The Dark Elf

Next Chapter (Arrynmar)

Arrynmar led Lymerra to his townhouse in the upper city. The fated pair walked in silence, Arryn resisting the urge to repeatedly check on his unpredictable partner.

Lymerra trudged along behind the human, growing more exhausted with every step. She thanked him, silently, for leaving her in peace. The silence was welcome after all her nights awake in the taverns and her days trying to sleep above a hoard of farm animals.

When they reached Arryn's home, it was even more spectacular than Lymerra had imagined. A white brick townhouse with more floors than any other building in sight. Two spectacular towers loomed next to one another atop the wide brick roof. The twin steeples pierced into the sky, draped with ancient vines and blanketed in moss. A spiral staircase wrapped around the circumference of each, leading to a covered alcove at the top.

The dawn began to illuminate the towers and the rest of the city skyline in a misty yellow. Arryn had paused at the threshold to allow Lymerra to gape at his home.

Lymerra forced her tired eyes to watch the tiny birds as they circled the towers, singing happily at first light. They danced and swopped, landing and taking off again and again. The tired vines swayed in the breeze, some stretched between the two spires, as if they were always holding hands.

"It's beautiful," Lymerra remarked, almost to herself.

"Thank you," Arryn smiled. "The people of the city call it the Wizards Keep, but that's a little old and dusty for my liking. I think with a new sorcerer, a rebrand is in order. Do let me know if anything comes to mind."

He gestured to the open door, "Shall we?"

The interior of the Wizards Keep was bathed in warm light and impossibly open for an indoor space. There was a great room in the middle of the space lined with bookshelves composed of raw gnarled wood. It played host to countless cozy areas to sit and curl up with a tome. Art and artifacts cluttered almost every inch of the walls, snaking up all the way to the fourth floor, where it was clear some sort of magic had been used to hang decoration so high.

Stairs circled the perimeter of the center room leading to three circular hallways stacked on one another. There were so many wooden doors Lymerra couldn't imagine what could possibly be behind that many.

Arryn led Lymerra to a door on the second floor that opened into a tiny guest room with gaudy maroon decorations and a great padded bed.

"Please make yourself at home. There is a soaking tub in the room attached. This early in the morning, there may still be some hot water left in the city pipes."

"My exhaustion has made me cloudy; I do not know what to say," Lymerra longed for the bath and the bed. "But, thank you. Arryn."

Arryn bowed, smiled, and then departed down the hallway and began up the stairs. Lymerra was then left all alone, with opulence she had never known.

She could hardly wait to leap into the bed, but the promise of hot water to soak in was too much of a rarity to pass up. She stripped out of her ridiculous dress and left it to lay on the floor.

The bathing room was small but delightfully inviting. The exterior wall of the room was made entirely of glass, opaque enough to allow the light in, but views were limited to shapes and silhouettes beyond that. Moss outside of the glass wall, and through its cracks. Over the years, this perfect environment of moisture and sunlight allowed the plant to grow thick and cushy.

In the center of the room, there was a great copper tub, rectangular in shape and set low to the ground. Copper piping weaved erratic kinks across the ceiling of the room before it dove down into the tub.

Lymerra flipped a small lever that allowed water to flow, and water warmer than she had ever felt gushed from the pipes. She immediately climbed in, the massage of the faucet and its soothing sound lured Lymerra to sleep almost instantly.

The water level rose higher and higher until it lapped at Lymerra's collarbone. The water overflowed through a small hole beneath the spigot and triggered a weight to drop and pull the water valve shut.

Magic and ingenuity coated every inch of the historic Sorcerer's home. It was the fortress where twelve centuries of the human line of arcane had ruled.

At first, Lymerra slept the wooden sleep of the dead and drunken. But as early dawn faded into late morning, her sleep turned from restorative to pernicious.