NB: the chapter features mature content!
“Oh, don’t cry... I don’t mean anything... you are doing everything great,” I am clumsily trying to comfort Cygnie. “You are the sweetest girl I had!”
And probably the first. Thanks a lot, stupid memory!
She covers her face: all her eagerness has left her. The young servant looks very small and vulnerable. Luckily, I can’t see her sad face: her mood is highly contagious, for I think I’m gonna cry too.
“I don’t want any Jike or bloody Prince!” I assure her, patting her shoulder.
Nice! Her tongue was in your mouth a minute ago, and now you are afraid of her intimacy.
The fear in her eyes is real, “Please, don’t say that about His Highness, Mage Avis! What if anybody can hear us?” she touches my hand.
I nervously chuckle, “We are alone here. Don’t worry...” with these words I look around like a professional paranoiac.
Holy heck... She might be right: mages can turn into small animals and hide everywhere. What are chances a mage, (any transformed mage) is sitting behind the curtains or under the bed?
Her ivory skin is very contrasting against the darkness. Like a mourning ghost she sits all hunched up on the bed, crossing her arms on the chest. She’s even thinner than I and looks younger.
Without thinking, I touch the tip of her nose: ice cold. I reach for the duvet that rests tumbled at the foot of the bed and wrap her in it like a baby. The servant looks surprised: her slight tingle tells me that she expected me to do something else.
We never had a fireplace in our house, and I have no idea how to light a fire.
Are there any matches or a lighter here? Or they expect me to throw a fireball into it; pronounce a spell maybe?
But none of the spells I’ve learnt are applicable for any household chores: just some bites and bits of the whole thing. The hearth has been standing cold and dead ever since I got here.
“We need to light a fire,” I said, preparing for a fiasco.
“I’ll do it!” Cygnie is about to spoil my perfect blanket roll which is hiding her nakedness.
“No, just wait here,” I hurry to respond.
I look at the fireplace mistrustfully. It’s empty, and I throw several white logs in its “mouth”. I want to use my “funny serpents” spell. It’s one of the compounds of some “fire” hexing. It could work.
I can hear her footsteps: like a queen in a robe with a train she’s gracefully walking wrapped in a bright cloud of gigantic duvet.
Cygnie, keeping a respectful distance, is watching me with rapt interest. And I desperately want to put up a good show.
Where did I acquire these silly boyish showing off for the girls?
I read a spell I’ve drilled far too much before.
Ok, now I need to give them the intention: without it they’ll remain just “funny” snakes:
“Treximo, pyrpolisei,” I whisper, narrowing my eyes.
Please let this work!
Probably, their Sky Spirits heard my pray mumbling, for ten little serpent creatures with whimsical golden patterns outpour from each of my fingertip and slide towards the white logs leaking them with glowing forked tongues and like limbless lizards curl up to the chimney.
There is a cheerful fire in the fireplace, and I am relieved. And I didn’t even kill anybody. What a step forward...
Cygnie claps her hands joyfully, narrowly dropping her “robe”; her tears are dry.
“If there’s a fire... anywhere. Please, don’t spread that...” I ask her, apologizing.
I sit on the floor beside the fire. The girl is hesitating, standing near.
“Cygnie, are you a mage?”
“No, I’m just a servant,” she shifts from one foot to another.
“Can all mages turn into animals?” I move, showing her to sit together.
She nods, “But only into small ones.”
“I see... Do you know what kind of transformation was mine?”
“Nobody knows.”
“How come?” I am stunned. “Is it also shameful to share this information with everybody?” their traditions and restrictions are already getting on my nerves.
“You never show your “animal” to people. Maybe Mage Zarya and Mage Kaleb know?”
I chuckle, “With my luck, I’d probably have a cockroach transformation!”
My words make the girl smile again, but not for long:
“You don’t really remember! It must be so hard...” she charily puts her head on my shoulder.
Exactly! Thank you, Cygnie!
“I have some issues, but I’m working on it...”
She giggles, covering her lips.
We sit together watching the flames. From time to time we stretch our hands or bare feet towards the fire. Cygnie is taciturn and thoughtful.
“Go to bed,” I sigh.
Without objection she goes obediently to bed. I stay motionless for a while, collecting my thoughts; then I lie next to the girl and turn to my right side. I give a start when Cygnie kisses my neck.
“Let’s just sleep.”
“I leave now. I’m sorry.” I can hear her fiddling in the bedclothes.
“No. Stay.”
“Are we going to sleep only?”
“Right. You just got warm - get back and sleep.”
She’s sitting for a while as if not believing my words. But having realized I am not going to drive her away, she gets back to me, covers both of us with a duvet spooning me from behind.
I can’t suppress a soft moan. Even such a simple touch evokes some tight feeling of pleasure in my lower abdomen. I didn’t even think how lonely I was all this time.
