CH 1, An Unexpected "Change"
Kalina woke with a start, a light breeze drifting across her through the blue hangings of her bed. She was breathing heavily, and trembling. What had woken her? Her dream? Or something else? She lay quiet for a while listening to her rooms, trying to discern if anything was in them. She heard nothing.
She began shivering more, to her discomfort, and she rose out of bed, tying back the curtain to her four-poster bed. Grabbing her robe where she had tossed it in a chair, she wrapped the thick wool around her and tucked her arms into the long sleeves. She made her way to the end of the room, where the fire that had been burning when she retired was now smoking embers. No wonder she had gotten cold. With winter coming, the autumn nights were chilly and cool, especially high up in the mountains around the dragonlord Keep.
She knelt on the cold stone floor before the hearth, and picked up kindling. She sat it on the still glowing embers and blew on them until they caught, then added gradually larger kindling until the fire was once again well established. Then she sat back, wrapping her arms around her knees and soaking up the warmth that soon spread from the burning wood.
When she felt warm enough, she got up and went to the open door that led out to her stone balcony. Not even the dragonlords of the Keep knew when this enormous castle had been built, but they knew that whoever had had built it well. Many millennia had gone by here with the dragonlords residing within, and still the high stonewalls stood.
She reached the waist high railing that kept people from falling off the edge. The terrace went all the way to the sheer drop of the cliffs, and unwary walkers would have found themselves falling more than a thousand feet.
Kalina looked up and saw the moon, full and surrounded by twinkling stars and thin, wispy clouds that reflected the light cast by the moon. The rest of the moonlight cascaded down around the mountains, making their perpetually snow covered peaks sparkle in the night.
A brisk wind blew up, making her shiver, and it brought back to mind what had woken her up. She didn't want to dwell on the dream, at least not right now. The dream had been recurring for months now, always the same, never changing. Nothing in it was dangerous, it seemed an altogether peaceful dream, but what nagged at her was the fact that she could never remember the face of the man within it. All she knew was that his voice was deep and musical when he laughed, and that his hair was long and yellow. The laughter was the only time he made any sound. In the rest of the dream, he was silent.
The breeze kicked harder, and she shivered more. Wrapping her arms around her and turning quickly, she hurried back inside. The breeze halted once she got inside and closed the doors. They were made entirely of glass, and so the wind was stopped but not the moon and starlight.
Kalina went back to the hearth and built it up again so that it would burn until morning, then she went back to her bed, removing and hanging the robe on its original chair, tucking herself in, and untying and closing the curtains. The curtains were a deep, sapphire blue in color, but had been woven so thinly that the moon and pinpricks of stars could be seen through them, and she was cast in a deep bluish glow.
She lay there silently for a while, thinking of nothing, until she could barely keep her eyes open. She rolled over on her side and pulled the covers around her more tightly, and drifted off to sleep……
She woke the next morning in a pale glow of light. The sun was not yet risen, but its light could be seen out the window. Kalina wondered. Her room faced the west, not the east. Why was the sun suddenly rising in her western window? She was certain that it was sunrise, for the sky was getting lighter, not darker.
She got up and went to the door of her room, to find that the door was locked. She pulled on it several times, eventually pulling so hard that she got yanked back and hit her shoulder rather hard. She decided to let it be.
Rubbing the slightly paining shoulder, she went to the window and looked out, only to gasp in surprise. Where her balcony had usually ended abruptly with the stone cliff, now a rolling meadow of bright green grass ran down to a patch of trees far in the distance. What had happened to her stone dropoff?
She exited the room, not noticing that her clothes had instantly changed from her nightgown to a deep brown day dress. She didn't notice she was barefoot either, until she stepped over the railing at the end of the terrace and into the grass, which was cool and wet from the morning dew.
She took a few steps forward, then looked back behind her only to see that her terrace and room had disappeared. She was now standing alone in the middle of a damp, grassy field. The grass stretched forever in all directions as far as she could see, except for that one speck in the distance of trees. Making up her mind, she began walking towards the faraway stretch of woods.
Soon, the bright green grass became mixed with spring lavender. Spring? Wasn't it going onto winter now? She pushed the question out of her mind and continued walking, the scent of the flowers engulfing her nose. The sun was now about halfway risen through the thin curtain of trees.
She reached the trees, a mixture of forest birch, oak and ash. She strained her ears, and heard trickling water in the distance.
Suddenly, a deep laugh sounded from in the trees. She turned her head towards it, and saw a glimpse of gold as someone or something rushed away from her and into the trees. Kalina hiked up her skirts and raced after it. Every few moments, she would hear another laugh, and catch another flash of gold. The sound of flowing water was getting louder. As she got closer, she saw that the flashes were long untied lengths of blonde hair as it caught the morning light.
