The Tales of Miriela: Shadowborn

Chapter 37: Rebecca Wullmont

Rebecca stayed within her study, hidden in the dark room. It was where she sat, reading, writing, and planning. She hadn't left the study for three days, as she waited to leave the Estate and meet with Martin at the Greytyl Manor.

The sun began to set and night was soon to fall upon the city. The maidens had put the children to bed and silence had finally returned to the Estate. Rebecca had packed her things into a satchel, everything she would need to make her disappearance. She took a black robe, which was folded at the bottom of a chest within her chambers. It was a widow's robe, it had been her mother's after her father had died. It was dark like the night, and would ensure Rebecca would travel unseen.

She took her things and headed down to the front doors of the Estate. This was it, her deepest desires and emotions finally put into motion. She was leaving the Royal Estate for good. That meant leaving her children, leaving her husband, leaving her queenship.

They were all things that she wanted, but not in the way in which she currently had them. They were her sweetest dreams, manifested in her worst nightmares. They could not be saved, they could not be mended, only torn down, destroyed and maybe one day rebuilt as something new.

She moved through the streets like an unnoticed shadow, until she arrived at that slim Northern road. Its grey cobblestone, covered in blades of tall grass, it seemed the road had been altogether forgotten. It had to have been old, perhaps one of the city's very first roads.

She began to walk down the road, leaving whatever bustle of the city remained at this hour behind her. Even deeper into darkness she dove, even further away from the life she had so recently left behind. The old road again took her to Northern brick home, hidden away in the woods. Rebecca carried with her a key, which Ansyl had given her just days before.

She put the silver key into the black iron door and turned. With a push, the heavy door opened and Rebecca soon found herself within the manor. She held up the lamp that she had traveled the city with, and searched the darkness for candles to light.

Soon, the rooms and halls were dimly lit with candlelight, just enough so to walk about them. There was a large dining room, where Rebecca had first sat with Ansyl. A long hall then led back to three bedrooms. At the end of the hall waited a staircase, which spiraled both up and down. It ascended to a second floor, which held a small library. Its descension, however, was what truly interested the Queen.

The stairs descended, until they ended at a greyish blue door. The door was locked, and the key Rebecca had did not open it. She jostled the knob and pushed with all her might, but the door wouldn't budge. With her ear pressed against the wood, only silence answered.

So she returned to the dining room, where she would wait for Martin and the other minor preceptors to arrive. The bookshelf which Ansyl had mentioned during their last visit caught Rebecca's eye as she passed it. It stood in the long hall, which connected the dining room to the staircase.

She began to search up and down it, looking for a book she may recognize. The bookshelf was taller than her, and three times as wide, yet not a single book held a title. They were all journals of some sort. Rebecca took one down, a green book, and opened it.

She couldn't recognize the writing; the language was not of Miriela. She continued to flip through to find sketches of torn bodies. They seemed to be dissections, a sight which the Queen never hoped to see. She put the book away and continued to look through another and several more after. But they were all the same, a strange language that she did not understand, and sketches that made her stomach queasy.

She took one more from the shelf and flipped it open. 'I believe that the answer to what I seek, lies somewhere within the lands of the West. The ancient medicine of the Farwest Tribes, much older than even Miriela itself. The witches in the West practice an old medicine and I suspect with their help, it may be possible.'