Floating. She was floating on a misty cloud. Tendrils of smoke curled through the air. She reached out towards them, but they simply danced out of reach, still winding their way through the room.

It was nice here. Nice and quiet, no thoughts reaching to crowd her in their complications. She couldn't remember what had been filling her mind, and didn't know why it was so empty now, but what did mere details like that matter in a world where colours were not so stark against each other and blurred together as friends? Nothing seemed so harsh. Or cruel. She remembered cruelty, remembered its bitter tang, and the desire for revenge, to curse the afflicter with the same pain. No, she was better off without that.

She couldn't quite work out what she felt. Anger? No red-hot rage sought to devour her from within, to soak her in its fiery blaze. She didn't need anger. Happiness? Not that either. If she had to put a name to her emotions, she would label them 'peaceful'. Nothing bothered her. Nothing occupied her mind save her searching for something to occupy it. But there was something else, something that she couldn't name as she stumbled around the room, attempting to find something whole, something that stayed in the same place that she could hold onto. The mixing of colour into colour was starting to confuse her. Where did one thing end and the other begin?

She fumbled about like an elderly, blind woman for a few minutes, and then she saw it. She couldn't understand why she hadn't seen it before. It was a sharp image against the blurs of the rest of the world. A moment or two passed before she recognised what it was.

A horrified scream tore out of her throat. It didn't sound like her voice. Neither did the terrified shriek of, "SNAKE!"

*

I couldn't believe it. Absolutely typical.

I'd worked for the man loyally, unquestioningly (most of the time) for eight whole years, and how does he shower me with thanks and gratitude for achieving all our hopes and dreams?

By locking me up the minute some stupid pox-rotted commoner blinks twice at him, and then screeches 'snake' in my face. She'll be his undoing. I did warn him. I did try, but he is blind and deaf to anything that he sees as a slight on his precious Veralidaine Sarrasri.

Honestly. I expected a smile, perhaps small praise, something for blowing that powder in the WildMage's face and stopping her from setting that wretched dragon on us. A few years ago, I stumbled across a hedgewitch living in squalor, somewhere in Corus. In exchange for a little money, drink and thanks, she bestowed me with gifts of poison, concutions to addle the mind and a dagger. I treasured them all and kept them carefully until now. The man appreciated nothing. Nothing at all.

I decided that Ozorne would be very fortunate if he were not on the receiving end of one of my more fatal, preferably slower acting potions, ignoring the fact that it was unlikely that I'd get out of here in the near future. I might, however, forgive him if he came on bended knee and offered me half the kingdom.

As the night drew on, it became increasingly obvious that he was not going to come, on bended knee or otherwise. I huddled myself against the cold into as small a ball as I could with regard to my bonds, and waited some more. Always waiting these days. Waiting for somebody else to take charge, to complete their move.

Unfortunately, I didn't seem to have much choice in the matter.

*

A small girl, curled up in a bed much too large for her, is lost beneath the covers, drowning in this finery that chance brought her. Yet, she is all alone. No friend to laugh with, no brothers and sisters to tease, no mother and father to hug. Only those that she took from another care for her now. She wraps the covers tighter around her, as if their warmth will stop the cold sweeping its path through her heart. They don't. She remains all alone. No mother, peering round the doorway to check that she sleeps soundly. Even her stolen mother doesn't care about her, is dancing below, smile gracing her beautiful face, twirling, swirling, leaving her daughter behind.
 
She whimpers slightly, all alone in this plot of intrigues and lies. Nobody to care for her.

Almost as if she can sense the boy watching her from miles away, she sits up, allowing the covers to fall away, and their gazes meet. Hers filled with longing and loneliness, his with loss and tears.

Slowly, like her covers, the scene drags away. She cocks her head slightly, but it is not her that the focus is on any more. She fades out, out of memory. She is always left wanting.

