Shadow Castle 1

Fir Castle was a spearhead rising from the Daeior Plateau. In that cold, desolate place, it alone shone sharp and bright.

Its lords were also called the King of Firs. They had neither a domain broad enough to warrant the title of king, nor wealth, nor many subjects, but no one could say the name did not suit them. In truth, they were minor lords who had sworn loyalty to the kingdom of North Mere. Yet they were also commanders of the renowned elite Daeior spearmen.

When Jaeim Daeior, the King of Firs, died in battle and his wife Rosia became lord, she had three sons, but all vanished without succeeding her. As the years passed and Rosia grew old, only one grandson and one granddaughter remained. Jaeim Daeior, who bore his grandfather’s name, and Kyprosa Daeior, whose father had named her after a cypress tree.

The cypress was a tree that symbolized the grave, death, and eternal suffering, and people said it was ill-omened and avoided planting it. Kyprosa’s life was worse than her name. Her father had been called a madman and left the castle, and her mother had abandoned her newborn daughter and returned to her own family. Her grandmother, the lord, hated her and made her grow up among the servants as a kitchen maid.

On the day her father, who had left the castle, sent her little sister Orchidna, Rosia flew into a rage and ordered the baby abandoned. Kyprosa went out alone in the middle of the night. She tried to find the baby left in the forest, but before she knew it, she had lost her way. The bitter cold was approaching. She walked and walked, but not a single hunter’s hut appeared. Instead, the stars gradually vanished, and a high precipice barred her path. She seemed to have gone completely the wrong way. At this rate, far from rescuing the baby, Kyprosa would freeze to death first.

Half in despair, Kyprosa walked along the precipice. Then she came upon a crack barely wide enough for an adult to enter. Whatever it was like inside, it seemed better than the cutting wind outside, so Kyprosa went in. The entrance was narrow, but as she advanced, feeling to either side with her hands, her surroundings suddenly opened out. There were lights all around her, and Kyprosa doubted her eyes. Was all of this a dream she was having as she collapsed from cold and exhaustion and died?

Whether it was or not, the cave contained a round hall built of pale green marble. The light came from lamps hung along the walls. After circling the hall, Kyprosa found an arched exit and entered it. Through a corridor, the girl emerged into a room and gave a start. It was none other than her own bedroom.

More astonishing still, it was unmistakably the same place, yet everything looked different. A fire blazed in the hearth, and there was a bed made up with a warm quilt of goose down. On the quilt lay a blue velvet dress she had never worn.

While Kyprosa hesitantly touched the dress, someone knocked at the door. Her body stiffened as though she had been caught stealing. At first, she did not know who had entered. Without showing any surprise at the sight of Kyprosa, he came over, sat beside her, and stroked her hair.

“Where have you been, Rosa, coming back only now? You mustn’t go out alone in this cold. It would be dreadful if you lost your way.”

Who was this man? Who could he be, to speak to her so kindly?

Kyprosa studied his face. As she did, she remembered a portrait hanging in the castle. He looked exactly like the portrait said to have been painted of her great-uncle Landry before his death. Blinking because she could find nothing to say, Kyprosa only then realized who he was. It was her father, Raeven, who was said to be the very image of her great-uncle.

Why was her father, who had supposedly left the castle when she was a newborn, here? She did not know, but at the sight of him so well and whole, warmth seemed to spread through her entire body, reaching even her shoulders. Her father looked down at the dress Kyprosa held and smiled.

“The old woman in the sewing room said she was hurrying, and the dress is finished already. Will you try it on?”

Kyprosa quickly shook her head. She felt such a beautiful dress would not suit her, and it was strange to think of the old woman in the sewing room making clothes for her. Above all, she felt that if she did such a thing, the dream would shatter. Even if it was a dream, she did not want to wake from it yet.

Soon father and daughter left the room and went downstairs. Raeven held Kyprosa’s hand all the way down. Its warmth was so unfamiliar that it brought tears to her eyes, and Kyprosa clung tightly to that hand the whole time.