Serpent's Kiss || Kingdom at the End of the World - Book I

[3] Garden of Stone

Night fell quietly. Its descent was early on account of the season, although Ira would not have been able to enjoy a longer day even in the midst of spring. With its windows blinded, Beaufort Manor was in a state of perpetual dark.

Ira passed a hand over her sweaty brow. The floor gleamed in patches where it was yet to dry. Cabinets stood open all around, their doors parted wide, their insides gutted and scoured. Fire burned in the hearth. It licked up a stone bed Ira had spent a good hour scrubbing clean, seeming almost joyous in its dance. Ira doused it with some regret.

Sir Beaufort was not in the sitting room when Ira passed through on her way upstairs, armed with vinegar and a bristly sponge. The bathroom was in a sorrier state than the kitchen, but more immediately inviting on account of Ira's own need for a shower. The mold and grime and dust from years of disuse couldn't mask the quality of its make: the floor was solid wood, the tub made of stone so pale and smooth it felt like skin under Ira's hand. Ira rolled her sleeves and got to work. The stink of vinegar soon permeated the air, accompanied by the sharp scrich-scrich of a metal sponge sliding down stained stone.

Ira let the shower run while she retrieved a change of clothing and a bar of soap from her bag, then a towel from the linens' closet. By the time she returned, the water ran clear and cold. Ira refused to rush. She scrubbed her skin until it gained a pinkish hue, soaped her hair, and watched days' worth of sweat and grime disappear with great satisfaction.

Dressed, Ira hurried back to her room, mind on the tasks she wished to accomplish before Sir Beaufort sought her presence. A burst of cold air reminded her that she had left the window open. She clambered onto the bed and reached for the shutters. Her fingers froze an inch from the glass.

There was something outside.

Ira lowered her hands to the windowsill. She leaned forward, slow and cautious, and peered into the gloom. The shadows were thick at the base of the manor and for a second, she couldn't make out anything at all.

The next, a pair of golden eyes blinked into existence a breath from her face.

Ira reared back and slammed the window shut. The glass rattled terribly, startling the creature. Something scrambled down the manor's wall on feet tipped with claws.

Ira locked the window, then closed the wooden shutters and locked them as well. She wrapped the blanket around herself and fell still. The book Sir Beaufort had given her lay near her pillow. Ira parted History of Samodevia open. Her eyes ran through words she knew by heart, thoughts far away. Blood roared in her temples. The urge to run, to chase, gave way to more pragmatic concerns, if slowly.

The world slipped back into focus. Ira caught the end trail of a paragraph and had to double-back, uncertain of its meaning.

...as the Queen is Light, She is Shadow, and the two must not be parted if the Kingdom is to stand.

Ira stopped reading. She flipped to the previous page, then the one before that, eyes catching on foreign sentences slotted neatly between familiar blocks of text. Ira stood from the bed and grabbed her bag, riffling through its contents until she found her journal and quill. There was no desk, but the vanity table served Ira just as well. She propped the book against the mirror and set to noting down every instance of discrepancy between History of Samodevia as it had been penned by Ceri and the version that filled libraries and schoolrooms around the kingdom.

A pattern emerged soon enough, impossible to ignore or deny. Ira sat back, hands still. The quill bled ink in fat, black drops, staining her fingers. She set it aside mindlessly. Her thoughts fled far from Beaufort Manor, chasing Ceri's Shadow.