The Monocle's Eye

Chapter 12

 The cracked and decaying marble of the hall was dusty, but not nearly as much so as the red carpet on the floor, lined with gold and worn with a trail of footsteps in the middle, which stirred up the gray dust as it collected along the sides. If you strayed too much from the center of the carpet, it would come up in the air in plumes with each step. The Silver twins followed close behind me, their chain clanking as they walked, and their soft footsteps hardly audible. I was following Illy through the castle, and right now, we were in the decaying part.

"Why is it so dusty and neglected here?" I whispered, leaning closer to Illy as I asked, so any listening ears couldn't hear.

"Mother keeps it this way," She replied, "Always liked old things, and so she forbids anyone to clean the back half of the castle, unless for special occasions, especially the church."

"The Church?" I asked. She pointed to a long hallway at which the end of I could see a large extravagant doorway, closed firmly on it's heavy hinges.

"Where the dead are kept," Illy replied softly, continuing on. On the walls were many old paintings, and a couple stranger ones. I saw large pictures of nobility, family and otherwise, and many hangings of scenery and mansions, some from Caedis and some brought along from the outside world. One caught my attention though. It was a couple splatters of brownish red on a plain white canvas, pulled taught on a big golden frame.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing to it as we passed.

"The blood of an enemy," She replied cooly, not pausing to stop as we passed. I shuttered at the thought, and scurried on after her, now even closer than before.

"The Queen's enemy?" I asked softly.

"No," She said, "mine." I drew back from her as she spoke, and tried to rid the unpleasant thoughts from my head. I am owned by a murderer, I thought in my head, but then reminded myself, she is the child of one, and knew deep down from all people I had seen that everyone is just a slightly less painful version of their parents. The parent's wrongdoings are reflected in them, but if the child did it's job, they would be faded. Illy was the same, and I hoped that I was as well, because really that's all anyone can hope for.

We rounded the corner and walked straight through the already open doors out of the castle, arriving upon a large carriage that looked very different than that we had came in what seemed like so long ago. The carriage itself was very similar but the difference lied in how it was drawn. There were no reigns but instead a couple lines of thin bars across the top, on which perched a set of medium sized brownish ravens, who looked down on us with their peculiar glinted eyes and their questioning faced as if to scrutinized their load. Knowing I couldn't ask anything here in front of the guards I got into the carriage without a word, but my brain whirred thinking of what it all meant. Surely we weren't going to be lifted by a handful of birds.

As we stepped into the carriage I recognized that it was indeed the exact same one we had travelled in when we came from Europe, as it had the same black and red interior. The curtains were drawn and we were seated, and almost as the door closed I turned to Illy. "We aren't going to fly in this thing, right?" I asked.

"Of course we are," She replied, "I'm not sitting around another week to get to the coast of China, we fly two days, stay for three, and fly back."

"But those birds can't possibly get us off the ground, let alone fly very fast or far." I replied, becoming less sure she was joking.

"Of course they can," She said, "They're rauzires, and have enough strength in pairs to lift this carriage, we only need so many because it has to fly fast. They take shifts, and with so many of them, it's hardly difficult." I shuttered, baffled by this new concept.