Seven

Chapter Five

            The air in the room seemed colder than it should have been. Even sopping wet, I knew the heat couldn't have evaporated that quickly naturally. I coughed and sputtered as the room spun. Being put out like that took every last drop of energy from me and it was all I could do not faint. My eyes felt droopy. I thought for a moment that maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I let them close.

Maybe, for a moment I could just rest...

"Ah, ah ah," I heard a deep voice mutter from somewhere in the room. "It's not time to sleep just yet, Darling."

It took all my strength, but I pulled my forehead up off the floor and tried to focus. Three men in black clothing and black leather gloves wobbled in front of my vision. They all looked identical and familiar, wearing silver crowns with tufts of curly black hair poking out beneath them. After blinking a few times, I realized there was only one man, and I became suddenly aware of why the room was freezing.

It was the man from the forest. It was Silas.

"Where am I?" I muttered quietly. Even that took all my strength.

Silas tilted his head to the side to look at me. He crouched down low, pulled a black glove off his left hand and moved toward me. Using his thumb, he rubbed some dirt off my face. His touch was gentle, but it lingered a moment too long. I couldn't look into those cold brown eyes, I couldn't bare to see what was hidden there, be it darkness or a sort of twisted form of kindness. Instead my eyes focused on his wrist, pale and in need of a kiss from sunlight. There upon lied something that made my heart jumped. Sketched into his wrist in dark black ink was the mark of Necromancy. It was a swirling symbol that folded into an upside-down cross with two horizontal lines through the bottom. It was a symbol so dark and cold I could barely stand to look at it, yet something kept me from looking away.

"You, my Darling are in the dungeons," Silas finally replied, sitting down in the dirt next to me,

When my mouth opened to form some sort of protest, he quickly interrupted me.

"Not to worry, not to worry, you won't be here for much longer. I will move you into your own personal quarters once you come to realize who you are."

"Once I realize who I am?" I retort, then collapse to the ground, my head screaming with pain. "I already know who I am. I am Jade Penn, daughter of Cressida and Hawthorne Penn. I am a seamstress from the village of Wandermere, in Villam, Edan."

Silas paused for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. He slid his other glove off and placed them on the ground besides my face. He rubbed his hands together, warming them and contemplating.

"Surely that's not all you are?" He questioned slowly, his voice melting over me and cooling the room even more. His words hinted at no threat, but his tone gleamed like a sword ready to stab through my heart. "Dearest Jade, surely that's not all you want to be?"

I pressed my forehead against the dirt, breathing in particles of dust and mud. I couldn't care in that moment, I was so cold, so tired. I felt as though what little fight, I had in me had been extinguished. The smell of moss and mildew filled my nose as I breathed, but I couldn't even find the will to cough. Goosebumps raised on my skin as I realized I could hear nothing but the sound of my breathing and the breathing of the man sitting next to me. Our breaths were nearly synced as I pondered his question.

Was I all I wanted to be? My whole life I had been raised to be a seamstress. Sure, I had a strange knowledge of magic, and I could even perform a little. But I could remember, in brief flashes, moments where I had been more than a seamstress, and more than a little magic. There was something deep inside me that gnawed at me from time to time. It was the little voice that pushed me to delve into the spellbooks Ma never let me read, that pushed me to try incantations that I knew could be dangerous, that told me to ignite into a bright and burning flame. But all I had ever been was a seamstress...