//Chapter 27//
1208 Words
"In three hours?!" I asked. "And you are telling me now? Why didn't you tell me later, like a minute or a second before the audience?"
"Well, Savin insisted that you should rest before anything else, so I figured I would tell you in the morning. Since the sun is rising, this is pretty much morning."
"It is." I could see the mansion now. "You should go back. I can walk from here."
"Why? You don't want to be seen with me?" He asked. His face seriously looked like bracing for a blow from me.
"Oh, you and your stupid insecurities. You are my brother. Why wouldn't I want to be seen with you?" I shook my head at him. "As much as I appreciate the Drakens, I don't want them to know everything about me. I have my stupid insecurities too."
We didn't have to explain it to each other. With everything that happened, I had developed major trust issues. Resh still carried his childhood trauma with him. Perhaps one day, we would heal. But for now, I was willing to share my life with him. It was not because of him being my long lost brother or blood running thicker than water. I could understand what he was going thorough, and same went for him. That mutual understanding bonded us together.
"Go ahead." He said, stopping on his tracks all of a sudden. "I'll wait till you get inside."
I nodded at him before walking towards the mansion. I could feel his eyes following me along the way. I smiled to myself. It was nice to have a overprotective older brother.
The gates were open when I got to the mansion. The guards smiled at me. I had told them that I was going on for a walk before using my magic to find Savin. I went inside the mansion, giving them a smile in return.
"Sumi! You are really alive!"
I looked back. Someone was coming to the mansion. I squinted a little against the morning sunlight, which fell directly in to my eyes. It was Kahlee.
I waited for her. She was carrying something with her, which looked like five or six bottles, joined by a rope to make them easy to carry. As she came closer, I realised that they were indeed blackened glass bottles.
"You have grown tall." I noticed. She was only a little shorter than me before, but now she reached my shoulders. Her face still had baby fat, but she looked more older than Kylan somehow, though they were twins.
"Of course." Kahlee said. "I thought you would look more dead from the way others talked about you."
"Ha ha." I fake laughed. This girl certainly had a sharp toungue. "The prison was not that bad. I had a place to shower and had a meal to eat. It's designed to keep us alive, not to starve and kill us."
"That's not what I meant." She said, walking with me to the front door. "Everyone thought you were dead. Even Crown Prince thought you were killed by someone named Nave. When we got the news of you being alive, we thought it was a lie. I thought it was a lie."
"Oh." I said. I wanted to change the subject. I didn't want to think about Daniel and how he ordered to kill me. "What are you carrying?"
If she noticed my little tactic to change the subject, she didn't push it. "Blood. I went hunting."
"Huh." I stared at her. Did she just casually say that?
"Oh, right. I forgot. You don't drink blood like Crown Prince." She lifted the bottles to my face. There were six of them. "These are the best type of glass to harvest blood. Some nutrients break under the sunlight. These Perr glasses protect them from that. Perr is hard to mine, so these bottles are expensive." She brought them back down, adjusting the rope to make them balanced.
"That's... awesome." I said. We weren't inside the mansion yet, standing in the threshold, talking about blood. Well, if it was her passion, I guess I was not going to judge. I still liked her very much.
"Let's sit." She gestured to the chairs. The mansion had white walls inside and out, but there were windows here, unlike in the palace. There was one glass light up above in the roof, which worked as a natural resource of light. Walls were bare with no decorations at all.
I sat down on the cabriole. Kahlee sat beside me, setting the bottles down beside her. I guessed she was not worried about blood stains getting on the cushion. "This is deri blood." She said, gesturing to the bottles. "Deris are my favourite. Naeoh like Coucuminies. Kylan doesn't have a favourite. He takes everything." She rolled her eyes. "First, we have to gather the blood in to disinfected Perr bottles while they are alive. Dead blood tastes awful. Don't try that." She stared at me seriously. I nodded. "Then we take them, place them inside ice chambers. Then we are ready to go. One Deri can give up to six bottles and still live. Coucuminies aren't that much useful."
"So you don't kill them?" I asked. Deri was a large animal, with a horn on the back of its head, bending past the forhead. They had a gray snout, and was short and flat, taking up too much space. On the other hand, Coucuminies were tall, with skinny legs supporting their large bodies. They often lost balance on the floor, so they preferred to stay on trees.
"No, of course not." Kahlee said. "That would make the food sources die in mere months. Some keep farms, but Drakens like to hunt."
I sighed. "That's good. I get that you are a skilled hunter." I threw a pointed look at the bottles.
"Yup. I'm better than Kylan."
"I was actually thinking about training with him," I said. "From today on. I need to be as strong as I can. I may have to fight a war against Rawen."
I waited cor her to question me, but she looked enthusiastic. "I can train with you too." She said, throwing her arms around me. I was worried for the bottles, but they somehow managed to stand straight without her support. I hugged her back after letting out a sigh of relief.
Enhla entered to the mansion and looked surprised to see us awake at this early. She bowed at us. "My lady, you have returned." She said to Kahlee.
Kahlee withdrew from me and grabbed her bottles. "Yeah. I'm going to put these away now. See you later." She told me. I stared. Did they not get along together?
Enhla smiled at the ground sadly after she left. So I was right. They were not on good terms. For some reason, I felt like I should mind my own business this time, instead of asking questions.
Enhla gained her composure in less than a second, her genuine sad smile replacing with a forceful cheerfulness. "My lady, let's get you ready. We have an audience with the king."
I got up and let her take me away to the bathing chambers.
- Writer
