Page 16

Story: The Ballad of a Bard

W est didn’t come to bed that night.

She knew because the bed didn’t dip with additional weight at any point in the night, nor did the soft snoring of a male body come from the left side of the bed. Where he went instead, she had no clue. Nor did she inquire about it since he told her from the start that he didn’t spend most nights in the additional rooms in the palace.

But there was a bedside tray on the nightstand closest to her with all the food she could eat for an entire week. He didn’t leave a note, nor did she ever think him the sort to do so. A chilled cup of water with ice, a bowl of steaming porridge which could have only been brought recently considering it was still piping hot, a peach with the sweetest juice that Crimson had ever tasted and a slice of toast with marmalade slathered on it.

She ate it all.

There was no thought to save it for the next week just in case she wasn’t able to provide for her and Cobalt, no inside monologue to take it slow. It was a sweet release that she hadn’t expected to hit her so hard, and yet it did. Her waterlines burned and her nose became sniffing, her throat clogged with emotion.

When she wiped the crumbs from her hand and cleaned her mouth with the cloth napkin added to the tray, she found her satchel still by the door. It hadn’t been unpacked so it was easy for her to pull out the trousers and tunic, slipping them on in a matter of minutes before West could walk in on her mid-change. His side of the bed was perfectly made, as if it had been untouched since the moment she stepped foot into his chambers inside the palace.

Crimson buckled her boots on, and as she rose to her sitting position, she contemplated what to do with her fighting gear. It wouldn’t be the worst idea to keep a weapon of sorts on her at all times, considering she was currently in one of the most dangerous places in Tazali, according to West. With some of the most dangerous people, too. But her long knives would be recognized by anyone who’d made it down to the Pits and seen Red Lyric fight.

They weren’t an option to carry around with her.

Maybe whenever she bumped into West next, she could ask him for another blade to keep in her boot, or at her hip. She didn’t see any reason why he would refuse her.

She stood to her full height and grabbed her second bag, checking to make sure everything was still inside of it. When she was satisfied that nothing was missing from their long walk up from the Bronze Gate to the castle, she began to search around his chambers for a safe place to store it. Anyone could just walk in and see the items laying about, so it was better for all their sakes to hide them. At least for now. Perhaps later, when she was settled into this life and there was no need for the secure backup identity of Lyric, she would burn the clothes .

The knives would be something else entirely.

She wasn’t sure that she could ever rid herself of them. They were the only pieces of her father that she had left, even if she despised him. For Cobalt, she held onto them. Then it became for herself, for Red Lyric. Maybe there was a deeper part of herself tethered to the idea of her father, not the realistic image of the one she’d been given.

It was a matter for later, not now.

Crimson took in her new surroundings, gazing up at the sapphire ceiling with golden trim, the yellow curtains that fell against the double paned window. There were diamond shapes pressed into it, creating an illusion of clear crystal. She could make out another courtyard as she peered out of it, a fighting arena but not for bloody competition that ended in carnage or coins.

A training area, instead.

There were four men in the middle of it currently, and she would recognize his head of hair anywhere.

Not to mention his golden brown skin.

But she paused as she went to turn away from it, realising that there was far more than just his forearms on display.

Oh, Saints be damned.

Her lips parted as she took him and all his glory in. He was shirtless, with low hung leather pants that fit perfectly around his trimmed waist. She wasn’t that far up, so she could see everything she needed to see as she watched their bout. He was fighting with no weapons, fist to fist with another tall male that had black hair.

They circled each other and she felt drawn in as West faced her side of the building. That was even better for her, because now she could see everything.

The captain was gloriously built, and for a second she understood why he of all people, was considered a god. She hadn’t met any other than Heartache and Warrior, but neither one of them seemed to glow like he did. Though, considering he was an actual star, there was a difference to be accounted for. The sun was on his side, casting him in pale rays of light as they punched and pummelled, dodged and drifted apart. They swung and swiped, missing and hitting.

Crimson found that she could be comfortably entertained for hours, just observing from afar like this.

With that thought in mind, she told herself to stop gawking at the man who saved her and Cobalt’s life, pulling away at last as she tried to find some respect for him. She wouldn’t very well like it if he was spying on her while she was partially undressed.

Actually, she might.

Crimson mentally chidded herself for thinking that lustful way, and pushed herself to continue her search for a decent hiding spot. There were four rooms total, even if her imagination originally told her there were five. Her mind could be overactive, and then some most days.

Daydreams were a common occurrence for her.

The first room was the one they entered into originally, a small office with his items neatly organised along the shelves that began three-fourths up on the wall. His desk was massive, mahogany by the rich red-brown of it. A black chair sat behind it, with a fat back and amber legs that curled into themselves. There were a couple leather bound books on the surface, glass pens stacked in a canister and around six drawers carved into the thing.

A rug of constellations sat underneath, detailed down to the names of the star patterns accordingly with each one. There was a bookshelf near the door, filled to the brim with books on each row. West had more books than she’d ever seen in her entire life. Ones that she would no doubt peruse in the endless hours that she’d remain here for.

The second room was the bedroom, just through an archway. No door closed off any of his rooms, and she supposed he didn’t have use for it when this entire section was a blocked off apartment for him. His bed was in the center, with another rug under it. This one held the moon in different phases, all along the navy fabric in silver. His bed was blue as well. There was a platform that it was set upon, raising it off the floor a good foot or two. The grey back came up high, curling backwards in a grey pleated board.

