The Night's Curse #3 (Waverly Stump and The 7 Realms)

Chapter 1

Six

Nine

Fifteen days passed.

The panoramic confinement room had finally reconstructed Waverly's eyesight. She woke up being able to see from every angle like a bird. It was either some special magic in the room, or the mechanisms of it that enabled her wide prison change shape oftentimes. One day she had woken up to a tunnel-like ceiling and a deep floor. The next was a winding room like an endless hallway, another time; the room was round like one for a royal ball. Despite this change in shapes and width, items in room remained the same.

Nearly every item inside it ranged from gold to silver and bronze. There were golden spirals that served as a staircase leading to the top of the roof that was, in reality, a dead end. There was no door or hatch that led out into the open air. Three beds jammed into one were piled high like loaves of white bread in a corner made with blue covers and a single pillow. Beside the bed was a long table carved from redwood and pleasantly designed with Elvish patterns. It carried on top of it an empty gold tray, a bronze water jar carved like a swan, a small brass goblet, a neat heap of folded towels, a pair of cutlery and a green, round, open-mouthed vase that held a very familiar flowering plant – Heather.

Waverly had learned to be comfortable in confinement. After getting thrown in, she suddenly seemed to have been forgotten. The men who had taken her never reported her rashness to their King, or at least this was what she thought.

No one was allowed to visit, and she was not permitted to leave. That bit was made clear as the room had no doors or windows at all. The only good thing was – it had everything one would need to live as comfortably as they could in prison; there was a firebath in the corner obstructed for privacy by a wide milky white curtain. The bath was dug deep so that the room never flooded over during a wash. Everything else was self-sufficient; food magically appeared in the tray and clean water in the jar, clothes replaced themselves, the bed remade itself too. The whole place was sickeningly clean and orderly – very reminiscent of Judson's lifestyle.

Waverly thought it was the kind of place he would want to live in.

It was hard to believe that the room was meant to hold prisoners. In fact, it made one forget why they had been imprisoned in the first place. This trick worked its magic for the first week of Waverly's stay, until certain dreams began to shock her mind back to reality. She hated that she had felt so at home in a royal prison when a lot of important things were at stake. She burned to know what was going on in the outside world. She half expected someone to burst through the walls at any time and free her. Someone like Brijjet or Diarmaid, but nobody ever broke through the walls, or the roof.

One person did come in without needing to break anything – a girl the same age as Waverly. She had been present the very first time the latter was shoved into the room and the walls sealed up behind her. She realized almost immediately that the girl was not Human, nor Elf, but rather, a nature spirit, one that was slightly distinct from the Derews.

A flower spirit.

Her name was Cassiope – spirit of the Heather, and it was her mother plant that lay on Waverly's table – the only way for her to summon the spirit whenever she wished.

Cassiope was as light as air, prettier than most of the Derews with ears that stuck out in a funny manner – sharp, and pointy, and pink. She always wore a strapless blue tinted dress that exposed her purple feet and hands. The white flowers that graced around her hair created a lingering perfume whenever she stepped into the room.

She became fast friends with Waverly and the latter's only informant. Cassiope was a little slow with her news, and so sometimes, Waverly got certain stories days after it had passed. On top of this, Cassiope was also very forgetful. She had trouble hearing which made it extra difficult for her to pick up on new information, or deliver them correctly.