Her stomach growled, its hunger reawakened at the taste of something edible. Juliana spat it out. She could go on a while yet.
“If this is some kind of a sick joke Prax,” Juliana said. “I swear, if you dropped me in the hive of a giant bee-demon…” She trailed off as she glanced around her. “Prax? Shalise?”
No one was around. Not even other thrashings in the liquid. Nothing but a small wooden boat with a single oar resting on top.
Juliana started paddling her way over. Despite being unable to sink, it wasn’t easy. The honey continuously sucked her back to where she was, only giving her a few inches with every paddle.
Moving those ten feet was the hardest workout she had ever had. Given who her mother was, that was quite the feat. By the time she made it up and over the edge of the boat, her arms were burning and she was panting as hard as she had been immediately after surfacing.
She laid back against the bottom of the boat and sat, once again recovering. Most of the honey dripped off while she waited. Juliana still felt sticky with a thin film over her body and the less said about her hair, the better.
Juliana couldn’t think of a single thing better than a hot shower at the moment. A hot meal came close.
Finally having had enough, Juliana sat properly within the boat and grasped the oar. With a final look around for any sign of Prax or Shalise–neither of whom were anywhere in sight–she plunged the oar down into the black honey and pushed.
The initial force almost threw her out of her seat.
She had expected to use a lot of effort just to move the boat a few feet.
She had not expected the boat to shoot off like a rocket powered speedboat.
One side of the boat dipped almost into the liquid while the other side rose up into the air as the boat banked around in a tight circle. The raised side and lowered side reversed as it turned again. None of it was her doing. The boat was moving all on its own.
The boat came to a sudden stop, almost throwing Juliana over the bow. If she hadn’t been gripping the seat with all her might, she would have gone over.
As it turns out, she needn’t have bothered. The boat was sitting on the precipice of a sort of circular hole in the liquid. A waterfall–though none of the liquid actually appeared to be flowing. Before Juliana could try paddling backwards or jump from the boat, it tipped forwards.
Juliana’s iron-like grip on her seat was augmented by actual iron from her bracers as the boat sped vertically through the tunnel of honey.
The boat stopped once again before tipping over onto another flat plain.
By all means, she should have been upside-down. Or falling.
She wasn’t. She simply sat in the boat as it lazily drifted into a worn wooden dock. The moon was even still above her.
With rubber legs, Juliana made her way out of the boat. She did not want to stay on that wild ride any longer.
The moment she was safely onto the dock, the boat reversed, spun around, and dove out of sight down the hole in the liquid.
Turning away from the hole, Juliana looked over the rest of the little island attached to the dock. It didn’t look very big. She could probably run a lap around the perimeter in less than ten minutes.
An old single-room theater building sat at the center of the island. It came complete with a ‘NOW PLAYING’ sign, though the ‘Y’ was hanging upside down beneath the rest. Whatever was playing was missing far too many letters to read the title.
The rest of the building was in much the same state of disrepair. Wood panels had warped and broken. Most lightbulbs around the marquee had shattered and none of the whole ones were lit. Cobwebs stretched from corner to corner over the entrance.
Juliana looked around. She considered walking around the building to see if the island continued straight back. Prax had said his domain was a great castle. This was neither great nor a castle. After a moment of thought, she decided against wandering around. May as well start at the start and avoid backtracking later on.
On her way up the splintered wooden steps, Juliana kept a sharp eye out for any metal. She felt naked with only her bracers. Part of that could be that she actually was partially naked; her clothes had been damaged during her unconsciousness back at the prison.
There were nails holding down the steps and in the walls. They could work for extra metal, but individually, they weren’t worth much. Pulling them out would not only take a lot of time, but… well, the building looked unstable enough without her pulling it apart.
She did take the iron handles off the entryway doors, though that barely added enough to cover up her upper arms.
Juliana pushed open the doors.
And promptly froze in an open-mouthed gape.
Red velvet chairs with golden trim filled the theater hall. White marble pillars stretched up the walls to the ceiling. Craning her neck, Juliana stared in awe at the painting on the ceiling.
