The Virtues' Magecraft

Page 67: The Knight Among Demons

The air smelled of smoke. Not of cigar smoke or of the burning of gasoline. It was simple firewood, burning a bit away, filling the room with warmth and its staunch stench. 

But then again... 

Smoke was always a risk, a possible threat. And so, Alexander's subconscious ordered him up, forcing him to sit up from the comfort of his bed. With his eyes barely open, he faced forward and at the source of the smell. 

It was a simple brick-laid chimney, with firewood carefully stacked inside while it burned. That was the singular source, Alexander realized. 

With that realization, that understanding of no threat, he let himself fall back and crash down onto the soft bed. He let out a slight groan and pulled his blankets over his face. 

This whole time, his brain had been pounding and thumping from within his skull. His head burned with that pain, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it and sleep. Even under his closed eyes and thoughtless, murky mind, the thumping remained. 

'Just let me sleep...' he begged himself, pulling the blankets over his face.

He was tired. 

He was plagued with pain, each muscle fiber aching and each organ and tissue under stress. But the thumping in his pain persisted. And with it, thoughts began to take route, even as it only brought him pain.

Another order to rise burst into his mind.

And another groan of his echoed out, both aloud and in his head.

He gained silence with that rejection. Although only for a moment. It was right after that his headache reminded him, 'You live in Florida, Alexander.' 

'So what?' he asked himself once again, struggling to find a parcel of peace.

'You don't have a chimney, dumbass.'

Alexander burst up from the cover of his sheets, eyes wide open. He wasn't home. Far from it, it seemed.

A bright strong flame stood across from him within the red brick fireplace, just as the entire room around him stood with those red bricks. His mind scanned each of his memories and found not a single recollection of this room. 

Wherever he was, it was unknown to him. 

A single doorway stood in the side of the red room. The entirety was practically empty other than the bed Alexander sat in. Furniture was sprawled throughout the room, with a nightstand next to the bed, and a table just a few meters away. There were no chairs near the table at all, only on the other side of Alexander's bed. 

As strange as that was, he couldn't focus on that. His instincts drew his sight to the pair of swords on the wall, crossed onto each other. If worse came to worse, that could be his path to getting out of here- wherever 'here' was.

That idea came at the costly assumption that he would even be able to fight with all that afflicted him. 

But before he could even think of that, he noticed a figure, growing increasingly near that doorway. 

The sight of its shadow and the sound of their footsteps getting closer and closer. A woman entered the open room, her eyes widening as she was met with Alexander's confused gaze.

"Ah! You're finally awake!" the dark-haired woman called out. 

She rushed over to him, her short, curly hair bouncing along the way. As she got near him, Alexander noticed her ebony eyes, just as dark as her hair was. Just as dark as Alexander's eyes were.