The Chimera

Chapter Twenty: Paint

Zahara does everything she can to avoid entering her room.

She's happy to help Giada search for hers first, no matter how eerie it is that her beloved red settee has either been duplicated or transported from her cottage to the citadel. Giada insists that it doesn't bother her, but Zahara is her oldest and closest friend. She can read every line on her face.

Whatever unease Giada feels doesn't stop her from sinking into the tasseled cushions and falling asleep before Zahara is even past the door. Zahara smiles at her sleeping form. It's such a comfort to have someone she knows and adores so well here.

Making her way back down the spiral staircase, she seeks out her brother Dalmar and cousin Araceli in the western wing of the castle. Both have found their rooms in the same hallway, each door engraved with their name.

"Do you need my help with anything?" she asks them. They both decline, claiming they want to unpack the scant bags of belongings they had taken with them. Her older brother frees an arm from his satchel to give her an affectionate one-armed squeeze before disappearing into his room, but Zahara still feels bereft.

She sees a third door farther down the hall and knows instinctively that it's for her, placed considerately near her family. She ignores it.

She will miss her parents, her grandparents, the paint commissions from the city folk that she used to spend her days on. She already knows that those things won't be in her room waiting in the same way that Giada's favorite resting spot was for her. And she doesn't care to see what distorted tricks the castle has conjured up to make her feel at home.

On her way out of the western wing, her thoughts fly leagues eastward, back to her attic room with the soothing green walls and painted birds. She had spent hours upon hours over a period of summer days on those walls, years ago. Giada, who had no artistic bone in her body, had done what she could to help. Her contributions always ended with Zahara laughing and painting over her mistakes. There was a single exception made for a particularly misshapen pink flower, which Zahara had found so funny that she decided to keep it, a dear imperfection that reminded her of her favorite friend.

If the citadel tries to decorate her walls in the same way, she will always look at it and find it false.

Her feet feel weighed down as she continues her lonely way down the hall. She had told Giada she found the castle oddly peaceful, but every hint at the place's otherworldly sentience broke that sense of peace more and more. She's relieved to come across one of the other women staying at the citadel, clearly struggling under the weight of her overstuffed bags.

Zahara recognizes her: Viveka, from the wealthy Diaman merchant family. Though even if she hadn't remembered the name, she would have already been able to tell that Viveka came from a home of riches. The woven belt around her waist is adorned with beading through the woven fabric, and the brooch that keeps her traveling cloak in place is of enamel inlay.

Viveka smiles at her in passing, and Zahara has no doubt that it's genuine, even a little bashful at being seen so visibly struggling with her armload. Zahara takes pity.

Smiling back, she says, "Can I help?"

Viveka thanks her profusely before handing her a bag. Much politer than Tai, Zahara notes. Tai is her only other acquaintance whose family wealth is in the same echelons as the Diamans.

"I didn't even think I was packing so much. In fact, I was close to taking a whole traveling chest along with me too. That would have been a nightmare to drag through the halls." Viveka's eyes catch on the dazzle of Zahara's amulet. "You must be Zahara."

Her voice is bright and earnest, and Zahara wishes she had thought to introduce herself during the long way to the citadel. It was an oversight, but they had all been so caught up in the depths of their thoughts for most of the journey that it's only now properly sinking in that they'll all be living here together for the foreseeable future.