CHAPTER FOUR

Old and probably a thousand years old, the chamberlain, Nireya, crept up the long flight of stairs with a tray of food and some woolen blankets in her hands.

"These broken knees!" She hissed at the aching cramps in her shaky knee joints, her labored breaths echoing in the empty space, spoiling her attempt of entering the slave girl's room unseen but the guards could hear her panting a few feet away.

At last, she made it to the top. "Good evening Rynth," she said to the guard by the right, "Welum," she turned to the guard by the left, knowing every member of the palace by name.

They nodded at her greetings but as she shifted toward the room of the slave girl, they crossed their spears at the entry. "The king forbade anyone from entering this room," Welum spoke.

"You know, seeing me is like seeing the king," Nireya laughed, nudging Welum with the tray in her hands. "Come on, I'm basically like he's mother."

"It's the king's order." Rynth reinforced their stance.

"And what will the king do when he finds out the girl in there died of starvation?" Nireya's fearful tone sparked concern in them as they slowly glanced at each other. "I will only be in there for a minute."

Succumbing to the old woman's pressure and act, they nodded in approval and withdrew their spears, letting her in.

"Thank you, my dear. I will specially ask the maidservants to add an extra portion for your dinner." She chuckled.

After drifting in and out of consciousness for the nth time that day, the slave girl sat on the cold floor, trying to break off the chains on her legs with the edge of the bed, but neither the bed frame nor the chains would cave in.

Immediately her somber blue gaze sighted Nireya at the door, she scuttled on her buttocks, hiding into a corner behind a wall.

"Shhh, it's okay," Nireya set the tray and woolen blanket on the bed. "I won't hurt you." she showed her empty palms.

The girl jutted her head, eyes darting to the aroma from the tray, her mouth salivating from hunger. Nireya caught her stare and carefully placed the tray of food between them.

"Here, take a sip." She offered the girl a glass of water which she took with shaky haste and gulped the contents at once till the glass emptied.

"You were really thirsty," Nireya came closer and poured more water into the glass from a jug. "Oh, you poor soul." She pressed a hand to her chest as the girl drank everything in one gulp again.

The girl began digging her fingers into the food, ignoring the cutlery on the side as she pieced apart the roasted fish and sauced bread, chewing with her mouth filled.

"My name is Nireya, what is yours?"

Lifting the jug to the glass, the girl refilled her water and took a sip to wash down her throat. Despite being a slave, it was obvious to Nireya that she wasn't an uncultured savage.

"E—" the words failed to make it out of her mouth. "E—" she tried again and failed. When she couldn't articulate any further, the girl grabbed the old woman's hand and inscribed on her palm.

"Elira." Nireya enunciated her scribbles and the girl nodded, a bright smile on her face which slowly downturned into a frown as she broke into a shuddering sob.

Elira couldn't remember the last time she was called by her name, even her own name sounded foreign to her ears, yet the only familiar memory in her heart.

"Oh, please don't cry." Nireya wrapped her in the warm woolen quilt. "Or else King Kaelric will be upset if he hears you."

"King—" She looked at the old woman, her brows knotted in confusion.

"Yes, the Dragon King." Nireya nodded. "Tall, iron armor, black long hair, glares at anything in his way."

Elira strained to make out a face in her disoriented mind but she couldn't. Throughout the journey, her view was obstructed by her untamed hair, eyesight was blurred with starvation.

"Elira, where are you from?" Nireya asked and the girl shook her head. "You don't remember?" Her intonation ignited an unsettling fear in Elira.

She hugged her knees to her chest, folding into a fragile frame as silver tears streamed down her dusty face once more, her incoherent mumblings returning to her lips.

"What about your markings?" Nireya pointed at the unusual sigils on her arms and legs but Elira said nothing, her lips moving without words, eyes staring into the distance.

Within her subconscious, Elira tore arwy the insides of her mind, trying to recall who she was and where she lived before being sold to the goblin.

Where were her people? Were they searching the mountains and seas for her? Why was she sold to the globin? And most of all, why can't she remember anything?

"It's okay not to remember everything at once." Nireya inched backward and finally let her be, taking away the tray. "Just get some rest," She said and Elira dropped her body to the cold floor, shrouding the quilt around herself.

"Maybe try the bed." The woman said more like a question than a statement but Elira remained on the floor, Nireya's suggestion falling on deaf ears.

She was convinced the girl must've lived a rough life where she didn't leap blindly into the sweetness of comfort but faced survival in harsher ways.

For Elira, the cold floor carried a certain calm, binding her soul to the earth a wistful feeling she wished would trace her memory back to her origin.

As Nireya walked toward the door, she glanced over her shoulder at the poor girl. For almost a thousand years, she had never come across a being more peculiar than Elira.

It wasn't because of her unusual silver tears, sapphire blue eyes, or the markings on her skin—the aura Nireya sensed was beyond the surface of the timid, frail slave girl.

She couldn't understand it but she feared Elira would be the final collapse of Arkenholt.