King of Dust

Chapter 07

"Wow, this place is tacky."

Before Urien could grab him, Yra was nothing more than a puff of smoke moving through the door. He manifested in the middle of a small foyer, which held a place to put our shoes if we wished. Somber paintings hung on the wall, of the children's parents, I assumed, next to a coat of arms. Urien stood up and sighed, walking into the house, no longer concerned with being quiet.

"Do you want to keep your mouth shut?" he demanded. "Now the entire house knows we're here."

"Oh, calm down, pricklepants," Yra retorted as he scrutinized a painting. "We're not even really inside yet. What's the plan?"

"We move through this house stealthily in order to avoid attracting attention. Yra, take front. I don't want you near Astrid."

"Hey."

"I'll be right behind you. Astrid, you're to stay behind me, and Darius, you'll take up the rear. You're the strongest of us, so if we get ambushed, they'll have another thing coming."

I considered for a moment taking off my shoes in the entryway but remembered that there would probably be murder later so reconsidered. I had only been halfway paying attention to what Urien was saying until he said my name, and I nodded, waiting for the rest of them to take the lead.

Yra opened the door into the heart of the house a little more loudly than he should have, but we all slunk into the room regardless. Once he realized the room was empty, Yra stood and moved to the fireplace, looking at a sword that hung on the wall there, glistening and polished. The entire place was dark, as if the family had just left and turned off all the lamps. Astrid stuck to me like glue and took the crook of my elbow. I could feel her shaking.

"It's all right, darling," I assured. "Nothing to be afraid of, ya?"

"It feels wrong sneaking around someone's house," she whispered. "Also, I can't see a thing. It's so dark."

With her by my side, I leisurely meandered my way to the fireplace as well. Yra, Urien, and I all had no trouble seeing in the dark. I would just have to keep her close. The mantle of the fireplace was completely free of dust. The hilt of the sword bore a phoenix, the same as the crest in the hall.

"They must really like birds," I muttered.

"Let's scope out this entire floor," Urien whispered. "We need to find the stairs to the basement. Yra, pick a door."

"This way," Yra muttered as he headed toward a spiral staircase that stretched upward into the house and the door adjacent to it.

As I turned to follow him, the wood paneling next to the stairs caught my eye. Vines, flowers, and nymphs played among their carvings, but as I squinted, I noticed snakes among them.

"Darius, you coming?"

"Certainly," I replied as I followed the group.

Yra opened a door next to the stairs, the wooden floorboards creaking underneath him as he did so. He peeked in to make sure the coast was clear, and after a moment he shook his head. "There's nothing. No stairs. It's a hunting room."

After closing the door quietly, we wandered over to a cloakroom, whose door stood open. After a quick peek inside, I found nothing, and we turned our attention instead to a door in a small alcove. Yra opened the door to the dining room. Beams of sunlight burst into the room through windows that lined the back wall and Yra and I shied away from the space, hoping to not get burnt.

"You two go ahead," I said to Urien. "Yra and I have to stay here."

"We'll be just a second," Urien replied.

I awkwardly waited in the hall with Yra while the two explored the room. I listened to their shuffling and Yra scoffed, turning away from me as if being left alone with me was the worst thing that could have ever happened to him. After only a few moments, Urien and Astrid emerged.

"There's nothing in here, either," Astrid said.

"The dining room connects around to the door that's by the fireplace out here, so no need to search that one," Urien continued.

"That means..." I muttered as we all turned to face the only other door in the alcove.

I pushed the door open to find a tidy little kitchen. The kitchen looked as though it had just been used that morning, and the coals in the oven were still hot and red from its last use. I shrugged, not seeing anything of interest and Urien ran his fingers down his goatee in frustration.

"Apparently we need to go up before we can go down," he grumbled.

"That doesn't make any sense," Yra added as we crept toward the staircase. "Maybe there's a cellar outside?"

"That is possible."

"I'll take a look," Astrid offered.

A smile flickered at the corner of my mouth. I found it charming that she always wanted to help. She was very inexperienced in magick – barely a fledgling mage – but she was invested in being a team player. I was very glad that she had decided to come along with me and could not have asked for a better travel companion. I played with the heart-shaped amulet around my neck and watched her hips as she walked away from us. My heart skipped a beat, but I shook the feeling away. Maybe Yra was right.

We hung back in the house as she went to exit the front door through the foyer, but when she opened it, we all spun at the sound of absolute nothingness. No birds. No insects. Just silence. The light that entered the house through the front door shone blue and cold, as if coming through snow. A wall of fog filled the entryway and my nose scrunched in irritation.

"Great," Urien huffed. "Looks like we can't leave until we get rid of... whatever it is."

Astrid stepped forward to run her hands into the mist.

"Don't touch it!" I yelled. I stepped, my form becoming smoke, to her side and pulled her wrist back. She jumped in fright, and I closed the front door. "That's old magick. One I used long ago to keep commoners from wandering out of Starkovia. I don't know how it's possible that... that whoever is in this house has access to it."

"Would you be able to break the spell? If it's similar magick?" Urien joined us by the door.

I shook my head and closed the door to the front of the house. "I can only make the fog, not take it away. That power was bestowed upon me by a dark force and is not really in my control. Clara's spirit was the one who removed the mists I placed around Starkovia when her ghost left this world weeks ago."

"Seems like she's got you beat on every front," Yra scoffed.

"Shit." Urien put two fingers to the bridge of his nose and motioned toward the stairs. "Up the stairs it is, then."

The four of us climbed the stairs into a beautiful hall. Astrid looked around in the darkness, unable to see, and I held her close as we stood in the inky blackness. As we stood on the landing, a cold draft blew from somewhere above, coming from higher up the stairs. Astrid shivered, and I wandered over to one of the sets of double doors in the hall. Dancing figures graced the carvings, and I turned to look further about the room, when something caught my eye. The figures weren't dancing. Bats. They were fighting off swarms of bats.

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