Dreams in the Distant Sky

Chapter 6 - Conflict

I want to say thank you to all you guys who gave in your polling for the name of the town in which Lord Sil lives. After doing some research and contemplating, I decided on the name as well as another detail that you will see when you read the chapter :)

I hope you all had fun polling! ^^

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Kaya pov:

I placed the cup of hot tea on Lord Sil's desk and took a step back so I could wait until he was done with his beverage and dismissed me. I took a glance at his face as I stepped back – his eyes were narrow and his brows deeply furrowed in displeasure as he went through the contents on a sheet of paper.

This is my fourth day serving in the castle and serving as Lord Sil's Art. I've settled in, so to say, and I have got quite used to my chores.

The day begins with Theo waking me up and me whining for a few minutes until I finally decided to get out of bed. I've always depended on my alarm clock to wake up on time and get ready for the day. But since that isn't an option here, Theo agreed to wake me up when he does until my biological clock got used to the new lifestyle and automatically woke me up at seven in the morning every day.

Mornings are usually rushed because we all have to assemble and head into the castle by nine to get on with our chores. Showering, freshening up for the day and having breakfast are quick routine tasks taken care of with short passing conversations before we switch on our business mode and head into the castle.

Since I am restricted to the kitchen, Lord Sil's study and his bedroom, I have been able to remember the route through the castle. By the time I head to the kitchen and get Lord Sil's tea, it's close to nine thirty so I don't bother with my other chores before serving him his tea. When I'm done dropping off the used crockery in the kitchen, I head over to his bedroom and personal study so I can clean those rooms.

His bedroom generally doesn't require much cleaning. I make the bed and dust some of the furniture. Putting back his coats into his wardrobe, putting his towel for drying and taking away laundry clothes is also part of my job in cleaning the bedroom. I also make sure that I neatly arrange the different roles and bundles of papers that are scattered on his desk. Yesterday, the ink bottle that he uses was left open with the quill inside it and the ink was starting to dry out. I made sure I closed it and cleaned the quill so it would be good to use later on.

Lord Sil's personal study usually needs more cleaning up. I hadn't expected anything less of the study – the shelves embedded in the walls are stacked with thousands of books and almost reach the ceilings. There are several ladders with rollers that have to be used in case someone needs to access books on the upper level shelves. The books are not just stories or novels but the study seems to have a lot of documents that are used as reference material. I think that important information pertaining to the governance of the domain that Lord Sil supervises is kept in the personal study and not his office for safety reasons.

Being a bookworm of sorts, I was almost caught slacking off while cleaning the study on the first day. In the midst of putting the books back in their respective shelves, I had paused cleaning to read the prologue of a novel. It was so interesting that I had completely tuned out my surroundings and sat down among the books on the floor to continue reading. It wasn't until Lord Sil had unexpectedly walked in that I snapped back to the present and bolted up startled.

I think Lord Sil's mind was preoccupied with something important when he entered his study. I was so sure that he would figure out that I had been slacking off, especially since I had broken out into a sweat and I was sitting among books that should have been cleared out a long time ago. But he didn't even glance at me for a moment as he walked to one of the shelves, picked out three or four books and swiftly walked out of the study while slamming the door shut behind him. I was left blinking dazed and relieved that I hadn't been noticed too much.