I awoke seeing the vaulted ceiling above me, temporarily warmed by the faint sunlight seeping through the window. I was already reaching to push back the curtains when I noticed someone lying on the floor beside me. I looked at her face and saw that she was Anneaux, my personal maid. A sudden smile came to my mouth. I had told her many times that she was not to follow me here; to this attic; to my bedroom. But she seemed to give in to the temptations; she could not win against it. She was the only one who I confided in my secret: that I never slept in the big, luxurious bedroom reserved for myself. I could not bear the feeling of guilt when I was tucked in the smooth, silk covers and thinking of the employees in the palace who slept in parched, dusty rooms on beds that seemed so thin they looked as if they'd been trampled on by ogres.
The sunlight made a rectangular-shaped beam that burst through the glass and shone on Amneaux's sleeping face. She furrowed her brows at the soft touch of warmth and wriggled in her sleep, making whining noises as she stretched and moaned, and then let out a big yawn - much like those of a cat's - which seemed inappropriate for a delicate young girl like her. If she were to wake up with the revelation that I had seen her uniquely enormous yawns she was bound to get angry at herself for lowering her guard and losing herself in her sleep. She reasoned to me that she came here oftenly to guard me in my slumber, which she would always fail in and which I never needed anyway because I was the top fighter among the people my age in the capital city of Farrhoea, Korrhe. And I always ensured that I was clad in anti-knife garments which I wore under my leather suit and which I always used whenever travelling to neighbouring towns.
I shifted on my mattress and changed into a comfortable sitting position, leaning against the wall under the window. I lifted a corner of the bed and fished for my leather-bound book that I had filled with pages and pages of writings and drawings. Anything I had in mind I would pour onto those stained, dull pages - so much so, that there was very little space left. Only a few dozen pages at most, then I would have to disguise myself and blend into the steady stream of people milling about on the streets flanked by stalls and kiosks lining the narrow sidewalk as far as the eye could see. I didn't mind doing that at all. To be honest I enjoyed those walks tremendously. I would forever make up excuses and reasons to take to the guards and my managers so that I could take the day off and just soak in the atmosphere of the bustling town that seemed to be alive, as if it was a living, breathing creature.
Now I flipped the pages, sometimes stopping wherever I found nostalgia in the writings. I laughed at a joke or two I had slipped in the paragraphs, snorted at my innocence in how I had told all my secrets, sometimes blushing in embarrassment at them. 'Master Hydroux, I didn't know you were like that.' I swivelled my head to see Anneaux standing over me, a wry and seducing smile on her efervescent lips. I was so absorbed in my book that I hadn't noticed her getting up and sneaking to my side, and didn't hear the creak of floorboards as she lifted her fragile and poignant frame. I gave her a ghost of my smile back, the smile I had shown to her whenever I was bound to get into mischief, the smile that had bonded us in our childhood; master and servant, a relationship so common it demanded little attention. But for us our relationship was the most amazing thing in the world.
'You already know most of what I've written, don't you?' I said back to her as she knelt down and sat on her legs tucked under her gracefully in front of me, her luminous eyes searching my face for a flicker of recognition. We sat facing each other, the brightening sunlight rising higher in angle and hitting the back of my head, inducing shivers of contempt in the warmth. The rays hit her face too, at such an angle that it bounced off her eyes, which depending on the light, could be all the colors of the rainbow and many more, blue, green, gold, and even mauve and sapphire.
This time her eyes shimmered with the colour of ice, frosty snow-flaked ice caps that could become blinding to the eyes, reflecting the rays of sunshine dancing and cavorting on the surface. She opened those perfect lips of hers - which I never could take my eyes off from, and which I was staring at right now - and spoke in a tone conducting comfort that warmed me from the bottom of my heart, 'I don't know. What do you think, master Hydroux?' A mischievous smile planted on her lips she was playfully teasing me. Before I could think a smile too formed on my own lips, and I felt my mind fleeting back to the days when we used to converse without any social barrier whatsoever, reminiscing the days before responsibility binded me in its shackles, stubbornly refusing to release me except once in a while when the chains became lighter, when I had finished my schedule for the day. But always those chains would become heavier again, and I would be forced to submit under it until the cycle started again for the last and final time.
Anneaux lowered her gaze from my face and onto her tucked feet, breaking the trance she had put me into. I shook my head and straightened myself, then I got up in a polite manner and opened the sole window in the small attic room, unhitching the latch and yanking it outwards I felt the fresh air seep in and permeate the stuffy insides, my nose holes unblocking and my lungs relishing oxygen. A crisp breeze blew into the room and slapped my cheeks, ruffling my hair and filling me with new endeavourment for the day ahead of me. The sun had just risen over the horizon and I could make out figures below me, coming out of their houses and putting up clothes to dry and chopping up wood in backyards. Then I looked at the palace grounds and saw the gardeners already seeing to the hedges that lined the broad driveway near the entrance, the huge gates that towered over everything around it.