Et tú, Clarissa?

Chapter fifteen

54 BC (Latium, Italia)

"Oh my..." the gorgeous woman said before she smoothly came down the few steps down to me and placed a hand on my cheek while looking deep into my eyes. "Most extraordinary."

I looked as bewitched at her until she let my cheek go and smiled. I looked around carefully to see if I had a way out if needed.

"I am Clarissa, Julia Caesaris send me here. She told me you could keep me safe."

The woman did not say anything for a couple of seconds before she had studied me.

"I will help you with much more than that, Clarissa of Votadini. I will help you reach your true potential."

"My-my true what?"

She continued like I had never said anything.

"But first, we need to get you out of those dreadful clothes, dear."

With a smile she closed her eyes and the same second, sparks started flying around her fingers and she dragged them through the air in front of me. Suddenly, my clothes had been replaced by one of those dresses I had only seen rich maidens wear as they attended at the games. It felt weird. I had never worn such a dress, but anything was better than those old clothes. She opened her eyes and looked at me.

"You look wonderful." she said. "We have no time to lose. Come."

I was kind of in shock about the reality that she was like me so it took me some seconds before I started following her. By then she had walked further into the house and kept on going.

"Hold on. Who are you? Do you also get the sparkles around your fingers?"

"You may call me Aurelia and those sparkles are magic, dear."

Magic...?

"They are the prof magic flows through your veins and make it possible for you to do things humans could only dream of. You are a warlock, Clarissa. One of the most powerful beings in the world."

We walked into a room where a round table was placed in the middle of the room with a glass bottle on top of it. She turned to me and took a strand of hair from my head.

"To know what I work with I have to measure your potential and power." she explained and put it in the bottle before she poured down a mixture of different liquids. "In one day, the colour of the poison and its warmth will tell us how powerful you are and what I can do to help you. But for now, I would guess you are tired and hungry. Wilson will lead you to your room."

"Who is-" suddenly the man from the door showed up next to me and gave me a gesture to follow him.

He led me through the big house to a ginormous room in the end of the second floor with a balcony facing the breath-taking garden and lake at the same time. An odd sparkling feeling made me feel light like a cloud in the blue sky and the bubbling feeling painted a smile over my lips. A feeling I did not even remember I could feel. Happiness.

As I woke up, it was not because of a 30-years-old man dragged something hard against the bars while screaming at us to wake up, but to the warm beams of sunlight that lit up my pale skin. It was quiet, except some birds singing for me outside on the railing. I felt how a smile spread over my face as the three birds flied in and one of them sat down at my finger and first then I smelled a scent from heaven. It reminded me of the few times we had gotten newly baked bread in the inn in Londinium, but tenth as good. Other than that, the air was filled with the scent of flowers and oodles of other scents that I had never smelled before. After years of going hungry, I suddenly felt how hungry I actually was. I let the bird on my finger jump up at my shoulder before I got up from bed. The second I was about to open the door and get out, I saw myself in the mirror dressed only in a nightgown. Without my direct intention, a laugh escaped me and I twirled around.