Days later, the convoy arrived at the biggest city in the province and also was the seat of the noble house rule over the province. Welcome the convoy’s arrival was and gloomy scene, from the agriculture area to the village at the city outskirt barely have any pedestrian, folks mostly hide inside their house and lock their children inside, while look on to the foreign visitors from their house’s windows with eyes full of wariness, very difference from the few previous towns, where merchant flocked to meet Princess Hi, the head of the convoy.

Things weren’t much better once they went through the city’s gate, not only just the almost empty streets but the predominant pedestrian on every street were the city guard, and an empty market came to their eyes when they headed to the lord’s castle made princess Hi couldn’t help but wondered why. Aside from the gloomy and dreary state of the city, they arrived at the lord’s castle without any hindering. Except for the convoy court mage, taosih Nam. Something was bothering him, it seemed, the man stood in front of the castle’s gate and stared at it with a troubled face, then quickly her came to Princess Hi, interlocked his fingers and bowed to her.

“Princess, I’m felt something was… not right with this castle” –the taosih spoke in Aulacish to the princess- “I urged, we best find someplace else in the city to take resident.”

“Not right? What you mea…” –a young voice cut off the Aulacia’s princess.

From the other side of the castle’s draw-gate, came a young boy with some adjutants escorting him, about twelves or thirteen of age he seemed, bowl cut brown hair and hazel eyes, the boy clothed in a deep green silk long tunic with a Toga-like coat draped over his left shoulder. Hastily on his feet and wore a welcoming smile on his face, the boy greeted the foreign convoy.

“Honourable guests from afar, welcome, welcome to my humble house” –with the right fist on his chest, the boy bowed- “I am Harduin, son of lord Urdin, on behalf of my father, I welcome you, princess of Aulacia, I am very sorry for my father’s absent due to poor health, and hope you’ll lard-heartedly forgive us for us shortcoming in welcoming your arrival.”

“The honour is my, lord Harduin” –Princess Hi interlocked her fingers slightly bowed in return- “Please send my best of wish for the lord’s wellbeing.”

With the formal greeting was going on, Samuel stood next to the servant’s carriage looking on at the castle with a dreaded feeling weighted down his mind and a tingling sensation bothered his right hand. What was this feeling? Why was he feeling it? Samuel had no idea. The best Samuel could describe what he was feeling was it like some kind of invisible waves of… pressure, or… some sort of energy pulse, continually pulsed outward from the castle, and brought a dreaded feeling weighted on his heart and mind, and what mystified him the most was, he seemed to be the only one felt it, the other servants, Aulacia’s royal guards, Emma and even the guard of the castle, they appeared to oblivious about it. Was that just Samuel’s imagination? Did the concussion he suffered had messed him up that badly to the point of tampered with his ability to perceive reality? Was he going insane? And what the hell was happening to his right hand? He never had this tingling sensation ever before.

“Ch… Samuel” –Emma slightly stuttered and adjusted her addressing of Samuel- “Are you alright? Come, we’ll entered the castle with the servant staffs.”

“Ah, yes, I’m coming” –snapped back from his thought by Emma’s voice, Samuel quickly follow Aulacia’s servant staffs, with each step he took near the caste the sensation felt stronger and stronger, to the point it brought a vague sense of fear to him.

At nightfall, a welcome banquet was held for the foreign guests, as the highborn enjoy their feast so was the common folk. Samuel soon gelled quite smoothly with a group of Aulacia’s royal guards might be due to their background at servicemen, and in no time their face started to turned to a pinkish red hue, thanked to the alcohol from the generosity of the host. After some toast, some chatter and some songs which Samuel had no idea what the Aulacia’s royal guards were singing about but still went along for the fun, Samuel bade the guards farewell, and stretched him limbs in the back courtyard of the castle. That weird and dreaded feeling still bothered him, but now thanked to the alcohol somewhat dulled his senses he felt a little better and bolder to walk around the castle ground. Thus, took a stroll he did, and after a minute or two, the cool wind had somewhat weared down the alcohol’s effect, so that dreaded feeling again make him felt unease, but this time something has changed. Samuel didn’t know how, perhaps because he still a little bit tipsy or maybe because of close proximity, his wandering feet had lead him near a building at the west side of the castle, and Samuel’s eyes couldn’t turn away from that two stories building.

It was just an ordinary structure, a fine masonry work of stone, brick and mortar, arched windows of iron and lovely stained glass, although all of its windows were dark due to unoccupancy, a total ordinary and mundane building. Yet, to Samuel’s eyes, under the heavenly light of the supernova, the building was emitting a sort of malevolent aura, or perhaps the weird dreaded sensation he got from the castle could be felt the strongest there? His hands slightly trembled because of the alcohol or the weird irrational fear? He didn’t know. To him, somehow the building grew taller and taller like a giant of stone and brick slowly took to its feet and stared down on Samuel with its many windows for eye.

With great effort, Samuel managed to pulled his gaze away for little bit. Sighed loudly to ease his mind, clearly his imagination had overreacted a little bit due to his head trauma, clearly nothing was moving in that building was it? Nothing was moving? Samuel’s snapped back to the building’s dark windows and scanned them all over again and all the muscles control his facial emotional expression was stretched to their maximum capacity.

There indeed was something moving in one of those dark windows, behind the third window of the ground floor, a silhouette. Thanked to the supernova and the moonlight, Samuel was able to make clear of the silhouette or rather the little girl in blue dress, brown hair, braided into a twin braid, perhaps about twelves or thirteen-year-old, with an unimaginable terror on her face she kept banging at the window to get Samuel attention.

“HELP!!!” Samuel yelled at the top of his lungs, and soon got the attention of nearby castle’s servants.

“THERE’S SOMEONE OVER THERE!!” –Samuel pointed at the building to direct the attention to it, and without thinking he charged at the building door, as he saw a shadow was dragging the girl back to the building’s darkness.