Soon, she saw whoever it was jump across a stream, and duck behind a wide oak. Gathering her skirts even higher, Kalina took a flying leap over the stream and landed with a thud on the dead leaf litter. She dropped her skirts, walking over to the oak tree. She quieted down as she approached, making little noise.
"Aha!" she said, and she stepped around the tree, only to be greeted by empty air. She looked all around the tree, seeing no golden glint. She walked around it several times, ending up where she had started. Where had he gone?
The deep, musical laugh floated to her from above. She looked up, seeing him standing on a branch a good seventy hands in the air. The sun silhouetted him, and his face was in shadow, surrounded by his thin blonde hair, glowing with the sunlight behind him. With another laugh, he jumped from the tree.
Kalina gasped as he came down, jumping to get out of his way. He landed silently, and she tried to get a better look at his face. Usually he just ran away…
This time was different. He took a few steps closer to her, and she made out his pale face, made even more beautiful by bright, ice blue eyes. His hair was pale golden, haloed by the newly risen sun. He stepped forward silently, his gaze not leaving her. He stopped before her, inches away, lifting his hand and caressing her face with it, his thumb gently stroking her cheek.
Kalina felt lost in the depths of his eyes, the wisdom and knowledge that resided within them. The sun grew brighter behind him, until all the air around them was glowing so brightly that she couldn't see anything but him. Soon, the light brightened even more, and swallowed him.
With a jerk, she woke. The sun was shining ceaselessly in her window.
He awoke, slowly. What had caused him such? He sat up in his bed, eyeing the familiar contours of his quarters. The thin woven quilt that had covered him slid down about his waist, and he pulled it further and stepped out of the huge carved oak bed. He wore only a pair of soft black breeches, those in which he usually slept. He took a long tunic off a hook by the still burning hearth and put it around him as he walked towards the large glass encased archway. When he looked through it, he gasped.
Where the usual veranda had sloped down to a meadow of gentle green, now a dark stone terrace went out several feet before dropping off in a abrupt cliff. Maybe a thousand feet over, he could see a rock wall jutting upslightly higher than the one he was on. Beyond it, higher mountains glittered in the moonlight. These were not the mountains of his home.What had happened to his room? He whipped around, again surveying his surroundings. Yes, they were the same…… his mind whirled. There was no sense in going to the terrace. It was a dead end drop-off.
He heard a sound again, coming from the other side of his door. He walked towards it, opening the door with sweat-dampened hands. Where was he?
As soon as he opened the door, he heard the voice again, distinctly female, calling his name. It had a musical note to it, almost like a melody. He stepped out into the hallway, and looked around him in wonder. The hall was made entirely of cobbled stone, going two directions for seemingly forever. It was lit every few feet by burning torches held up in niches along the wall.
He had a sudden feeling of uneasiness, and turned back round to go back into his room, only to find a blank stone wall. He ran his hands up and down, trying to find purchase, but could find nothing. the wall remained silently blank and solid.
The voice called his name again, and he turned in the direction from which it had come. For no reason he could understand, he began to follow it.
He had gone by many torches before he heard the voice again, and this time he caught a deep flash of light, like silver, at the farthest visible torch. It made his feet pick up pace. The torches became closer and closer together, and the voice and flashes of light camemore and more often. Eventually, he saw a figure ahead of him, dressed in deep black, and dark hair that reflected the torchlight.
He kept following faster and faster, and was nearly upon her when she suddenly ducked into the wall. Into the wall? He went to the spot where he had seen her go, and found an open doorway and a flight of stairs going up and curving around, also lit by torches. He followed it up. Up and up he went, round and round the winding stair until even he was getting exhausted, the woman's voice echoing every few moments, calling to him.
Suddenly, the woman appeared from around the bending stone. She stopped, looking at him. A torch lit the wall behind and above her, illuminating her dark hair with lush fiery streaks, her eyes, unlit by the flames, were deep and dark, holding wonders that he wanted to seek.
She smiled, a brilliant white smile that made her eyes sparkle. She took another step down, and he was for a moment disappointed, for the blazing halo disappeared, but the ethereal shimmer of her eyes was not lost.
She came down another step, until she was eye to eye with him even though she was two stairs above him. He noticed that she was drastically shorter, would have barely reached him chin if they'd been standing side by side.
He couldn't resist. He took a step up, until he was looking down upon her. She only looked back up at him smiling. He brought his hand up and cupped her face, and she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, bringing her hand up to cover his own.
The torches around began to sputter, and the flames began to lower. He quickly dropped his hand from her cheek and took hold of her hand, urging her to come with him down the flight of steps. She only shook her head and stood still, her smile never faltering.
He stepped back up and embraced her, and she returned the gesture. They stood there, holding one another until the torches utterly died and the darkness engulfed them both.
With a jolt, he awoke, the moonlight still playing in from his window. He looked out, pleased and yet disappointed that the rolling meadow was once again outside. He was covered in sweat, though the room did not seemwarm.He looked at the hearth, saw not even a glow of coals, and shuddered.