Listening to the soothing sound of her tranquil breath, I fall asleep.
***
“Avis,” Zarya is calling me softly. “I was knocking, but you didn’t answer.”
“Have you already arrived,” I ask the obvious, rubbing my eyes.
Devil! Cygnie!
I briskly turn around to face an empty bed. I look back at Zarya who is wearing a yellow dress; she is watching her soft flatters as if they are the most interesting thing in the room. Marigold seems low spirited.
“I came to tell you personally that nobody in the Eagle castle knows about your arrival.”
“It sounds like good news.”
“Nevertheless, we are to go to the Black Night.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong: nobody there knows about my return, but we are still going to the fancy party,” I said, keeping my eyes on her dress.
“It’s most likely a provocation. Somebody certainly knows about you. And this somebody must be Livius’s confidant. If you don’t show up, they will use it to their advantage, making you look bad and disrespectful to the whole Nefeli people,” her worrying breaks through the wall of put-on indifference. “We are going tomorrow. It’ll help you to get used to the new environment.”
“I’m not a cat that needs to get used to a new place!”
The exact dress...
“As you wish. We are going to discuss the details at breakfast. Within the hour in the big morning room,” Zarya says, keeping a low profile.
I shrug my shoulders as if saying neither “yes” nor “no”. But inside I feel so bad, as if I did something wrong, and now she’s mad at me.
When she has left my chamber, I spring out of the bed like the Jack in the Box.
Was she here, after all? I’m going crazy... oh, thank funny serpents...
I found her lace panties under the pillow. I’ve never been so happy to find someone’s lingerie.
But where is the owner? Can’t she sing her swan song and leave without panties?!
***
She’s sitting in a bath full of greenish water. Fearfully she covers her beasts when I pop into, but seeing that it is me, Cygnie relaxes and gives me a tender smile, putting her chin on the edge of the tub and looking at me wide-eyed and innocently.
“I thought you were Mage Zarya just now. You scared me a little,” she whispers.
“What’s wrong with Zarya? I think she’s fine. You don’t have to be afraid of her,” my heart misses a beat when the girl mentions her.
Cygnie stands up. Her long hair, that has got darker and wet, is slightly covering her resilient breasts; she looks like a mermaid in a stone grotto.
I avert my eyes. Reluctantly.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
“How can you disturb me?” She gives me a hearty smile. “What about having a bath together?”
“Those two are waiting for me,” I sigh. “Blondie will surely force me to show my homework. And I’m going to a stupid Ball tomorrow.”
“Oh, it’s so lovely! You will be the most beautiful woman there!”
“Cygnie, let’s go with us... with me.”
“With you?” Cygnie almost falls getting out of the tub.
“Sure! Why not?”
“But it’s impossible. I’m just a servant. No one will let me in.”
“You will be my date for the night or accompanee. We can find a nice dress for you. My bloody wardrobe is crammed with them. You are shorter than I, but we can figure it out: cut somehow or buy a new one, I don’t know,” I feel stupid and confused.
“I wish I could! But there will be His Highness and other important people. Soon they’ll know I’m not one of them. Would all make fun of me… If you put a dress on a village cow, this cow will remain a cow.”
“Cygnie...”
“It’s all right!” she gently touches my cheek. “Mage Zarya would not love me to come, I am sure. She doesn’t trust people from Hare Rivulets; they say she thinks that somebody is still supporting the old regime and some of the previous masters who were able to escape before you came,” saying it, the girl gives a little start. “But who... what an idiot can be loyal to them!?”
When she utters it, she covers her mouth, “Mage Avis,” she says plaintively. “Don’t tell Mage Zarya my words! I know, she’s your best friend, and I have no right to say it, especially in your presence.”
Best friend, she says...and that’s it.
I stare into vacancy. Then I wake up, “Are you sure you won’t come?” I ask Cygnie with a poorly hidden disappointment.
“You might have a lot of trouble because of my presence. I’ll be waiting for you.”
I hug her swiftly and dart away before I change my mind.
***
“It doesn’t look safe,” I said to Kaleb.
Three of us are standing on a small hillock between greenhouses. Seeing through the rich bush vegetation a creepy familiar hare on the dome of a well, I turn my head to a weird looking door that stands in front of us: and nothing to accompany it.
“Look at us! Like the good old days!”
Zarya and I look petulantly at blondie. I am constantly pulling my long glove. Zarya, since she has been back, is not talkative; every time I cast a quick glance at her, she looks down or away.
“What now? Just open the door and jump in?” I want to turn back and hide under the bed again.
“Just walk in,” says Zarya as if inanimate object. She pretends to watch a slowly gliding bird in the sky.
“Ladies first!” Kal is opening the door that leads to the flourishing garden.
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