Arthur and I waked along the hall patiently woody.
- How are things are going with Ilyada? Normally she always accompanies Cael on his travels.
My blood and muscles paralyzed because of that question. What could I answer? She ran away taking two pallakis, jewellery, a carriage and all the food stock of the house and main?
- She's... she's fine.
- Why didn't she come with you? When the messenger handed me Cael's message about his trip to Nekrós the first thing I did was take my deck of cards out of the closet! You shouldn't know this but she is the best poker player in these seas! I've seen a lot of old sailors leave the table crying after two rounds with Ilyada...
- She always seemed to be... demure
- Surely this adjective is part of her list of qualities plus Ilyada... - Arthur paused briefly as if he remembered some traumatizing or even disturbing episode that was noticeably uncomfortable for him.
- What happened? - I asked when I noticed those fragments of feelings expressed on Arthur's face.
- No! It's nothing me. I just don't think she has much freedom to reveal all the nuances of her personality.
- She's usually very private...
- I always thought she didn't have a lot of freedom... and we arrived!
- Where?
- This is your room, ma'am!
Arthur opened the door with great tension in his gaze. It was the same tension and fear of someone who had just been caught in some intellectual trap or who, due to a little carelessness, ended up saying something that should not be mentioned.
- These are your accommodations. Forgive me if the room is not to your liking but we have done our best to match your refinement of the rooms that you are most used to.
- It's beautiful! - I replied without air.
The cabin in which I would spend my nights aboard the ship was beautiful. Everything was perfectly decorated in shades of blue and white. From floor to ceiling everything was covered with small, polished, sparkling mother-of-pearl nuggets. the colossal-sized bed was lined with sheets and pillows in the colors navy blue and white. The room stretched to a large wall lined with pearls. This wall ended in a small open door that opened in a hallway that passed through a closet full of clothes up to the small room what it could be my bathroom.
But the best of this cabin was yet to come. Beside the bed and a few steps from the soft carpet that covered the floor around my bed there was a large double door of glass that revealed the sea, the waves, the calm and blue horizon that joined with the aquatic immensity of all that surrounded us contrasting with the white that gleamed from the parapet of the balcony that separated that bedroom of the rest of the sea.
- Kris. Do you want to enjoy the room and then see the game room or do you want to check out your next accommodation? - Arthur called me back to reality with that question and as much as I was anxious to enjoy every detail my new bedroom I wanted to meet that enigmatic hall of games.
- I want to meet the hall of games...
- Do you mean the games room?
- Yes! That's right. Games room!So please come with me.
We left my bedroom quickly and I heared Arthur closing the door leaving me again in the long and mysterious hallway dotted with floating lights.
Immediately after the sound of the closed door we started to move towards my next stop.
- About the games room... Sir Cael, can be quite intense in his sexual relations. The whole crew stays awake on these occasions and we're particularly frightened by all that.
- So... you see when.
-We hear it. We actually hear it. Sir Cael is a rather noisy man when he's in the game room.
- When he's with Ilyada in the games room?
- No. Miss Ilyada doesn't go to the games room.
- Arthur! Can I ask you something?
- Of course, Kris! Go ahead!
- Is Cael aggressive? Has he ever hit anyone here?
- No! - Arthur replied with a deep expression of surprise his look - No. no... Sir Cael can be an intense... sometimes he is honest... but rude or aggressive. He would do anything against some of us or even when against Ilyada, you or any other woman who would come on board! Sometimes he's... very careful and protective but never aggressive but Kris...
- Arthur?
- Ilyada told me some of the things he did but I'll be honest! Cael has his way of taking care, sometimes he is quite controlling but that's his way! And that's not why he's gonna be aggressive with someone...
- But what if he's aggressive?
- Kris takes those thoughts out of your head! Don't be crazy like Liliane!
- Liliane? The pallaki who Liliane?
- I see you recognize her...
- Of course I know her... Is there something wrong with her?
- There is nothing... She is... She has some misguided thoughts about Sir Cael... She made up some ridiculous stories about him and even the Emperor! As if she ever had the chance to meet someone so honorable majestic as our Emperor... - Arthur laughed exuding superiority.
- What stories?
- You are very curious Kris... We are already arriving to the games room...
- Please tell me! I want to know.
- You shouldn't hear those stories... I think I've said enough for today...
- Still tell me... I want to know.
- Get it out of your head Kris... Cael would never do those barbarities!
- But don't you think that if I don't know what these lies are... it won't be easier for someone like Liliane to tell me and convince me that these lies are true? I need to know for… not to be manipulated by someone...
Arthur stared at me and then fixed his eyes on the ground. I had thrown a bait and now that fish needed to bite.
- You are right... - He confided - It is very important that you know these things, these games and lies... But I warn you right away! This is all just a huge lie. Sir Cael would never be able to take any kind of aggressive or narcissistic attitude... He is a wonderful man never humiliated, screamed or mistreated anyone. Not even the the Pallakis and the pornes who live with him.
- Yes Arthur! He is a magnificent man essences the best Master I have ever known in my life! - I lie trying my best not to let my repudiation and contempt appear while I was saying those words.
- All right, all right... The story Liliane told me was that on one of the nights while she was sleeping in her cabin, a few years before she went through the pallaki ritual and became one of Sir Cael's pallakis, she said she woke up with the sounds of a ritual, Yellow Day… and she told me that one of her friends was chosen for this ritual. So while she was hiding, watching what was happening to this friend, the ritual was initiated and she saw Sir Cael leading this girl and offering her up to chaos... could someone believe on that?
- No…No way at all! - I agree with my mind buzzing with the hypotheses that could justify why Liliane and Ilyada had fled Cael's dependencies and why Liliane hated our Master so much.
- She said that after that her friend came back very strange and confused. She said this friend didn't recognize her anymore, she started to walk away and she became a completely different person... I think that friend's name was Yolanda...
- Yolanda? Are you sure this was that the name of Liliane's friend?
Couldn't that be true... Yolanda was offered to chaos? She and Liliane were friends before? And the worst... what kind of monster of chaos has Yolanda become? What kind of monster is she under that white skin and angel face?
- Yes! And after a while Yolanda became one of Cael's pallakis... And yet, by the story of Liliane this girl named Yolanda has become someone despicable, cruel and bitter... A monster as Liliane told me.
- But this is impossible! In this ceremony the person who is offered becomes a monster of chaos! - I asked trying to get more information out of him.
- Yes and that part I also did not understand why I told you that Liliane is crazy!
- Yes... - I answer with my voice vaguest than usual.
I was completely shocked. That couldn't be real but... maybe that's the why Liliane refused to be near Cael...
But why didn't she show a deep resentment towards him? If it were me and Drus I don't even know what I would be able to do! Or what she would be capable of if it were the other way around. But the Yellow Day in theory turns the person who was offered into a monster and most of the time during that process the person dies... How iolanda survived and wasn't turned into a monster? Unless... only if instead of the body being turned into a monster her soul was turned and because of this she survived and forgot her friendship with Liliane...
- We have arrived
- Hi?