by Eric Vall
It didn’t take me long to reach Hatra once I passed over the village, and I quietly landed next to the gates and shifted into my human form. The gates opened quickly, and I walked through them into the city. It had taken me most of the afternoon to make my way through the mountains, and the sun was now nearly ready to set.
I nodded hello to the small amount of people who greeted me as I walked through Hatra to find the architects. I didn’t find them anywhere inside the city proper, though, since they tended to linger around the construction areas to offer input and to ensure the structures were built correctly. So, I figured I would check their cabin next.
When I arrived outside the cottage, I knocked twice along the door and waited. It only took a few seconds before the door was swung open, and Nike’s silver eyes furrowed in confusion.
“Hello, Evan, is there something I can help you with?” he asked as he stepped to the side and gestured for me to enter.
“Hey, Nike, I’m actually looking for Raisa and Azra,” I answered as I looked around the small cabin. “They wanted to go over ideas for the Lunar Palace with me.”
The cabin seemed small on the outside, but the inside was as large as an upper-middle class house. I stood in the foyer with Nike, to my left was a room with several chairs and comfortable looking couches, and a hallway in front of us looked like it led into the kitchen.
“Oh?” Nike said as he closed the door behind me. “They are in their shared room. At least, I believe they are. That’s where I saw them last, and I don’t think they’ve left since then. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Nike led me down the hallway and toward the kitchen. The cabin was nice, and it felt very welcoming and homey on the inside.
“You’ve never been inside, have you?” Nike asked me as I continued to look around.
“No, I’ve seen the outside a few times, but I’ve never been invited in until now.”
“Well, come on, I’ll give you a tour.” Nike grinned and pointed toward the living space next to us. “This is where we usually hang out together. The sofas are incredibly comfortable. You should try one sometime.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I chuckled. “I don’t have much free time any more.”
Nike shrugged and led me down the hall. Then we walked past the kitchen, and Nike stopped.
“This is where we would prepare food, if any of us knew how to cook,” he laughed. “We don’t typically spend a lot of time in here, it’s mainly to be used by servants when nobles travel, but it’s nice to have. Adyin used to love creating random recipes for us all to try, and I don’t think any of us have really been here since.”
Nike frowned at the mention of his lost noble friend, and I reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
“I’m sorry about Adyin,” I said. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy to lose a member of your people, even if you weren’t that close.”
“I appreciate that, brother,” my fellow Noble of the Sword sighed. “I’ll admit, it does ease my guilt to recall watching that monster turn to ash under your power. It was glorious.”
Nike smiled and let out a short laugh at the memory.
“Yeah, it was pretty badass,” I agreed with a grin. “I’m just glad he’s dead. I don’t even feel the slightest remorse for killing him.”
“Nor should you, that monster deserved his fate.”
I nodded in agreement as we turned away from the kitchens, and Nike led us down a hallway that extended out across from where we stood. A long, navy blue rug was rolled out along the floor, and on either side of the hall were doors, all closed firmly shut, save for three. Nike led us down the hall, and when we passed one of the opened doors, Nike pointed to it.
“This room is technically Azra’s,” Nike mentioned, “but, as you know, Raisa and Azra tend to stick together at all times, so they mainly share Raisa’s.”
Azra’s room was bare of furniture except for a single dresser in the middle of the back wall. Instead of furniture or clothing, though, the room was full of rolled up pieces of parchment. One was unrolled on top of the desk with a quill and ink well placed alongside it. Blueprints I’d never seen before were drawn on the page, and I assumed these were drawings for another project the architects had worked on together.
“They need to get out more,” I chuckled. “This is kind of depressing. All they ever do is work.”
“They enjoy it,” Nike shrugged, “so I don’t see the harm in it.”
I hummed in agreement as Nike continued forward to the next opened door.
“This room is mine,” he said. “There’s nothing special about it, though, it’s just a room for me to sleep.”
His room had a bed, dresser, and a wardrobe tucked into the corner. Various weapons were on display along the plain white walls, and his bed was neatly made. The light gray sheets were even fitted perfectly, and there wasn’t a single wrinkle in the fabric.
“Wow,” was the first word that came to mind, “it’s very … practical, I suppose.”
“I’m the Lord of Leyte,” he defended primly. “It doesn’t do well for me to have trinkets and meaningless things like that in my room. I need to use the space I have purposefully.”
“That’s a good excuse for being boring,” I replied as I choked back a laugh, and Nike gave me a small glare.
“Hey, I have an image to uphold,” he retorted while he fought back a smile.
“Yeah,” I snickered, “because putting some personality into your room would make you the laughing stock of Hatra.”
“You never know,” Nike said, “it might.”
I shook my head and followed as Nike pointed out the third room with the opened door.
“That was Adyin’s room,” he said in a much more somber voice. “We didn’t know what to do with all of his belongings, so we just left the room as is. We told his family they are more than welcome to come clean the room out once we return to Leyte.”
“That was a good idea,” I murmured gently. “Some people need that closure.”
