POV. Kai.
The fever did not let me sleep.
My sheets were silk, my pillows soft as tamed clouds, but my mind was a roaring swarm. The heat rose up the back of my neck and turned my chest. Something was not right. I was sweating as if someone had lit a fire in my stomach.
I got out of bed only to toss and turn in the room.
And just then, an explosion.
The ground shook under my bare feet. The window vibrated. Outside, an orange flash illuminated the darkness as if the sun itself had decided to move into the winter garden.
The winter garden... The cabin.
"The sorcerer!"
I ran without shoes or cape. My nightgown fluttered as if I were going to star in a tragedy.
Where are the guards?
I went through the corridor and pushed the doors with the force of adrenaline. It smelled of gunpowder, withered flowers and... Burnt flesh?
"ARCHIE!" I shouted.
A cloud of smoke enveloped me. I coughed. Out of the mist emerged a hunched figure, stained with soot and with crooked glasses, hands trembling and hair as if he had fought with lightning and lost.
There were crystals everywhere, a greenish liquid dripping from the ceiling and an amorphous creature screeching inside a jar.
"Were you trying to commit suicide or are you just crazy!?"
Damn, I never thought my sister was right.
"No!" No, your majesty! It wasn't intentional! Was... it was an accident. The merchant brought me such rare ingredients... so pure... I dreamed of using them. I didn't know how! Not at all!
I looked around. Broken jars. A petrified rat. A book on fire. A headless chicken running in circles.
Then he says that it is not witchcraft.
I crossed my arms, taking a deep breath so as not to scream. My chest still beating.
"So you use my hospitality as a testing ground?" I snapped. Don't you take the health of my people seriously? Not my position?
Archie cringed. Literally. As if his bones had given up.
"No, no, no, your majesty," he stammered, as if he could speak to himself back to sanity. Is... that's what I do. I study. I experiment.
Buffet. I walked through the rubble.
"What kind of sorcerer blows up his own lab with a poorly made potion?"
He blushed under the layer of ash.
"I'm not a sorcerer... just an alchemist. From an ignorant town, where they stoned me for reading. I don't know about magic.
That made me laugh. I couldn't help it.
"And where did the rumors come from?" I asked laughing, because they were as theatrical as they were tragic. The demons? The eclipse? The visions with horns and tails? Is it true that you spoke to a naked angel in a wheat field?
"No... "It's absolutely true." I didn't take my attention off him. I was with a man in the wheat fields, but he was not an angel...
The image rolled through my mind and the conclusion was clear.
"The tongue of the villagers is longer than the parchments of the library," he answered. I only know how to read where others see witchcraft.
I laughed. Not out of mockery, but because those kinds of responses were better and, at the same time, worse than I expected.
"This will be a problem," I murmured, looking over the mess with a crooked smile. Everyone in the court fears you. They think you have with demons. This is going to disappoint them a lot.
I took a step closer.
Archie swallowed. I could hear it.
His glasses reflected my face: pale, bright with fever.
I straightened my back, looking at him from my height (which I discovered, with annoyance, was not much more than his).
I leaned over, lowering my voice.
"I'd like that to stay between us.
"Like a secret?" he asked, clenching his hands. Nervous. Tense with fear... or for me?
Interesting.
Do I make him nervous?
How much will my presence disturb you?
"Yes. It will be the first of our secrets.
I bowed barely. Enough for my breath to graze his neck.
"And if you ever decide to make another explosion," I whispered, "let it be in my presence." I'd be happy to help detonate you.
His throat swallowed hard so hard that I heard it over the crackle of a still-bubbling jar.
And though his face was still covered in ash, I could swear he was blushing again.
Archie was fascinating.
"Now clean all this," I said, turning around, leaving the laboratory in smoke, ashes... and a smile that I couldn't get off my face.
And for the first time in days, I felt clear. Alive. Intrigued.
Very intrigued.