Chương 76: Chapter 9: A Long Journey

Accompanied by Anne and Clara, she was led to the main carriage. The door opened with a soft creak, a moan of wood and metal that sounded like a farewell, revealing an interior padded in garnet velvet, with curtains that mitigated the outside light, transforming it into an intimate and protective gloom. Fjora and Samira climbed in with her, two motionless silhouettes on the facing seats, their postures as rigid and distant as newly unpacked statues. There was no gesture of welcome nor curiosity in their gazes.

Only the expectant stillness of those who have learned that their place is to wait, not to ask. Minutes later, with a slight sway and the rhythmic sound of the insects' six legs striking the cobblestones, the journey began. Selena leaned back against the padding, feeling the texture of the velvet sink under her weight, and watched through the window as the House Solendra mansion shrank until it became just one more of the arrogant silhouettes dotting the city.

She did not know what awaited her at the Royal University of Kaelburg, nor what other "gifts" lay in store in that place the King had designated as her new prison. But amidst the uncertainty, a spark of determination burned in her chest, a small but tenacious fire that refused to be extinguished. The landscape began to transform with a hypnotic slowness, revealing the living pages of a world that never ceased to surprise her.

Terracanto, with its smell of damp earth and misery, was left behind, fading into the mist of distance, replaced by a vast expanse of cultivated fields tiered in meticulously traced terraces like the stands of an amphitheater raised to celebrate the fertility of the earth. Some boasted the pale gold of wheat, waving in the wind like a calm sea, a swell of ears swaying with a dry, whispering murmur. Others were covered in a deep, vibrant red that stained the earth like an open wound in the landscape.

There were other crops that felt more familiar, though no less strange in this context: robust green leaves emerging directly from the ground without an apparent stem, as if the earth were birthing its fruit directly. Root vegetables, she thought immediately, recognizing the form even if not the species. The carriage approached an estuary, and there, as if emerging from an aquatic dream, grew a plant of such ethereal beauty that it stole her breath.

It was like sugarcane, but translucent, crystalline, as if carved from ice by a divine sculptor. In its center, small green filaments pulsed with a faint light, like emerald veins pumping life upward, a plant circulatory system exposed to the gaze like a secret nature decided not to keep. She felt she could spend hours contemplating it, but the carriage continued its march, tearing her away from that spell. Beyond lay almost infinite fields of tall, fibrous grass.

At first, she believed it was just pasture, an insipid green lost on the horizon, but then she observed people tending them with care, cautiously plucking some stalks and placing them in wicker baskets. Some type of textile fiber, her mind speculated, always eager to understand, to classify, to find order in chaos. Among the crops rose farmhouses, but none housed animals she could recognize.

In a field near the road, dozens of the same insects that pulled her carriage grazed peacefully, plucking the lowest leaves of some willows with their delicate mandibles, their green exoskeletons shining under the sun like soldiers in formation. Further on, like a herd taken from a pastoral nightmare, she saw beetles with shaggy shells, covered in a soft fuzz that swayed with the breeze like a moving field of thistles.

They walked with a majestic parsimony, their jointed legs sinking into the soft earth with the gravity of those who know they have no predators to fear. Then, enclosed behind low wooden fences that barely reached half their height, she discovered the snails. They were colossal, easily five feet tall, with shells of an immaculate whiteness that shone under the sun like giant pearls, like polished ivory domes.

At least five of them moved with parsimony along the road, their slimy bodies gliding over the earth with a slowness that defied the world's haste. Their mouths scraped roots in stone feeders with an incessant, circular movement. The sound was a constant, wet crunch, a murmur of slow and ancestral life that seemed to come from the dawn of time itself.

When the sun began to yield its reign to twilight, painting the sky with brushstrokes of orange and purple that reflected on the carriage windows, the fields gave way to forests. The first was a spectacle of light and transparency that brought to mind the fairy tale illustrations she had seen in another life: the Silicariel Forest, guarded by wardens of the clergy whose green robes blended into the gloom. The evening light filtered through them, breaking into prisms that painted the ground in varied colors.

