Warrior's Heart (Book 1 of The Warrior Chronicles)

Chapter 23

Her room was breathtaking. The furniture was sparse; a large white bed, a free standing wardrobe and a long settee was the lot of it. But the windows that covered an entire wall of the room reached from the floor to the high ceilings and offered spectacular views of the semi-detached islands within the inner keep.

Leyla stood by the windows and looked down into the nearest island garden and the beautiful pavilion at its centre. Michael had described the inner keep to her simply: 'There are seven Islands with pavilions built for High Thinkers and a crystal dome at the centre where the Leader lives'. While his description had been accurate, it did no justice to the beauty of the exotic gardens, or the ornately carved bridges that connected them all. Michael had also failed to mention that an entire floor of the crystal dome belonged to the Book Keeper's family, and that they were royals, second only to the direct descendants of the Leader of Light.

The chambermaid who showed Leyla into her room was brimming with information, and talked about the inhabitants of the Dome without any prodding. The Leader's rooms were on the top floor, the floor below belonged to his son the Prorex and the one below that was Michael's family's. Each floor had at least ten rooms used for different purposes. While the Leader ruled with the help of ministers, the Book Keeper was his right hand. That made Michael's mother the second most powerful person in the Land of Light. And as if that were not enough, Michael himself was the 'Curator', a title given to the Book Keeper in training.

Leyla found it hard to think of Michael as a royal. The Michael she knew, frequently got chased out of the Jade Palace kitchen by broom carrying maids. The Michael she knew, waited beside the bird pens with a cup of hot veka incase she was tired after a long days work. The Michael she knew traded a weeks worth of kemek, just to buy her a bone comb...

And yet that Michael, who had been a little brother to her for six years, was royal and would some day become one of the most powerful men in the Four Kingdoms.

It didn't feel real.

The knock on the door pulled Leyla out of her thoughts. She pulled at the slightly short sleeves of her Warrior uniform, touched the present at her breast, then cleared her throat, "Come in."

Michael poked his head around the door, the same way he had done a thousand times in their rooms back in Asch. But when he came inside now, he wasn't wearing the loose green tunic and trousers of the Jade Palace, but a white silk outfit with a long silver-embroidered coat. The traditional dress of High Thinkers made him look older than his years and even his riotous black curls had been tempered under a circle of silver. Leyla took note of the white crystal on the headpiece, right above the centre of his forehead, and thought it suited him; honest, pure, naive.

"Do you like your room?" His familiar smile appeared, but it did little to ease the strange dejection she couldn't seem to shake. "There's not much in it, but it's twice the size of our old place," he laughed, coming to stand beside her.

She wasn't sure how to respond. To speak like they used to was - not appropriate anymore.

"Did you need something, Curator?" The words sounded stiff.

Michael raised a brow. "Stop joking around, La-La. Did the maids bring your dress for dinner? We are running late. Maybe it's already in the wardrobe." He crossed the room, pulling out a layered white silk dress with a flourish. "It has blue stitching," he said with some surprise.

Leyla looked at the beautiful embroidery on the bodice of the dress; the flower patterns had been intertwined with blue crescent moons. When had they prepared this?

"It must be mothers doing. She must have thought you prefer blue because of your Warrior uniform." He dug back into the wardrobe, pulling out a pair of dark blue boots and handed both articles to her.

Leyla put them on the couch nearby. "You should give them back to her, Curator."

Michael pursed his lips, "Will you stop calling me that? And what do you mean give them back, we are going down for dinner, you need to get dressed!"

"You're whining, Michael." Leyla folded her arms across her chest. To her surprise, he grinned.

"If it's going to make you call me Michael, I'll whine all evening." He picked up the dress again and held it out to her. "I know it may not be comfortable, La-La, but wear it anyway. Your uniform will make you stand out too much. And before you ask, you have to come. The Leader invited you personally, to thank you for bringing me back. You can hardly refuse, right?"

Leyla hesitated. It was best to leave as quickly as possible, but she was not going to get permission to do so by insulting the ruler of this Kingdom.

"I know you want to leave, but can't you let my family thank you first?"

Leyla saw the way Michael set his jaw and sighed. It was the look he got when he was doing his best not to show he was upset. Back on Asch she would ruffle his hair and ask if he wanted to go flying in moments like these; the threat of a Sky Bird ride always knocked him out of his bad mood. But they weren't on Asch anymore and he was no longer pretending to be her little brother. He was the Curator of the Land of Light.

"Alright," Leyla agreed at long last.

"Alright.!" Michael raised his thumbs in an Asch gesture of pleasure, then turned back to the door. "I'm waiting outside so get dressed quickly. The Leader doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Leyla blinked at the dress for a few moments, wondering if her sense of complete unbalance was due to the dimension travel. She felt like she was floating and everything was coming unravelled.

She got dressed quickly, then glanced at her reflection in the tall mirror beside the door. She remembered the first time she had looked into a mirror in Asch only to find that her scar had disappeared. Her fingers reached up to touch the side of her cheek where the raised flesh had been. There was only pale, unblemished skin now. It had to be the work of the Healer that night that she left the Warrior Kingdom. She had called it a 'gift' then, but why was it that Leyla found herself missing the cruel jagged line? She pulled her hair away from her face and braided quickly. Even her hair was long now, hanging a fair bit below her shoulders; she had been ordered to grow it by Jara who was more stubborn than a mule.

She looked back to the Warrior uniform that now lay neatly folded on the bed. Even thought she had had to add pieces to the arms and sides and even though it was now tight across the chest, at least it had stayed mostly the same.

Taking a deep breath, Leyla turned to the door, then stopped just as quickly. The yards of silk that slid against her arms and naked legs annoyed her to no end. Bloody Diya, the back skirts pulled, while the front threatened to get caught under her feet. Why would anyone wear such an irritating thing?

"La-la? Do you need help?" Michael's voice came through the door.

Help? No. She would be damned if she let a bunch of silk get the best of her! Straightening her back, she made her way to the door.

"Wow." Michael blinked like a fool as she shoved her train out of the way to get the door closed. "You look so beautiful, La-la. I mean, you're always beautiful, but in a dress you just..." Noticing her dark stare, Michael pressed his lips together and led the way without further comment.

After passing half a dozen closed doors, they came to the white marble steps that took them down to the ground floor where the dining room of the Dome was located. Leyla noted the absence of servants as they made their way through a high archway and into the bright chamber with crystal chandeliers. While one grey wall was lined with giant portraits of exotic plants, the other was made of glass that looked out to a garden pond filled with lotus flowers.

They were not the first to arrive Leyla noted.