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.
