The Kindreds, Volume 1

The Seventh, Pt. 3

Sada

Sada awoke aching and sore. She found herself lying on something hard and warm, and briefly she wondered if she'd manage d to fall asleep on the floor and escape unnoticed by the servants. But why would she go and do that? The only person she'd regularly seen sleeping on the floor was Uncle Beron, usually with the smell of whiskey blanketing him rather than a quilt; the bottle would have been silently swept away by a servant as soon as he was no longer conscious to protest it. I should banish the drunken scum from my estates, Duke Solares grumbled whenever a wide-eyed housemaid would whisper to him her discovery of a slumbering Lord Beron dead to the world on the floor. Yes, 'drunken scum' were the ones who fell asleep on the floor, but not nice young ladies.

Especially those who call Duke Darius Solares their father, she thought. Then she opened her eyes to soft sunlight coming down between large leaves and trunks to warm the rocks which surrounded her, and a knot in her stomach reformed with familiarity. There were no servants to wake her here, and no drunk uncles either.

The hearth of panic was gone from her chest, and now it was a subtle sense of unease that resided somewhere deep in her throat and gut. It prickled at the palms of her hands and forehead. She thought she would be unable to speak if she tried to, but she didn't need to speak. There was nobody around to hear her, and as Governess Brown said, only lunatics like the man in the street spoke to themselves.

Well, if I'm not a lunatic yet, I may very well be close to earning the title.

Sada pushed herself to her feet and reached for her cloak, which she found lying across some rocks, the ends soaking in the pond. The boring, blank pond. As she bent forward, her skin screamed in protest and she gasped, laying back gingerly. She had fallen asleep in just her slip, and the sunny pink rays of the forest had found her skin and marked her; one side of her body was sore to the touch like a bruise, and hot, too. A clean line separated the burnt skin from that which had been covered by her slip or pressed safely against the rock.

Sada had never been burned before. Her nurses and nannies had always rushed her inside before the sun was able to scorch her, or she was sheltered by so many scarves, hats, and parasols that the evil sun was powerless against her protection. The part of her that was more imaginative than rational thought the burn was a magickal effect of Elt. Perhaps she was turning into an Elf or another Eltic creature. The thought didn't scare her, but that was probably because she knew it was unlikely. Still, the effect was fantastical, if not otherworldly, and she poked at her arm, staring in fascination at the momentary change in color it wrought. Then she continued on past the point of fascination, not wanting to realize it was because she didn't want to look up and see the world she had tried to leave.

Yet the game could only distract from so many things, and thirst was not one of them. Suddenly water was the only thing on her mind. She scrambled for the pool, ignoring the tight pain it brought to her one sunburned knee. She briefly wondered if the water was safe to drink, then decided that she would rather not know and brought mouthfuls after mouthfuls of it to her dry, cracking lips. It was warm from the sunlight, but tasted as clear as the water from a well. 

Finally, face dripping and thirst sated, she sat back.

Seeing the pretty trees with their hand-like leaves again made morosity sink back in like the water sinking into her stomach.

Sada stood and gingerly adjusted the long velvet cloak around her shoulders, then stumbled across the uneven ground to find her dress and skirts. As she walked—and tripped—she watched the pond from the corner of her eye, hoping desperately she would see the mystical swirling silver again. But the water was clear, and it held no magick. It made her feel like crying, so she focused on her feet—one now a different shade than the other. She found her dress lying half-hidden in the rocks. It was dry now, but the strange liquid of the Seam had dried with the fabric, leaving shimmering silver webbing the gown from the hem to the bodice.