We passed the room quietly, since neither of us had any interest in entering a dead man’s quarters. Then Nike continued down the hall a few more feet, before he stopped at the last door at the end of the hall.
“This is their room,” Nike explained. “I’ll leave you here with them, and we can talk later, yeah?”
“Yeah of course, I have some stuff to tell you,” I replied. “Thanks for the tour, by the way.”
“No problem,” Nike said with a grin before he turned and headed back down the hallway. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
When he turned the corner and disappeared from sight, I knocked once on the doorframe before I twisted the brass handle and swung the door open. The room was cluttered with different parchments, writing tools, books, and empty inkwells. Two beds were stacked on top of each other, bunk bed style, and a dresser was buried underneath a tower of abandoned blueprints.
The two architects sat together on the bottom bunk. Papers were spread around them as they passed back and forth a parchment with blueprints drawn all over it. Neither of them looked up as I walked into the room.
“Hey,” I announced my presence to the two, and as they both startled, the parchment they held drifted softly to the mattress. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Hello, Lord Evan,” Azra replied as the two of them stood from the bed. “What can we do for you?”
“Well, I gave our earlier conversation some thought, and I have a few ideas for the palace I wanted to run past you to see if they were possible.”
The architects shared a grin.
“There isn’t much we consider impossible,” Raisa said with a small laugh, and then she pulled out a new sheet of parchment and tugged at the pencil tucked behind her ear. “Tell us your ideas.”
“Well,” I began as I brushed charcoal pencils and quills from a chair and sat down, “I want to create rooms for each of the women in my life. Alyona, Laika, Ravi, and Valerra all need to have a roo
m created for them and their unique personalities.”
“That’s so sweet!” Raisa grinned. “That shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish. You know these women best, so what are you thinking about putting inside each room to make them suitable for each person?”
“I know Alyona’s room will need space for her books and for a workstation so she can take notes and study,” I explained with a fond smile. “We can also give her an open space to meditate or to work on spells without endangering herself or the things around her. She’s a princess and obviously will need a luxurious bed, so make sure we have the space for that as well.”
Raisa frantically took notes while Azra began drawing up sketches for the room. Both of them worked quickly and could draw nearly as fast as I could speak.
“Okay, the next room can be Laika’s, so what did you have in mind for her?” Azra asked as both architects grabbed new sheets of parchment.
“Well, Laika is much more practical than a princess,” I mused and tapped my chin, “but she’s still the leader of a guild, so she deserves the best. I want her room to feel safe and secure, but also not hinder her and make her feel like a damsel in distress. She would want to be the closest room to any entrance so she can be at the ready in case of attacks, and I want her to have a way to display her weapons, but still have them easily accessible when she needs them. If we can, I’d also like to add a table with a whetstone and some oils and cleaning supplies for swords so she can care for them and keep them in pristine condition. She can have a bed slightly smaller than Alyona’s but still just as luxurious.”
“Okay,” Azra quickly sketched out a new design and hummed before he frowned, “I’ll figure that out later. Who’s next? Ravi?”
“Ravi will need a lot of open space,” I said as I pictured her desert home. “She’s not used to living in an enclosed space, so I want to make sure her room is as open and spacious as possible. Is there a way to have windows in Ravi’s room that face the east and the west? She loves to watch the sun rise and set, and being a phoenix, I think it’s important for her room to be exposed to as much sunlight as possible. She’ll also need a balcony so she can transform whenever she pleases. I want her to have a safe place whenever she needs to burn, so if either of you can create any kind of safe that will allow her ashes to be kept out of harm’s way, that would be awesome.”
“Okay, Ravi’s should be pretty easy then,” Raisa commented, and Azra nodded as he finished sketching the phoenix’s room. “I have a few ideas we can work on to keep her ashes safe, but we can bounce ideas off each other later. So, Valerra now, right?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, “but I think Valerra’s room will be the hardest. I know she won’t use it often, but I want her to stay here while I’m gone, just in case something happens. I know she’ll want a bed, probably as big as we can get it, and she’ll need a safe place for her sister’s egg, that is a must. I know she won’t even consider staying here if there isn’t a place for the egg. Actually … make spaces for a bunch of eggs.”
“Does she have other--” Raisa started to ask, but I didn’t want to explain that the crimson dragon was probably pregnant with my offspring, or soon would be, so I kept talking.
“I would also give her a balcony large enough and strong enough for her dragon form so she won’t feel trapped here and can come and go as she pleases.”
“Ohh, that’s a good idea, dragons don’t like to be kept.” Raisa nodded eagerly before she glanced from me to the paper in her hand. “Is that it for the ladies?”
“I believe so.” I nodded.
“Great! Now, what about your room?”
“My room?” I echoed and scratched my head. “I honestly haven’t thought about it. I only thought about the other rooms. I’m sure whatever you two decided will be perfect.”
Both of the architects rolled their eyes in synchronization.
“Of course it will be, but we need to make sure you love it, too!” Raisa protested. “If you don’t love your room, that means we failed.”