A dresser faced it, on the wall shared with the office. Six drawers again, with a thin closet nearby that opened towards her. She rummaged through the drawers for a good place to stash her satchel, finding the top two empty. But Crimson ultimately found it too obvious to be secure.

Then there was the bathing chamber, with a strange glass square that cut off a corner. There were silver pipes that ran all inside of it, and a handle that turned upwards. Red and blue lines had been painted on either side of it, indicating a temperature, she guessed. She’d have to ask him about that particular device later.

There was no tub, but there was a wash basin that dipped low in the ivory counter and an oval mirror hung just above it. A porcelain toilet was cleverly hidden in the corner too.

The final room seemed to be a parlour of sorts.

With a large couch against the last wall, another window behind it and cream curtains this time. There was a table before it and a tall glass lamp beside it. A couple of paintings hung on the wall, and she found herself staring at his.

It made him look regal, like a King almost.

He was stoic in it, his tall back straight. He wore his captain’s uniform with the star patches on both shoulders, as well as the charcoal trousers she’d only ever seen him wear. His brown hair was almost black, but it was slicked back in a royal fashion that suited him well.

The painting was incredible.

Whoever had done it was a master at capturing him, down to his likeness. Save for one thing, his eyes. Crimson didn’t think anyone would be able to capture the churning sky he held in his gaze, but it was still him. She rotated away from it and made for the office once more. The drawers couldn’t all be full, if his dresser was any indication.

Crimson yanked at the top two, to her dismay finding them locked. The bottom three were occupied by books and papers and other supplies, but the last one seemed to hold nothing of importance inside it so she tossed her bag within and shut it.

It would do, for now.

A spider tapped its long legs in the far corner of the office, spinning a web of silk and gossamer as it observed her. She did her best to ignore the multi-legged creature, shuddering at the sight of it.

Boredom found her quite quickly as the hour passed. There wasn’t much to do in his rooms, and he had said something about a library before she fell asleep. That would saite her curious mind, well enough. With a quick glance out his office window, seeing if he was still in the courtyard with the other men. As he was, she snuck out of his apartment.

The door shut quietly behind her.

There was an entirely new world before her.

There were multiple versions of life that buzzed beautifully around the palace, the way that servants rushed by with hands full of flowers or baked goods, others with brooms and feather dusters. Soldiers dressed in crimson and black rotated past her on the way to their daily duties and finely dressed courtiers became a swarm of people. She swung past them all, avoiding becoming a hallway block as she made it to the other side, racing down the hallway. Golden railings came up on either side of the courtyard where the painting of the Saints remained, decorated with flowers of all sorts. Calla lilies and cattails along with hyacinths and orchids were all wonderfully carved into them.

This place was like a storybook coming to life.

Crimson had to remind herself to keep her mouth shut because it kept trying to fall open as she explored as much of the castle as she could without diving into trouble. No one seemed to notice her, nor comment that she was out of place here. But she wasn’t. Even some of the other girls bore hair shades similar to her own, if not more vibrant.

She loved it all.

It was all so different from her life in the slums, where brown and grey and black were the colours, with a splash of red that represented death. This was rich, alive, mesmerising. She couldn’t take her eyes off of it all. Or know where to focus them either.

“Excuse me,” Crimson found a stationary guard with a spear in his hand. “Would you be so kind as to point me towards the library?”

“Down the corridor, to your left.” He gestured her in the correct direction.

She thanked him and followed his instructions, stopping before two doors. If she thought the amount of novels in West’s chambers were massive, it was nothing compared to what awaited her when she flung open the doors and stepped inside the library.

Everywhere.

There were books, everywhere.

Which she should have expected, as this was a library. But this was a proper library, not the tiny one below the Bronze Gate that was a single room of literature. She was always welcomed to borrow them as long as she returned them, and Crimson had read every book the man who ran the shoppe had to offer her.

She wouldn’t be able to get through this in her lifespan, even if it was prolonged.

Here would be a good place to start searching for Heartache. To see if she could find any paragraphs that contained information about his whereabouts, or where he might have gone. The Saints had been around for centuries, there had to be research available to her here of all places.

If there wasn’t, then there wouldn’t be anywhere.

Crimson began at the first shelf, scanning the spines for any bit of the title that could indicate the topic of Saints. The first three shelves held nothing but books regarding food and recipes. The fourth and fifth were about gardening and florals, and the sixth held information about animals.

It took her two full hours before she even found things within the realm of possibility regarding Saints and their immortal habits. Within the very back corner of the room, there was a dusty shelf that looked as though no one had ever touched it. Each tome was covered in a thin layer of dust particles which led her to cough as she started to pull them out, one by one.

Still, she found nothing.

These were all fairytales, legends, myths. They didn’t contain anything actually real concerning the Saints. Not even the name of a single one. Then she spotted a rather fat book, at the very end of the shelf. One that held the word Saints in the title.

Crimson pulled it out with a grunt as the weight slammed into her. There was a podium nearby for reading, and she angled the massive thing towards it. When she set it down, a plume of dust followed. She swatted her hand back and forth to clear the air before grabbing the cover and splitting the book in half.

The Six Saints of Hisaith

By Rapscallion Voss