A young boy sits on a throne. He is uncomfortable in this rigid position, and his arm itches. He longs to run outside where he knows all the young children are playing. His duty confines him, duty that came to him at the price of death. This is his throne by right, but he doesn't want it.

His mother is somewhere behind him, and he wants to turn and see comfort lingering in her blue gaze, but knows he will not find any. Nothing has been in her eyes but agony and the beginnings of madness for months.

Without a mother's reassurance, he turns his steady gaze to the front, searching for somebody to rely on. He finds nothing at first, and then a pair of sparkling blue eyes swims before his vision. His head, weighed down by the crown upon it, snaps from side to side, looking for their owner, before he realises that the eyes no longer sparkle, but plead for the release of torture. Those eyes are bloodshot, yet firm, and he holds the gaze to him. When the court scene begins to grow fainter, he doesn't notice, so intent is he on those eyes.

A hand shoots towards him, and he becomes himself again, shaken suddenly back into his own body. The hand is not for him, it is for the little girl with the sapphire eyes, shrieking with pain, and begging to be left alone.

The man is unrelenting in his determination to have revenge on the dark-haired girl who is an innocent. Revenge was supposed to taste so sweet, but not for the girl. His revenge tasted like blood at the back of her mouth, rumbling hunger in her stomach and tears in her throat.

All she wants to do is be left alone. Alone is what the girl in the large bed despises, and alone is what the young boy feels. In truth, they are all alone, yet surrounded by people. But, in truth, they are all together, bound together by their differences as well as their similarities. Bound by dreams if not by life. Bound together. Forever.

*

A boy stirred, Josua by name. Sleepily, he blinked, eyes slowly beginning to focus as they found the Champion of Tortall, asleep beside him. He snorted at what she had been reduced to, at what they had both been reduced to. None of the tales of their success would give an account of this moment. Nobody would want to hear of heroes sleeping in the dirt. He rolled his eyes in vague amusement as soon as the thought had crossed his mind. He wasn't a hero. He was just trying to get home. The dream lay at the back of his mind, probing him gently. He could not find himself in that dream, and hoped that no one else would.

Slowly, he pulled himself into a sitting position. They were now only two days ride from Corus by his reckoning. His thoughts turned to a girl wistfully, wondering what had become of her, wondering if he would ever see her again.

*

The girl, Arabella, at that moment sat, twirling her long, blonde hair idly. "I had another dream," she remarked to the man lounging opposite her. Interest kindled in his eyes as he sat up straight. She held her hand up to ward off the bubble of questions she knew were coming. "There were three children. A boy, and two girls." Carefully, she rubbed her arm. "They were young, around ten or so. Royalty, two of them, or so it seemed. A girl in a bedroom filled with riches that she had not imagined, a boy on a throne, crown topping his head, and a girl in a stone room."

His black eyes sparked slightly. "Do you think you're having their dreams?" he enquired, excitement in his tone. "What else happened there? They are the girls, aren't they?"

A smile jerked to her lips at the thought that he was acting like a little boy. It hadn't entered her mind, when the tales of his miracles had reached Galla. She hadn't thought he'd be human. But then, kings weren't supposed to be human, and she, better than anyone, knew they were. Her face tightened, and she ran a hand through her hair. "I think I'm in too deep," she confessed. "I think – I don't think I can get out. It's like we're-" She shifted slightly, so she was in an upright position. He mimicked her action, leaning in, concern written into his expression. "It's – it's like we're tangled together." She spread her hands, helplessly, unable to express the torrent of emotion that had infiltrated her during her sleeping hours, unable to give voice to the selfish thought that she wanted her secrets, and she didn't want them to have her past. Eventually, she settled for repeating, "I'm in too deep."


*

That thought was echoed by the only occupant of a small room. She shivered slightly, alone. More alone than she had been in years. She was also in too deep in this plot of lies and deceit, with no way to get out.

Except death.

But even that option was slowly drifting away from her.