At the end of this dreamlike forest, another began, this one of low, twisted trunks laden with deep amber fruits that shone like jewels among the leaves. Thick, silky vines hung from their branches, swaying with the evening breeze like dark, velvety green tresses. A sweet, fermented aroma reached the carriage, a perfume of ripe fruit that clung to the throat. Night fell completely, weaving its mantle of shadows and stars over the world, but the carriage did not stop.

The moon, large and pale like a newly minted silver crown, rose as their guide, bathing the road in a cold light. Selena, exhausted by the day of emotions and discoveries, tried to lie back on the padded seat she occupied alone, her companions lost in a silence that was more a wall than company. It was then that her hand brushed something that was not velvet nor the rough texture of leather: an envelope of thick, creamy paper, sealed with the wax of the House Solendra crest.

She took it with fingers that had suddenly lost all trace of fatigue and broke the seal. She unfolded the letter with care. The handwriting was firm, confident, with decisive strokes that admitted neither doubt nor regret.

"I have notified my accountants at the university so that you may draw whatever you need from the family coffers. Do not waste it like last time. With affection, your dear uncle." She smiled deeply, genuine and satisfied, a feeling born from the humanity of a man she had always believed a jailer, but who increasingly proved to be a complex person with infinite affection for his own family.

An affection so great would allow her freedom to a certain extent, that let her go on the condition that she returned, that sent her far away to protect her and simultaneously tied her with threads of silk and ink. She tucked the letter away with the care of one treasuring a talisman, a reminder that even in the golden cage, there was someone looking out for her.

The journey slipped by like a river of days and nights, a constant flow of changing landscapes and anonymous inns where faces blurred into a hazy memory of courtesies and frugal dinners. The carriage wheels traced a monotonous rhythm over dirt and cobblestone roads, an insistent heartbeat that filtered into dreams and became the pulse of a world slowly unfolding before her eyes.

They slept in inns when the route crossed tiny villages, much smaller and more austere than Terracanto, places where life seemed to pass with the slowness of sap in winter and curious gazes fixed on the carriages with noble crests as if they were comets announcing the end of the world. Other times, the rattling did not cease even with the night, and Selena would wake at dawn with the same landscape parading past the window, the mountains changing shape with the slowness of a dream.

Time lost its precise edges, merging into a succession of dawns and twilights that repeated like verses of a poem far too long. She had stopped counting the days when it no longer made sense to do so, when the rhythm of the journey had become a second skin. Until, in the fourth week, something changed on the horizon. —Kaelburg —Clara murmured from the seat across from her, her voice a thread of formality that broke the long silence like falling glass.

Selena leaned toward the window, her breath slightly fogging the glass before her gaze found the void. Then she saw it, and once again, the surprise of wonder reflected in her eyes, wide open at the magnitude of what was unfolding before her. The university city was wedged between the slopes of imposing mountains, their peaks crowned with eternal white silhouetted against a sky of a blue so cold and deep it seemed painted with lapis lazuli ink.

The air that reached her, even through the glass, was temperate and sharp, charged with a unique freshness that brought a feeling of profound nostalgia to her chest, an echo of snowy mountains and green valleys that her memory of another world kept in some inaccessible place. The cold was natural to her, an old acquaintance that spoke of other winters. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Kaelburg was the antithesis of Terracanto.

Where the other was earth, misery, and flimsy constructions that seemed ashamed to occupy space, this was stone, order, and enduring power, an affirmation of permanence that defied time itself. The houses were not made of adobe or rough wood, but of solid masonry, with carved facades where animals watched the streets with stone eyes, and roofs of slate.

