The Icon Unbound

Chapter Twenty, Part A - Rigel

There is a stranger on this train. Things will come full-circle very soon. Please remember to vote an comment. Thank you, though, just for reading! Hope to see you in the next installment. A few minor improvements to enhance the read. --Elizabeth, UPDATED 06/28/2017

Rigel woke to the strange motion of the train, his hand clenched around the glass butterfly so hard it cut his palm. After listlessly watching the light cross his bedspread, he sat up and pulled on his boots.

Saints, what was he doing? It felt harder, not easier to get up this morning. All his attempt to throw himself back into normal routine of teasing his brother, playing with his sister, felt empty. Every time he smiled, it cost him. To move, to exist in a world where she didn't. It would not do to join her, not until those responsible paid for snuffing out her innocent life.

So, he stood up and marched out of his little bunk.

The middle cart had a few passengers and the cooking facilities. The windows were larger here to give the passengers the best views as they ate. Trains were just one of the amazing inventions that had grown up outside Waterwall. Which Chosen had come up with the idea to build such a contraption in the first place? Rigel wished the conductor would come out and talk. On the other hand, the death threats he had received since his family came on board would hardly encourage loquaciousness in anyone, much less someone as proud as a Chosen of the Bone Palace.

What the other passengers referred to as the dining car was paneled in dark wood. Six or seven round tables covered in white cloths stood empty as everyone gathered around a sideboard and the steaming food piled there. White beeswax candles in silver settings were lit, despite the daylight pouring through the lace curtains. Opulence intended to impress their guests, Rigel supposed.

Era would have loved this.

A well-dressed woman in her forties marched over to another, the women looked alike enough to be sisters. "Did you feel that shudder last night? For a moment, I thought the conductor had taken leave of his senses!"

"Perhaps there was something on the tracks, and he had to stop suddenly."

Swinging her handkerchief like a flag of denial, the first woman set her own plate at her table. "I nearly tumbled from my bed with shock. I thought it might have been some of those dreadful train robbers I heard about in my club."

"You spend too much time with that pack of peahens."

Rigel helped himself to the fried potatoes and coddled eggs and eavesdropped shamelessly. The waiter poured him a generous cup of some steaming brew into a ceramic mug and handed it to him.

"Do you take cream in your coffee, sir?"

Coffee? Whatever it was it smelled strong. "Cream never hurt anything. So. Do you know why the train stopped?"

The waiter shrugged. "That conductor has locked himself in the front car. Won't answer, even when I tried to leave him breakfast. When did you board? I didn't think we had any passengers joining us at the last stop."

Rigel waved a hand and took a sip of coffee to cover the delay in his answer, and almost spat it out because the brew was so bitter and hot on his tongue. "M-my family and I are...fauuugh... just heading back to the Red City. We were just inspecting some of our properties."