Dedicated to @amel_under_starlight Thank you for the encouragement I needed to continue the story & those awesome encyclopedia skills lol. (You've been seriously amazing)
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Without any word between us, I went upstairs to my room.
Immediately after I left Julian and Naida in the hall downstairs, I dumped the contents of the bag in the tub, just in case some of the slime made it inside.
Luckily, that wasn't the case and the book Axel had given me stayed pristine.
I picked up the clothes and placed them in the corner where they immediately disappeared. Somehow, the magic of the house would clean them, fold them or hang them back in the closet good as new. I continued to unpack, placing everything back where it belonged finding the monotonous task the best thing I could do to keep my mind off of what I just learned.
I peeled my clothes off after and dumped them in the tub so as not to get anything else dirty in the clean bathroom. After showering and dressing, I ran a comb through my wet hair grateful that I was able to get everything out of my hair and the putrid smell off my skin after a good scrub.
It was while I was brushing my hair on the dais near the window that I realized how much I missed Skryen. I never felt comfortable in Tartus. I was on edge the entire time even before the Hounds and the events at the Gates.
Somehow, Skryen felt like home.
I missed the comfort of watching the sprites dancing in the night, missed the low hum and musical trilling of them as they bounded around the window of my room. I missed the call of the animals in the nearby forest, I missed the way the moonlight would shine down on the tranquil nearby lake. I missed how the moon painted the dark water in its luminescent silver light.
But there was something else...
Something that tugged at me to go outside ...
I put the brush down and grabbed a light sweater from the closet, tugging it on before leaving the room. The house was dark and eerily quiet as I moved through it and made my way to the grounds in the back.
Once I was outside, I immediately noticed everything was different. It all looked the same at first glance but the more I looked at the trees, the flowers, the bushes the more I realized it was more alive than I'd ever seen them.
The sprites were brighter, the trees were breathing as they swayed in the cool, gentle breeze. I could feel the life of the animals in the forest nearby. A small doe seemed to come nearby but stopped. And a stillness, a soothing stillness in the darkness near the lake. A gentle silence that seemed to settle over the core of my soul as I neared the still water.
It grew as I approached and once I turned past a large rose bush in the path, I stopped.
It was Julian standing at the edge of the lake as if he were listening to the forest around him too.
I swallowed but stepped closer anyway, needing to feel that silence settle in me more.
"I haven't felt the night like this since I was a boy."
My feet touched the cool wet sand as I reached the lake's edge. He finally turned to me when he spoke again. "I have you to thank for that."
His hair was black again, wet, sticking to his forehead like he'd just finished a shower too.
"What do you mean?" I whispered.
He looked back at the lake. "The kiss the other night, you awakened the Light magic in me again." He chuckled. "I thought it was long dead for centuries."
