fancily dressed man with nice hair and a handsome face was thinking. And what his real motive was.