“I would never say the two of you were failures,” I argued. “Just look outside, Hatra is being restored as we speak, and it is amazing. The two of you are incredible.”
Raisa’s face grew pink with my praise. “Oh, no! We are only doing our jobs! We are just your average architects. There is nothing special about us.”
“Okay, sorry,” I chuckled and raised my hands in surrender. “Back to designs, then. For my room, I want to make sure I have plenty of space. A bed big enough for say, five or so grown people would be awesome. Oh, and what if we attached all of the other rooms to mine so I could easily reach each of the women if I needed to in case of an emergency. Oooh, also maybe some kind of auxiliary room, maybe a basement, where I can keep my treasure hoard.”
“Okay, all good ideas.” Azra nodded before he met my eyes. “Anything else?”
“I mean, not that I can think of?” I tilted my head and squinted my eyes. “Yeah, no, I’m good. But if you two want to add anything, feel free to. I don’t mind.”
The architects grinned at me before they turned to each other and began to create new designs along the parchment.
“So,” I interrupted them, “how are the other designs for the Lunar Palace coming along?”
Azra turned his head toward me slightly, but he kept his eyes on the parchment as he drew a few different staircases to lead to each of the bedrooms.
“It’s coming along great!” he replied. “We’ve run into a snag, though. We want to ensure the dome like room of the palace remains in place, but we don’t know what to use to create it. It was originally made of moonstone, but I’m not sure we have enough to build a roof.”
I suddenly thought of all my treasure I had stowed away inside my storage space, from both the desert and the tunnels under the city, and I growled deep in my chest in anticipation of what we could do with all the gold I owned. We could use it to show the world my accomplishments and my riches.
I grinned before I spoke to the two architects. “What if the dome was made of gold?”
“That would be a sight to see,” Azra laughed, “but we don’t have nearly enough gold for that.”
“What if we did?” I countered. “Would gold work for the roof?”
They both seemed to think for a moment before they reached a silent agreement.
“I mean, yes, it would, but that much gold would take us months, if not years, to acquire,” Raisa commented. “We would never finish the palace in time for your campaign.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem.” I smirked.
I reached my hand into my spatial storage and pulled out the bag Julia had given to me for my journey to the phoenix tribe. Then I dropped the bag onto the floor, opened it, and pulled out a handful of golden coins, along with several bars.
Azra reached his hand out toward the gold, but I instinctively snatched the bag away with a snarl before I could stop myself.
“Woah!” The architect jumped and immediately held up his hands.
“Sorry,” I gave Azra an apologetic smile, “this treasure started my hoard. Valerra said it’s normal for me to be protective.”
“No worries, Lord Evan,” Azra chuckled nervously. “I understand. I just need to get a rough estimate of how much we are working with to see if we even have enough to make a roof.”
“We do,” I assured him. “We might not be able to make a roof out of solid gold, but if I can create the roof from stone, we should have more than enough gold to plate the dome.”
I wasn’t sure how I knew all this, but I did. I could account for every single piece of treasure I had stored away, so I knew I had more than enough gold to give the roof a gold plate, and I would still have plenty left over.
“What about your hoard?” Raisa asked with a frown. “Won’t you be upset you no longer have it?”
“I will still have it,” I corrected, “it will just be displayed on the outside of my palace instead of hidden away inside this bag. Plus, I can al
ways find more. Just because I will allow my gold to be used atop the domed roof, doesn’t mean it is no longer mine. It will still be mine, and no one will be allowed to take it from me.”
“Of course, Lord Evan,” the red-headed architect bowed her head, “I didn’t think of it like that … but it actually gives me an idea.”
She grabbed the blueprint from Azra that had my name written on the top corner and began to draw squares along the bottom of the parchment.
I couldn’t understand what she was drawing, so I just shook my head and sighed.
Azra, on the other hand, watched curiously before his eyes grew wide.
“Oh, yes!” he cried out as he leaned over Raisa’s shoulder. “That is a brilliant idea!”
“What is?” I asked.
“I’ll let you know when I have the idea finalized,” Raisa murmured as she frowned at her design. “I don’t want to overestimate myself.”
“Alright,” I chuckled. “Do you two need any other ideas from me? Or is what I gave you enough?”
Raisa continued to draw while Azra watched eagerly, and they both waved their hands at me.
“We have enough, don’t worry, we’ll come find you later once we’ve finished the rough draft,” Azra told me, but his eyes never strayed from the parchment in front of him.
“Okay then, I guess I’ll see both of you two later.”
I chuckled lightly when neither of them responded, and I quickly made my exit from the room. Nike must have been locked inside his room or he was gone because I didn’t see him as I left the cabin. Then I walked around the city before I looked toward the airship and sighed. I could just make out a small, orange haired figure sitting along the roof of the ship, so I shook my head fondly, quickly walked over to the airship, and cupped my hands over my mouth.
“Ravi!” I called up at her.
I could hear her jump in fright before she stood and walked toward the edge of the roof. Then she looked around the area before she finally glanced down.