02 - Dawning Consequence
Sorana woke up from a dream, one her mother might have called a coda in the song of the dreaming goddess. Unlike her father, who repeated again and again that the goddess created everything with will and awareness; her mother believed that Creation was far too strange and wondrous to be anything other than the product of a wandering dreamer. When she was entering adolescence, her mother would tell her that we only remember the dreams that bring us back to the waking world. This dream was no different, though perhaps this particular portal was too stark a reentry into the mundane – an ironshod gatehouse rather than the slowly creaking canopies receding from the cool shade of the woods of her childhood. In either instance, though, the harsh and unquiet light of the waking world would result.
She sat up and sighed deeply. Unnerved and cold, she swung her legs out of her bed and padded toward the open window. Sorana leaned over the deep window sill, barely grabbed the handle of the platinum lacework window, and shut it with a shudder. It wasn’t so cold as to see her own breath, not yet, but the chilled sea air of the predawn morning played a definite part in her awakening. The intruding pressures of the awakening city outside dropped almost immediately, and at that, Sorana sighed in relief.
Sorana ran her fingers over the delicate filigree of the precious metal window frame and smiled to herself. It was a gift from an admirer who had it delivered with little to no fanfare but a high degree of subtlety – the frame and glass was waiting in her room one evening after a performance. She suspected it would have been installed were it not for her father insisting that a special arrangement be made to ensure that it could be installed without the use of nails, screws or something that would “destroy the integrity of Brightwood Manor as the work of art it has remained for an age or more!”
It was bad enough that the window was the only part of the manor that wasn’t wood or glass. The only glint of metal on a house devoted to the heritage and promise of the Lyrian people – the forests of the past and the sands of the present. It bothered her father, though he never said anything about it out loud. At that, Sorana was grateful – she quite enjoyed the gift for its own sake, but also for the effect it had on him. If she was honest, Sorana knew it was also for the effect it had on her as well and for the same reason.
Looking out over the northern shore of the city and over the cove, she saw dozens of ships with various flags and sails plying the waters and hundreds of morning fires being stoked into life to ward away the coming autumnal chill. She pulled herself up and sat on the window sill awkwardly, Sorana could see a growing circle of well-dressed folk standing on the sidewalk outside their low hedgerow. Guardsmen, several of them; and two finely-dressed officers of the Citadel. Her father stood across from them, he had a stoic look on his face. His hands betrayed him, however, and even from this distance she could see the tremble as he gestured as he responded to whatever the inspectors had asked.
To Sorana’s surprise, one of his flourishes ended in a fairly precise wave directly at her window, directly at her. That was when she noticed that Brinn was there with them as well, he looked up at her, and Sorana knew he saw her because he frowned and shook his head in the way a brother might subtly ward someone away from impending consequence. Before the rest could crane their heads to look, Sorana slid off the sill and rushed over to her dresser.
No time for finery, she thought to herself, and started in on dressing herself in the offbeat style of the nomadic dancers of the Steppes: baggy, silken trousers; a simple chemise with bone buttons; and a heavily-structured cavalry jacket she stole from a vainglorious man of the Republic. She slipped on some soft-soled leather ankle boots and topped it off with Brinn’s old, waxed sailing cloak.
Quickly out the door and down the hall, she made for a servant’s stairwell that brought her to the basement that exited out the back of the manor house through the delivery door. Sorana nodded her greeting to the sculleries gathering water out back and the porters delivering shellfish for breakfast. As she followed the back path past the work stables and servants’ cabins, Sorana heard Brinn call out to her from a window. She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply, shook her head, exhaled and continued away and into the back streets.
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