The Dragon Knight; The Secrets of the Desert

The Secrets of the Desert (Chapter 19)

The house was dainty looking. It was a little wooden cabin and almost none of the walls were straight, curving and bending as they turned from one room into another, but also as they went up to the ceiling. When we entered, we found ourselves in a small kitchen with a small round wooden table in the middle of it. Around it stood four mismatched chairs, three of which occupied by stacks of books. There stood pots with flowers and herbs everywhere.

Under the window, which was wide open, stood a big cauldron on a fire. Smoke rose up from it, changing color every so often, slipping outside through the window. Whatever was boiling in it smelt nice and sweet, though I doubted that it was the tea. I could make out a bed in other room, covered with a colorful, flower patterned quill. And on the other side of the room was what looked like a mix between a library and a living room.

“Sorry about the mess,” Sloane apologized. “I’m not used to visitors. Put the books wherever you can, I just have to finish this real quick before it boils too long and explodes. Clean up and rebuilding after a potion exploded is the worst.”

She pushed her black hair behind her shoulder as she approached the cauldron, putting a spoon into it, she stirred a bit, whispering words. She reached out without looking up, plucked some leaves of a plant and threw them into the mixture. Then she took a watering can and added water to the contents. She snapped her fingers, the fire underneath burning lower. Turning around, there was a content smile of her face.

“Oh right, tea,” Sloane remembered.

I pulled out a chair, removing the books and putting them on the table. Robin had already sat down and Caden too, both keeping an eye either on the boiling cauldron or the magician.  She moved around the mess with ease, finding four cups amongst everything with no difficulty. As she put the cups down, Robin took his and smelled, looking delighted.

“Smells like home,” he explained with a grin when he saw me looking.

“Quite possible. A friend brought me back a few ingredients from the Elfique Forest; these nifty little flowers were amongst them,” Sloane explained, holding up a bunch of pink and purple flowers. “Although they aren’t useful for potions, I found they make a best tea.”

“Your friend must like you, those flowers are hard to find in most parts of the Forest. Where I used to live they grew more abundantly, but only during certain time of the year,” Robin said, taking a sip.

“Do they now,” Sloane muttered, sounding intrigued by the idea. She hopped onto the counter, pushing over a stack of books, but she barely noticed.

“Excuse me, miss Sloane, but you said you had information for us about the prophecy,” Caden stated hesitantly after a few moments of silence. She looked up from her tea at the Dragon Knight and stared intently at him. She took him in, not hiding the fact that she seemed intrigued by him.

Then she jumped off the counter and disappeared into the adjuring room filled with books and other little things that I would never know what to use them for. When she came back, she was holding a big book that seemed to weight a ton. Immediately Caden got up and went over to take it from her. 

“Thank you, just put it on the table,” she muttered, a faint blush coloring her cheeks.

As he took a step back, she opened the book right in the middle and from there one started browsing through the pages toward the back. Occasionally she paused to flip her dark hair back and went back to the book. Although I had no idea what she was looking for, she seemed to know exactly where she needed to be.

“For months now I have been having dreams and nightmares; I guess visions would be a more appropriate word for it,” She started, barely looking up. “I’m not fond of visions, and most of the time I don’t make any use of them. But because I kept seeing you over and over again,” Sloane looked up at me and then to Robin, “And you, I figured there ought to be a link between it all. At first I only saw mountains and forests, but then the Desert got mixed into it and I decided to contact King Brant.”