Woodbridge Recollection : The Hidden Kingdom

Chapter 23: Growing Fires.

I thought that excessive amounts of exercise and weapon training would have become a good enough distraction from the growing curiosity in my mind. I couldn't have been more wrong about that.

For hours on end, I stayed inside that training hall, moving from once activity to the next. Everything I did seemed to bring up this new curiosity over Zacarias via the memories I had of him since meeting him.

If I threw a knife, I was reminded of the journal collection I had previously read and how it enlightened me on how Zacarias had taught me how to throw knives.

When I practiced sword fighting with Lilian, I was reminded of the sword fight Zacarias and I had yesterday before he took me to Xenophil's house.

If I did some cardio, it made me think of how much I was sweating, and in turn, I wondered about sex as a form of exercise. That too made me think of Zacarias, bringing me right back to those dreams.

If I shot an arrow at the training targets, I still thought about Zacarias regardless that it had no actual ties to him.

Those dreams seemed to be mounted in my head. If I concentrated on them long enough, instead of my training, I felt like I could imagine the first time Zacarias and I must have made love.

I could already imagine the environment, as it had been part of one of my dreams. I imagine it happened in that grey stone bedroom with the large window and black curtains. There's a dream catcher above the bed, a dark wood writing desk, a ship in a bottle and a wooden ship's wheel mounted on the wall.

God. Why couldn't I get him out of my head? What was it that made me so curious about him? I was beginning to fall to a point where I needed to know what all the damn fuss was about. Why on earth did this man really appeal to me so much? I get that I once knew him, possibly still did, on a very deep level However, what were the physical levels like?

How was I going to ever get past this? There had to be something that could cure my curiosity. Maybe, I could ask Zacarias what we did; how we fell in love. Could it really be that simple?

The minute that five o clock came, I took down my coat and left the training hall. When Lilian protested my leaving, I told her that I had some things to take care of, but I probably wouldn't be joining her for the evening meal just yet.

I left the training hall quickly, ignoring most greetings that came my way as I walked through the academy. I hurried outside and found Nightshade in the fields amongst the other horses. When I found him, I climbed onto him and began to ride him out of the academy fields. The unicorn obeyed and moved easily in the direction that I directed him.

Holding on to the saddle with one hand, I clicked my tongue twice and he began to move faster, trotting forwards. When I was comfortable, I clicked my tongue again and pressed my heels against his stomach. The unicorn sped up and moved quickly along the travel paths. I directed him towards the south and he continued that way.

Sure enough, the docks soon came to my view after some time of riding. When I passed by the lagoon, I looked down at the docks for the yacht in question. I spotted it in the same dock it had been the last time I had seen it. However, it looked vacant except for two or three people walking along its deck. None of them were Zacarias.

What was it that he had told me if I needed to speak?

"My house is just beyond the docks on the lagoon: around the privateer's avenues of the kingdom. Mine is the brown stone house with the anchor on the mailbox."

The privateer's avenues past the lagoon. That seemed easy enough if I could find a brown stone house.

I directed my unicorn onward, moving past the docks until a neighborhood of houses came into view along the lagoon. The houses along the lagoon shores seemed to be above its waters, built on pillars like the docks. The rest of the houses were on the land. Nevertheless, they were all fashioned the same: they were small, simple stone houses with flat roofs.