Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 13iii

Tahlia pressed her nose up against the double paned window. In the room beyond, she could see Dak sitting on her bed, a thick book open on the cover in front of her. Tahlia tapped at the window and Dak's head jerked up, her mouth and eyes wide open in comical shock. She watched as her friend frantically looked around her for something, before finding the metal book pin hidden beneath her knee. She marked her place in the book, closed it, and then placed it on the table beside her bed before turning back to the window. Dak fumbled at the latches, her features turned from surprised to worried. She had good reason to be nervous after her desertion in the hall of arms the previous day.

Tahlia, though, decided that she would be kind to her friend and not hold a grudge.

"Good morning, Dak," she said cheerfully, when the window was finally opened.

"What are you doing here!" asked Dak, her brow creased in a frown.

"Well that is a nice welcome, I am sure."

Tahlia clambered through the window from the rooftop.

"Do the Forge-guard know you are coming here? I did not inform them!"

"Of course they do not know."

"Tahlia! You know how much trouble I will be in if they are finding you here without permission."

Tahlia brushed the rooftop grime from her hands and jumped down onto Dak's bed.

"You will be fine," she said.

"But you know it is not allowed! You should only be coming in by the guild-yards."

"I could not, even if I wanted to. The fortress is all shut up. No one is allowed to leave after that business last night."

"What business?"

"Have you not heard? Some creatures got into the fortress last night and tried to kill my father."

"Into the fortress! How?"

"Through the window, though I cannot imagine how they climbed all the way up there, and no one will tell me."

"What happened?"

"Mother and father killed them, of course, and now no one is allowed to leave the fortress."

She smiled and jumped down from the bed, than turned to see Dak looking critically at the two grey footprints that she had left behind.

"You had better come downstairs and wash," said her friend.

Tahlia followed Dak from her bedroom, onto the balcony that encircled the room below.

"But who would want to be killing your father?"

"I cannot begin to imagine," replied Tahlia. "Everybody likes my father."

"Not everyone, it is appearing."

Dak led the way down the spiral stairs to the level below. The first time that Tahlia had been in Dak's home, she had been immediately taken with the beauty of the rooms above Engineer Tomova's workshop. They were nothing like the fine apartments of the fortress' chambers she was used to, where all the metalwork was finely decorated and polished, and the curtains and hangings were made of fabric of the highest quality, brought from distant lands. Where Dak lived, the walls were made of stone, unadorned yet expertly crafted. The wood of the stairs, balcony, floor, ceiling and all the furniture in the room was unpainted and didn't have the delicately gilded carvings she was used to. Instead, it was of a solid, practical form, curved where appropriate and straight as necessity dictated. The rippling curves of the wood's thick grain was decoration enough, its beauty highlighted by the application of fragrant hive wax.