Lohikäärme: The Dragon's Descent (Revised)

Chapter V - The Man from the Window

Chapter V - The Man from the Window

I bumped my fingertips together while walking up the stairs. The castle was so dark and grim.

A door opened, and out came Koshka who pulled me in, putting her palm over my mouth before I could yelp.

"So what do you think?"

My eyes scanned the place. "I think I'm in my chamber?"

She chuckled. "Of course, you're in your chamber, silly. Fifth storey, third door from the left. Look." She opened my closet. "I put your clothes in the closet. We have classes after an hour, so I thought I could help you with this so you could spend the hour to rest."

I managed to say, "Thank you," before she attacked me in a tight embrace. My body tensed at first, then relaxed.

"I love this feeling, Safia," she giggled.

"What...What feeling?"

She pulled away from the tight embrace and smiled. "This feeling. It's hard to explain. Perhaps you'll understand if I told you that you're the only true friend I have. You see, I'm Aethelgard's Left Hand, a member of the High Council, and people either hate me for being above them, or pretend to like me so they can use my power for their own purposes. But you, you're different." A faint smile appeared on her face. "I can feel it."

We spent the hour talking and laughing. I never thought I'd be able to spend an hour talking to someone I just met. She talked about her days in Aethelgard and her misadventures as a raider, as well. She was a raider, someone who would leave the castle to scout for other kinsmen and collect food for us. She had been here for a very long time. According to her, she came here when she was very young, when she was still a vagabond who moved from village to village, begging for food and stealing if nobody gave her anything to eat. Aethelgard gave her a strange feeling, like she was meant for this. And I felt that, too.

"I'm going to miss you when I come back."

"Come back?"

"When I get well, I mean. The physicker said I could go back to Mother and Father when the High Council thinks I'm cured."

"Goodness," she cried. She embraced me again, but she didn't giggle anymore. Her arms pulled me closer. Tighter and tighter, she hugged me, rubbing my back with her palms. "You can never be cured of your talent, Safia," she said. "You'll always be here. This will be your new home, your only home from now on. The outside world, we don't belong there."

"But the physicker—"

"Said what the magisters told him to say." She was crying by now. I couldn't. So many things ran in my head, too many to just cry and crumble.

Never? I'm never going back home? I'm never going back to Mother and Father, the small boats, the bedtime stories? I'm never going to see them again? And the milk of the gillyflower, it was never a cure? It was all a lie. Everything he had told us, all lies. I had no hope of getting better. I would never see the world the way everyone did.

"Class, class, class! You know our new student, Safia Kaminski." The skinny woman giggled as she presented me to class, both of her eyes rolling continuously like wheels on a moving wheelbarrow. Her hair was kinky and voluminous. "She's been formally accepted just a while ago." She giggled again. I saw Koshka give me a knowing smile at the back. "Oh, by the way, I'm Madame Chakakriya." She shook my hand, grinning and giggling. "I hear you see all those strange colors all the time. I understand the feeling. Sometimes, I see different-colored waves rushing towards me when I use the wrong drugs!" She laughed. "Well, then. Take any unoccupied seat you like, and we'll get started."