Assad got out of the car next, wanting to get a closer look at the very weird mansion that was before them. He then looked behind him, the setting is good for an abandoned mansion.
The forest looked dead itself but the strange part was the annoying feeling that he was getting.
"This place isn't abandoned," Assad said softly.
Shuren moved forward without hesitation. Her boots crunched softly on gravel unused for years. Her head cocked to one side, she considered the structure with the same detached interest she reserved for battlefields and the dead.
"Who knows, maybe it's trying to make you believe that it isn't." Shuren said.
Taura switched off the engine.
The ensuing silence was immediate, total, and profound, so thick with stillness that Mya became intensely aware of her own breathing. She tried to control her breathing, her fingers digging into her sleeves.
"Eveyone be on your guard, we do not have a clue on what we are dealing with here."
Taura immediately nodded, preparing herself for whatever is about to come rushing at her. Mya was behind the shaking because the atmosphere was too much for her, wanting to run away.
Assad, still confused, didn't answer and only watched. Shuren was the first to enter the yard, her gun was in hand and ready to fire whenever danger erupts. Taura entered next and was followed by Assad. Mya was too scared to move so she just stood there.
"This is very creepy if you ask me." Taura randomly blared out.
"Are you seriously stating the obvious right now?" Assad asked.
"Shut up!"
Shuren took three steps forward before noticing. She shifted slightly and gazed back over her shoulder. Taura was stationed by the driver's side, her hand close to her blaster, her stance tense and ready.
Assad stood near the rear of the vehicle, his eyes tracing the tops of the upper windows, his jaw resolute. Mya, however, hadn't moved at all. She was still standing next to the open door, her hand gripping the frame with such force that her knuckles turned pale.
Her eyes were focused on the mansion, her gaze wide and glassy, her breathing shallow and irregular, as if the mansion had reached into her chest, its hands closing around her lungs.
Shuren looked at her for a moment.
"…Mya," she said.
Shuren clicked her tongue lightly and blew out through her nose. The bridge of her nose was pinched, and irritation flared across her face before being buried beneath her composure.
"So that's how it is."
She fully turned back towards the car.
Mya flinched, as if the word itself had struck her.
Shuren's eyes moved on to Taura. "You're on the perimeter. Watch the windows and the tree line. If anything moves that shouldn't, you act."
Taura nodded once. "Understood."
Her gaze then fell upon Assad.
"You do not follow me inside."" Shuren continued, already walking again,
Assad stiffened. "What? You can't be serious—"
"That wasn't a suggestion,you guard the outside. Both of you. If I don't come back out you leave."Shuren cut in without slowing.
She stood still at the threshold of the door.
Assad's lips drew in. "You expect us to simply—"
"Yes."
Shuren's foot had hardly touched the floor before she froze.
Her eyes widened.
She saw the interior of the mansion in its quiet and overwhelming splendor. She saw polished marble floors stretching out before her, uncracked and gleaming in the soft light of the recessed lighting.
There were tall pillars at the entrance hall, carved with detailed and archaic designs, and these were pristine, untainted by the passage of time. There were also crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling, each one refracting light as if breaking into a kaleidoscope on the walls.
It was… beautiful.
Not in an overdone and gaudy way, but rather in a way that a mansion ought to have.
Shuren blinked once, then twice.
"…
Her boots rang out clearly as she moved forward, the sound crisp in the perfect silence. Even the air seemed changed, warm and aromatic, scented with wood and a light floral bouquet.
Her eyes darted back to the doors she had just passed through.
Ugly on the outside. Rotting stone. Broken windows. Crawling ivy. A corpse of a building.
And this?
This was a palace.
'So that's the trick'
"Luxury behind a corpse. Figures," she muttered under her breath.
His voice was quiet, but it cut through the air-threaded through the mansion like some kind of summons sewn into the very walls.
A moment later, the door behind him swung silently open.
Mischa came in with her steps neat and measured, stopping well away from them. She bowed to her waist, one hand over her chest, her face composed and inscrutable.
"You called, Young Master?"
Smiling, Zheng Yan leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled loosely in front of him.
"We have a guest," he said lightly.
Mischa's eyes flickered—just
"A guest… here?" She said this, although her voice was still steady.
"Yes." His eyes have sharpened, sparkling with intereset. "And not an ordinary one."
He was cocking his head on one side to listen with something far more finely tuned than his ears.
"Make sure she feels… welcome."
Mischa understood immediately. Again, she bowed, slightly lower this time.
"Naturally, Young Master. I will treat our guest very well."
Zheng Yan's smile grew even wider.
"Good. After all…It would be rude to let her wander my home alone."