The streets, paved from side to side with a precision that spoke of centuries of craft, resonated with the orderly bustle of a prosperous city: the hustle of carriages, the cries of merchants in their permanent establishments with glass storefronts and golden signs, the coming and going of well-dressed citizens who walked with the confidence of those who owe nothing to anyone. A stable and palpable wealth, as distant from the aroma of hopelessness in Terracanto as day from night.

The urban decor was adorned with spectral, whitish pines lining public fountains where the water sang its eternal song, their pale trunks contrasting with the gray stone. Near the river that meandered, dividing the city proper from the university domains, willows swayed their silvery branches like tresses and the Silicariel caught light in their translucent trunks.

But before her gaze could rest on the university itself, something captured her attention with the force of a magnet and drew a stifled gasp from her that echoed in the cramped space of the carriage. There, standing with a majesty that transcended the known, rose trees of pure and natural green.

They were colossal, with thick, rugged trunks that soared toward the sky like columns of a temple raised by forgotten gods, and crowns so extensive and leafy that they cast immense shadows, creating a landscape of light and shadow that shifted with every hour of the day.

The memory hit her head immediately, with the force of a revelation, they resembled, with a similarity that made her heart tighten, the redwoods she had so often admired in the national parks of her world, those millennial giants that had seen centuries pass with the indifference of immortals. The roar of the river, raging and powerful, shook the foundations of the carriage as it began to cross the immense stone bridge that stood like a colossus over the waters.

The water struck the pillars with a white and frothy fury, a constant roar that filled the air. The sound managed to pull Selena out of her stupor, tearing her away from that moment of pure wonder. With one last look at the green giants, she fixed her gaze forward, toward the domain that would be her new stay, toward the center of power that awaited her with its open doors and well-guarded secrets.

Beyond the stone walls, massive and ancient, which surrounded the university grounds like the arms of a protective father, the heart of the Royal University of Kaelburg was revealed. And the first thing that rose before her eyes, defying the clouds with its hubris, were three towers. They were enormous, with a diameter she estimated easily at thirty meters each, built with a whitish stone that returned the light in a faint, milky glow.

Each bore a name engraved in tiers of golden letters that sparkled with pride under the sun, proclaiming its identity to the world. The closest one on the left proclaimed: "Tower of Theology." To its right, the second rose with a martial severity that chilled the blood: "Tower of the Strategist." And the third bore a name that resonated with a mystery that made her skin crawl: "Tower of the Orb." In the geometric center of that triangle of power, a lower but colossally wide building joined them all.

Over its portico, carved in the same light stone with letters that must have measured a meter high, the words "The Atrium of Knowledge" welcomed those who crossed its thresholds. Through the enormous doors flung wide open, like the mouth of a sleeping beast, Selena caught a glimpse, in the heart of the interior, of an immense hourglass.

But it was not filled with common sand; inside, a mineral dust of metallic and shifting glints fell with a ceremonious slowness, as if measuring not time, but the patience of the students. The carriage continued its advance, and her gaze, eager for details, drifted toward the sides, recording every building, every structure, every promise of knowledge. To the left, a complex of glass and iron greenhouses stretched as far as the eye could see, their vaulted roofs shining.

They housed an explosion of colorful vegetation: reds, blues, yellows; among the foliage, moving shapes and glints of scales or exotic furs betrayed the presence of animals, creatures she could barely distinguish in the distance, confined in that botanical zoo of wonders. To her right, contrasting with the ethereal transparency of the greenhouses, rose a neighborhood of solid buildings constructed of red brick and gray stone. Numerous symmetrical windows dotted their facades with the regularity of a honeycomb.

An entrance arch, more modest than that of the Atrium but equally imposing in its solidity, announced: "Student Residencies." A sign further down, painted with white letters on a black background, divided the path into four directions that branched out like the fingers of a hand: Cloister of the Flow, Cloister of the Stone, Cloister of the Forest, and Cloister of the Sky. With a soft creaking of axles, the carriage headed toward the path marked as Cloister of the Forest.

