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Morning air, fresh and cool, trickled violently into the room.
It swirled around me, encasing me in its familiar touch, finally clearing my nose of the stale scent of the room. The air was brisk. It spurred a shiver to course across my arms and neck.
Then I smelt myself. An odour strong enough to turn my stomach. No amount of fresh air would help that. As soon as I could leave, I needed to wash.
There was a brass tub that took up space across a tiled corner of the chamber. I could only imagine how it would have been filled with warm water for the patron of this castle long before the curse. Now it sat, wasted space, with cobwebs taking home among the curved body of metal.
Like the dusty bed and dull furniture, the tub was only more proof that this room had been untouched.
So who was beyond the room now?
I leaned out of the window, taking in the view. Perhaps I would spot someone outside? Mist clung to the overgrown garden I looked over. Being on the ground level made me see little of Darkmourn that sat nestled in the valley. Would my family be thinking of me? Biting nails in hopes that I succeeded?
I could have reached for the scrying bowl and revealed my first failure to them. Instead I busied my mind, looking at the line of broken white stone statues. Limbs and heads littered the ground beneath those that were left standing. The carpet of mist clung to the ground, dancing and twisting along the blades of overgrown grasses and wild hedges. I reached a hand for the ghostly smoke which licked up the cold slabs of the castle’s walls, clambering towards me as if it had a mind of its own.Perhaps it did.
Entranced in the moving mist, I was locked in position. Unable to pull my hand away as it grabbed for me. A hand split from the mist, fingers closing around mine.
Panic gripped at my heart. Nails of anxiety stabbed into my flesh as the hand materialised and hardened into skin made of smoke.
Its hold on me was as strong and real as the creature’s had been.
Instinct warmed my blood. Just as I had the night before, I called upon my magic. At the tips of my fingers I commanded the air that lingered around them. My most familiar, wilful element. The blast of it exploded from my skin, dissipating the hand of mist in a moment until I was free once again.
I stumbled back, flicking my hand and sending a bout of wind to close the window as I put distance between it.
The glass vibrated within the frame, threatening to shatter from the impact as it closed.
“What in the Goddess’s name…” My breathing was uncontrollable as I pressed myself against a bedpost. Watching, unblinking, half expecting a ghostly face to appear behind the glass with a taunting smile.
But nothing happened.
I pressed a hand to my forehead and chuckled, the other held over my frantic heart. “Focus, you fool.”
There was a small, quiet knock at the door. It spurred a small scream as my body and soul was already on edge of panicking from the phantom I had just seen. I snapped my head towards the sound, expecting ghostly fingers to slip beneath the crack in the door.
“Are you okay?” a quiet voice called out from the corridor. My heart slammed in my ears, each beat deafening. Slowly I took a step towards the door, trying not to make a sound. “If you have hurt yourself you should tell me. I can help.”
There was something songful about the voice. It was light and gentle. Full of youth.
“I am … fine.”
I tiptoed towards the locked door, leaving footprints in the dust covered floor.
“Others have tried escaping through the window. But your fate within the mist is far worse than what you may experience here.”
I lowered myself to the floor, my cheek so close to the ground that I felt the coldness of it. Looking beneath the crack in the door, I expected to see feet.
But the floor beyond was empty.
My breath hitched. Closing an eye, I looked again, straining to see who it was that spoke. “I was not trying to escape.”
I expected no response knowing that the space beyond was empty.
But the small voice replied, chilling my blood to ice. “Good. Are you hungry?”
“Starved,” I said, pushing myself to standing. My stomach ached at the thought of food. Perhaps that was what caused the vision beyond the window. And this strange interaction.
“Then you should be pleased to know that we have prepared you a feast. Eat as much as you want. You can take it back to your chamber if you wish. But heed my warning: you must return to your room before the sun goes down. For that is when he will wake again. Marius will not be pleased to know we have let you out.”
