45 New Home

Brightise was given a small room, a clean set of clothes and a new pair of shoes. Her room was practically a shed, and she was instructed not to leave it until the Queen summoned her again, but she thought that was fair. The Queen considered her a fire hazard after all.

Brightise put on her new clothes, which included a leather vest and a pair of short cotton trousers, and laced up her sparkling new sandals. This was not the kind of shoes farmers in Paldagor were used to wearing, but she was not about to complain. She would just have to get used to them.

When it became evident that she had gotten dressed in vain and the Queen was not going to call for her in the middle of the night, Brightise untied her shoes and lay down on the plain bed. She tried to sleep the rest of the night off, but she was not able to. She was too restless to even close her eyes. Whenever she did, pictures of Clober crying in the nursery and asking for her older sisters popped up in her mind.

She wondered how her sister was really faring in that new environment. Mother seemed like a caring, if not a little strict person, but Clober was not used to being alone with strangers. It was an unsettling thought that these strangers would gradually become her new family. Brightise had executed the first part of her plan successfully, so her sister would be able to stay there for as long as she needed, but no one, not even Brightise, knew how long that would be.

The only upside was that she would be there with Clober during the first few months and make her adaptation easier.

She had to tell Mother what kind of food Clober would not eat, what pet peeves she had, what song put her to sleep right away, and most importantly, what her sister could do just by using her bare hands and some willpower.

Maybe she should have told her already. What if there was a fire lit in the nursery? The Queen might have been generous this time, but who knew how she would react if a baby Amazon cried too loudly at night and Clober produced enough smoke to silence her forever?

Wouldn't it be funny if they were executed within 24 fours of arriving at the Amazon Camp?

No. No, it wouldn't.

Brightise jumped out of bed, put on her sandals hastily and slipped out of the room quietly.

The stone hallway outside was deserted, but she still tried to make as little noise as possible. She had no idea where the nursery was, but if she failed to find it, she would just go back to the throne room. Maybe the Queen would be mad that she disobeyed her, but Brightise thought she had a good enough reason to do so.

She had been too happy about the Queen's decision earlier to interrupt when she had been ordered to follow another Amazon to her new room. Plus, she had already indirectly told the Queen that Clober was fireproof, so the fact that she could also manipulate smoke had been just a little detail shoved to the back of her mind.

Brightise stepped carefully on her tiptoes down the hallway, stopping only once to look at the moon out of a big window. It was a light blue color, an innocent color that meant nothing for her or any member of her family. It was when the moon turned red that things would start to go bad.

Brightise had to get Morral back before that happened.

Suddenly, a hand reached out of the dark and grabbed the back of her neck.

Brightise yelped in surprise and tried to turn around, but the hand held her there, so her eyes were fixed on the picture of the pale blue moon.

"Stay still," a voice ordered her in a whisper.