A Crown of Clouds

Chapter 30

I sat on the windows ledge looking off into the distance. There were noticeably fewer stars at the palace than in the country. Without meaning to, I found myself reflecting on my now three months in Tarata, it was an odd feeling to say the least. It wasn't like leaving home, or leaving to find a new home or go to an old home. I was leaving behind a version of the girl I'd known, searching for as much truth as I could find. I could have never known that looking into my family and trying to understand who I was would lead to such a perilous feeling, a weighty burden knowing I could restore something that meant so much to so many people. I gazed out at the hills I could see to the far North, the Tian Mountain Ranges, once filled with snow as Cretan had informed me today, but now just brown, ordinary mountains.

It was the last day before the wedding, the promise of new things, and Cretan wanted to make sure I was ready for all that was to come. The task of minding the "earthling" had become less and less of a worry for Tessanda the last month - the task falling to Cretan mostly. "Apparently she has no need for me for planning weddings!" Cretan shrugged, laughing as he told me his sister had been employed to make the dress after Tessanda had seen my dress at the engagement party. I'd taken quiet, triumphant satisfaction in knowing the Queen thought such things. It made me wonder just how she would take finding out I was not from Earth and in fact knew a way through the axis this past three months she'd been furiously trying to find out a way. I decided I'd ponder on all the good moments I'd had here, one last time before the real work began.

I closed my eyes, letting my mind drift to the mountains. I'd been having a sweet reverie when Cretan had whacked me on the arm with a stick. "You don't think I brought you here to daydream did you?" Cretan said, chucking a bamboo stick at me, which I surprisingly caught with far more speed and precision than I thought capable of myself. "Last day, means we train until you drop!" He continued, whirring his stick in a circle and hoisting it above his head ready for fighting drills. I grumbled momentarily, yet circled my stick in my hand, enjoying the newfound ease under my hands that felt stronger than they ever had, especially that of my buttery bakery hands. The sound of bamboo sticks clashing seemed to echo throughout the valleys, it was the very place where I'd tumbled into this world, the valley of poppies just outside of the Tian mountain ranges. It felt surreal thinking of that day and being back here now training to get out, it seems I'd run from one realm to the next, only to leave this one the same way.

We walked through the sea of swaying red poppy faces and towards a rocky cliff that jutted it's chin out with quite the overhang. Pictures of the first time I was here started to flood back, the flowers, the heat, the water. I was sure I was imagining it, but it surely couldn't hurt to ask. "Cretan, I know illusions are very real, but can one hallucinate a voice? Oh, and come to think of it, how did Cole not pick up anything from me before handing me over to Tessanda? I mean before you kindly intervened and all." Cretan just giggled, "because he didn't get to you first,as he'd like to think. I did." He kept his gaze focused ahead to wherever he was taking me, as Komana, it's my job to keep the Queen safe, that means this country and its people too, I watched you from the moment you arrived, I knew who you were, it's a good thing you don't look too similar to your father or mother you know, you're a good mix of both," he said, cocking his head to one side in thought before continuing. "I smothered you in magic that meant your scent wouldn't be picked up, it gave me time to think; scheming my plan for hours before eventually alerting Cole and some guards that there was foreign movement near the Tian Mountains. Oh, and sound, that can definitely be an illusion, why's that?"

It made sense, of course, there is no way I could have gone unnoticed in a new world for hours, a world of magic too, but the voices in the water? That I didn't understand, although it almost seemed so fuzzy, like a dream, that I wasn't sure if I was even hearing it at all? "It's silly, but the last few times I've been in water," I stopped myself short, realising how much more stupid this seemed out loud. Cretan had stopped walking now, his gaze no longer on his shoes, "go on..."