Immediately, the atmosphere began to transform with the subtlety of a dream that changes without one noticing. The air became charged with the smell of damp earth, moss, and bark, a primal perfume. The brick buildings, though still visible, began to be swallowed by vegetation with the slowness of a green tide.

Vines climbed their walls with stubborn tendrils, and the paths meandered between groups of trees whose crowns intertwined over the road, filtering the sunlight into dancing spots that moved with the wind like fish in a stream. In the distance, the residencies emerged from the foliage, integrated into the landscape rather than imposed upon it. Then she saw it clearly: the complex was divided into two distinct areas separated by a wide wooded plaza that kept them at a respectful but visible distance.

Separated by gender, Selena thought instantly, remembering the rigid social structures of this world that separated men and women even in sleep. The carriage slowed its pace, its wheels crunching over the gravel like a warning whisper, approaching the area on the left. The journey was over. The carriage finally stopped, and the silence surrounding it was broken only by the whisper of the wind among the leaves of the trees guarding the residence with their branches extended like protective arms.

As she descended, Selena felt the firm earth under her feet after weeks of constant swaying, and for an instant, the world spun around her before settling. Behind her, the silent shadows of Fjora and Samira descended with fluidity, their movements coordinated by an instinct that went beyond obedience. Anne and Clara, with their practical bustle of efficient servants, began unloading the luggage, but their voices were barely a murmur in the vastness of the landscape.

She was met by a woman with a severe face and austere clothes, without a single ornament that betrayed vanity, the matron in charge of the rooms. Her gray hair was pulled into a bun so tight it seemed to stretch the skin of her forehead, and her eyes, of a faded blue, scrutinized her with the efficiency of someone evaluating livestock at a fair. The introductions were a mere formality, an exchange of names and titles that floated in the air without sinking into anyone, like dry leaves blown by the wind.

There were no smiles, no words of welcome beyond those strictly necessary, nor the slightest gesture that could be interpreted as warmth. They followed her through a corridor flanked by dark wooden doors, each with its corresponding bronze plate where some name had been engraved and then erased so many times that the metal shone like a fogged mirror. Until they stopped before one of them, indistinguishable from the rest except for the plate still waiting to be marked.

The room revealed before them was spacious, but notably less ostentatious than the opulent cell in the Solendra mansion. To Selena's mind, that was not a loss, but a gain. The excessive luxury of her previous confinement had begun to produce a kind of spiritual allergy; a supernatural vibration of oppression that made her skin crawl every time she crossed the threshold of that room of carpets and silks. Here, the relative simplicity was a balm, a relief that filtered through her pores.

The space was divided into two areas separated by a stone arch without a door, a barrier more symbolic than real. The first, smaller and clearly intended for her companions, housed two functional beds of a quality much lower than what could be glimpsed at the back, with straw mattresses and coarse wool blankets that smelled clean but not luxury. Beyond the arch, in the main room, awaited a wide and solid bed with a simple linen canopy that fell in white folds like snow.

The room had the essentials: a light wood desk next to a window overlooking the forest, several pieces of furniture for clothes, and what made her academic heart skip a beat, a small, empty bookshelf, its polished wood shelves waiting to be filled with the texts she longed to devour, with the secrets the university kept in its depths. On the opposite wall, austere but promising, a black stone fireplace whose cold ashes spoke of previous winters.

It will be a wonder in winter, she thought, imagining the crackling of wood while snow fell on the mountain slopes and the wind howled against the glass. The matron, with a tilt of the head that was more a gesture of dismissal than respect, withdrew without adding a single word, her footsteps echoing in the corridor like a receding echo. Anne and Clara, after a brief and respectful farewell session where they promised to have everything ready before nightfall, followed her.

It was obvious that the quarters for the servants would be in another sector, separated from those of the students and, of course, from their owners, in that invisible hierarchy that ruled every aspect of life in this world.