Shrouded in the dark blue hues of the evening, the city appeared lifeless and forgotten. There was not a single person to be seen, no lights seeping out from the buildings.
"What happened here?" Alyssane asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyes never leaving the desolate streets below.
The knight heard her, "Lockdown. There have been... disturbances."
"Disturbances?" Alyssane turned to look at him, her eyes wide with disbelief. "What kind of disturbances could empty an entire city?"
"Not your concern," he dryly replied, his face betraying nothing.
Alyssane felt a surge of frustration. But in the end, she was just a prisoner kept inside a golden cage. Guilty until proven innocence. It would be foolish for her to argue here.
"May I ask your name?" She tried to change the subject.
The knight's eyes narrowed, "Luke."
"I am Alyssane," she offered a polite smile, before glancing outside the windows again.
Luke did not say anything more.
He remained guarded inside the room though. For a few hours, then he left and returned in between. Although Alyssane felt wary about starting a conversation with him, he made it clear she must not even dare to escape.
Because Luke would always be around.
And if he finds out she was misbehaving, he will make sure Lord Kazmun learns of it too, and if he did she would not be able to bear his fury.
"Got it," Alyssane nodded sincerely.
But Kazmun was not even in the tavern that night. Nor was he there the day after, or the day after that. The knights all appeared intimidating, but none of them stuck out to be worse than what Alyssane had to deal with in the past.
Several guards of the Pearl Manor came from criminal and violent backgrounds, they reveled in causing pain and scheming ways of torturing the slaves.
With no one to answer her questions, how could Alyssane remain at peace? Her fate was undecided, and now, even the fate of the city she was in seemed dark.
Alyssane soon found out that the city was not abandoned, there would be some people here and there during the bright hours. But as soon as the evening started to fall, everyone would just leave.
Why not abandon the place fully if there was some danger? And if there was some danger that only appeared after dark, why did people leave their homes as well?
On her second night at the tavern, Alyssane stuffed some pillow under the sheets and sneaked out from the window of her room.
And she nearly fell to death, because the window was too high, and the tree a little too far.
But as soon as Alyssane reached the street, she broke into a run. There could be other knights nearby, and she needed to find out what was wrong with the city. If eventually she is required to escape, she has to know about her options.
'What if there was a deathly disease? A vicious scheme?'
She decided to not go too far, but just skim through the nearby areas. 'I will return before anyone finds out!'
Escaping without a proper plan was only going to get her dragged back into confinement and suffer punishment.
Gasping for breaths, Alyssane slowed down in front of a small shop. It was the only one with its door slightly open. The windows were dusty, and it almost appeared as if no one had entered the shop in ages.
Alyssane creaked the door open, welcomed by a scent of rotting wood and old things, nothing else could be felt or seen in the darkness.
"Careful, child," an ominous voice of an old lady rasped, "These are dangerous times."
Alyssane tried to see anything but failed. She warily glanced around and asked, "Dangerous? How?"
There was a long silence.
"Curse," the old lady murmured without emotion, her voice hollow, "Everyone is cursed. Everyone is dying."
"What do you mean…?" Alyssane hesitantly walked deeper inside the shop.
The old woman said nothing. Her labored steps walked through the darkness, and a while later, she lit up a lamp. The warm glow spread and revealed the shop's aged treasures.
Alyssane gasps.
It was like being inside a pirate's vault, wherever her eyes went, there was something unusually distracting―overly ornate antiques, relics that seemed to be from another time, all lying over each other like junk.
But nothing took Alyssane back as much as the giant painting hanging in a corner.
It was of a goddess in a ferocious stance, her bare skin was black as the night. Instead of a pair of eyes, she had numerous white glaring eyes opening on her forehead,
Her hair wildly tousled down to her feet and an unsettling smile stretched on her lips.
"The Goddess with Thousand Eyes" the old lady whispered, her voice tinged with more sadness. "No one remembers her name."
The old lady was a small woman, barely reaching Alyssane's elbows as she walked there while tightly holding the lamp.
"A Goddess?" Alyssane repeated, intrigued by whatever lore was there.
"She knew everything, saw everything." The old lady said in a low voice. "Sometimes, she cursed or blessed people with her sight… her visions…"
Alyssane frowned a little, "I have never heard of her."
The old lady smiled dryly, "Of course, you haven't."
Most of the temples were destroyed in the last few wars, the ancient history crushed and its fragments selected by the kings and emperors to create new gods that better suited them.
"But there is one shrine left here," the old lady whispered to herself, "to the east… no… not there… was it the river?"
She closed her eyes and shook her head repeatedly.
"You said… visions…?" Alyssane asked slowly, as her thoughts lingered on all the things it could mean.
'What if there was more to my dreams?'
'What if I am truly going insane? And my heart is desperate to hold onto even some ancient lore if that meant denying the truth.'
The old lady grew silent once again.
Her gaze was unfocused as she stared at the image of the goddess. But then, she turned and walked towards the door and looked at Alyssane.
"Oh," Alyssane brushed off her conflicted thoughts, "I came here to ask what's wrong with the city. What happened?"
The old lady slowly frowned, and a few moments passed as the meaning of Alyssane's words dawned upon her. Her gaze was still strangely distant.
"Fire." She murmured, her lips parting to say more but they did not move.
And she did not speak again after that either, leaving the silence to settle as she held the door open.
"Very well," Alyssane sighed, "Take care."
She walked out of the door.
The old woman, on the other hand, was very still.
Her old eyes blinked heavily as if trying to fight off the daze of sleep. But then, she collapsed. Her lamp shattered on the ground, its metal shards digging through her face and neck.
Alyssane froze and a cold dread seized her soul. Her steps trembled slightly as she moved back. But before she could try to get a hold of herself, a firm hand grabbed her arm.
Startled, she looked up, and found his intense gaze staring into hers―eyes filled with a cold heat that simmered under her skin.
"Why are you always in the wrong places?"
Kazmun's gaze darkened as he lowers it to the side of her face, and slowly but roughly brushes off a drop of red.
