The three had now finished their meals.
Used glasses and bowls of ice cream waited idly on the table for
collection. Manira was using a pen to draw on a napkin. It was a sketch
of a dome with an altar in the middle; a candle was on the altar.
“There was a banner here.” Rowan pointed top right. Manira quickly sketched one in.
“There was another one here.” Kiyor
pointed to the opposite of the other one. Manira sketched a line to
show it was there, as the front could not have possibly been seen from
that angle.
“There was a shape on that banner,” said
Rowan. She held out her hand for a pen and was given Manira’s.
Rowan drew an ‘S’ with a small top curl and large bottom
one, then drew its mirrored image right next to it.
“Anything else?” asked Manira.
“There was a cross on that wall,”
answered Kiyor. He pointed to the place and Manira sketched it in.
“Well,” she said as she inspected the
sketch. “Only a Sorcerer can identify this or…”
“A Vampire,” finished Kiyor. “And
we need the answer quickly, so we’re going to see Misat.”
(Mis-sat)
“He goes by the name of Tiamisat,” corrected Manira. (Tee-am-is-sat)
Kiyor grinned. “Only someone who knew him personally would know that.”
“Who’s Tiamisat?” asked Rowan.
Kiyor looked at Manira. “You tell,” she said. “You seem to know it pretty well.”
Kiyor lowered his voice. “You know the story of Tyrain and Rasheliss?”
Rowan nodded. “They wanted to wed but neither the Vilkons nor the
Vampires could accept their relationship,” she answered.
Kiyor continued. “Well, hardly anyone knows
this part: Rasheliss was left carrying Tyrain’s child. His name
was Misat.”
Manira finished the story. “Misat came into
the Light Kingdom one day and he decided to stay, wedding a human wife.
I’m his granddaughter and he taught me how to act cold in the
Dark Kingdom.” She noticed Rowan’s stunned expression.
“Please don’t tell your dad, he’d be really shocked
and one more is the last thing he needs.”
“I won’t tell him,” promised Rowan. “But how do you know this, Kiyor?”
He raised his eyebrows. “My dad was usually
bored when he was young and he got to know
Rasheliss…personally.”
The waiter then came along.
They stopped at a Bus Shelter.
“What is this?” asked Rowan.
“A Bus Stop,” answered Manira.
“Why are we here?” asked Rowan.
“To wait for the right bus to come along and get on it,” answered Kiyor.
“What’s a bus?” asked Rowan again.
“A type of public transport,” answered Manira. “You’ll see.”
Rowan remained in thought for a short moment. Her
gaze wandered to her lover. “Kiyor?” He turned to her.
“How did you get your scars?”
He shrugged. “It’s no big secret. I was
born by caesarean, and in the rush to cut me out the scalpel cut along
my cheek. It wasn’t treated because everyone was distracted by
the shock my mum was going into. Her uterus had to be cut out. My
parents’ dreams of having more children became slashed.” At
that point, Kiyor’s eyes displayed a slight regret.
The bus then came around the corner.
They got off the bus next to a very neat terrace. Across from the
terrace was a lawn, which was surrounded by road and had another
terrace on the other side. They walked alongside one row of terraces.
“The bus is rather public,” complained
Rowan bitterly, causing the other two to chuckle. “You need to
share many of the seats.”
“Yeah, but the seats are comfortable,” argued Manira.
They kept walking along the pavement. Rowan stared
around her, noting how lovely and rich the terraces looked. She felt
certain that in the Dark Kingdom, only rich territory dwellers (not the
territory owners) could live in houses like these. But the people she
saw leave and enter the houses seemed a lot simpler in comparison-they
wore simpler clothes and seemed to need a smaller salary than their
shadowy counterparts.
“Rowan?”
She found she had stopped. “Yes Kiyor?”
He looked at her softly and curiously. “Lost in your own thoughts?”
“That girl…” she murmured. She
had been staring at a girl walking on the other side of the street. She
had hazel hair and seemed quite pretty, despite not being particularly
thin. “She seems familiar.” Rowan shook her head at her
confusion.