Forgive the long stretch between updates, but here is chapter eight at last. My lovely reviewers are to be commended for their kind words and support. And, trust me, I love lengthy reviews.
Rose would not leave her chambers. Tristan was worried and vexed at her sudden change of mind, for he had assumed they had made some progress. He had hoped she would join in the festivities of the Winter Festival as a way to ease herself back into a more social life. He hadn't expected her to venture amongst the bustling, intoxicated crowds for long, but he had certainly been expecting her to be intrepid enough to try.
Lilly had gone to rouse Rose early in the morning before any royal guests such as their Aunt Cecilia arrived. Tristan had noticed the genial rapport growing between the two, and he was appreciative of Lilly's invaluable help with Rose. Although, there were many times he envied his sister's ease around the girl, for he and Rose seemed to have reached some sort of impasse in their relationship. She was convinced he was over-bearing and he was convinced she was the most difficult patient he had ever had to deal with.
His twin, however, had returned with a grim countenance, and with no Rose to accompany her.
Looking at her brother with a troubled frown, she had informed him, "Rose won't come out. She won't even let me in."
"What? Why not?" he had queried in puzzlement and no small amount of concern.
Unfortunately, Lilly had no answer for him, though she did tell him in a dark voice, "It sounded like she was crying…a lot." His sister's tone bade him think she wished to be in there to comfort her friend.
He immediately walked to Rose's room himself, rapping gently on the door and calling in a tenderly concerned voice, "Rose? It's me, Tristan. Can I come in?"
The sounds may have been extremely muffled by the thickness of the doors, but he could discern the soft sounds of sniffling and weeping within. It took quite a bit of self-control not to swing open the door and march in there to see what was causing her so much grief. Evidently, she wanted to be alone and he was right to assume his presence would hinder her recovery. Nonetheless, it was inordinately frustrating. He was a healer—well, healer-in-training, but it was close enough! She was his patient!
"Just go away," he heard her choke out.
Meeting Lilly's chagrined gaze, Tristan sighed heavily and turned to lean his back against the door. He had considered the option of just leaving her to weep in peace until she felt up to visitors. But he felt his curiosity nagging at him relentlessly, whispering to him of the possibility of Rose retaining a memory or two. If that were the case, it made it even more obvious she should be left alone for a while.
"What are you two doing?" someone asked.
Radon, with a quizzical expression upon his face, ambled up to his two cousins. He did not appear to notice it was the very door he had opened up only hours earlier on his sleepless trek through the palace. He had managed to steal a few hours of sleep, which was apparently enough to keep his countenance from looking exhausted and pale.
"Rose won't come out," Lilly explained. "She's in there crying her eyes out and she won't even let us in to see what's wrong."
At those words, Radon's expression of curiosity visibly darkened into one of sheepish realization. He sighed and twisted his hands nervously, wondering how much ire he could provoke from Tristan when the prince learnt of his midnight visit to his patient's bedroom. Perhaps he could feign as much ignorance as those two and escape unscathed, but he had already done himself in by his own traitorous face. Tristan and Lilly immediately frowned suspiciously at Radon, their identical emerald eyes piercing through his shoddy resolve.
"Radon, what do you know?" Tristan queried sternly.
Lilly was far more vocal. "What did you do now? You just can't stop, can you? You see a pretty new face and you immediately have to break her heart with whimsical words of love and affection!"
Before Radon could get in a word in his defense, Lilly trilled on.
"You certainly worked fast this time. Not even twenty-four hours of knowing her and already you've turned her into a wreck. How could you, Radon? You knew how vulnerable she was, how much she had been through! It's not like she's one of the other court girls who prance around here! She's been hurt!" Lilly cried, her voice rife with righteous anger and disbelief at the crimes she had perceived her cousin committed.
"Lilly—" Radon stuttered anxiously, holding out a hand to placate the incensed princess.
"Lilly, I don't think…" Tristan tried.
Lilly ignored both of them, stalking up to Radon and nearly poking his eye out with her index finger, which she thrust in front of his face. "I'm sick of cleaning up your messes, Radon!"
"Lilly! I didn't do anything!" Radon screamed, startling his cousin into silence. "I was walking around last night because I couldn't sleep and I heard her screaming in her room. I came in to see what was wrong and I saw her thrashing about on her bed."
"She must have been having a nightmare," Tristan noted, comprehension dawning.
"Yes, I woke her up…and that certainly was a treat. She decked me right in the nose in her sleep and lunged away. I didn't think she could have such force for someone so…frail looking. It's a wonder my nose isn't broken," Radon told them. It was then the two siblings noticed his nose was redder than usual and rather swollen.
"Well, after she woke up and got sort of pissed with me about being in her room in the middle of the night…she…erm…told me about her dream." At those last words, Radon reverted back to furtive guilt, trying not to meet his cousins' inquisitive gazes. He had no wish to tell them of this particular dream without Rose's consent. He held no desire to stimulate her anger again.
"What did she tell you?" Tristan asked, the tone of his voice belying his excitement at a possible insight into his patient.
Radon adamantly shook his head and backed away. "I'm sorry, Tris, but I don't think it's my place to talk about this. If Rose wants to tell you, she will when she's ready. But, I have to say, what she dreamt is definitely a good reason for her to stay in her room crying all day."
Tristan cursed in irritated frustration. He understood Radon's reluctance to talk about it, at least, he partially understood. It was hard to sympathize through the haze of his need to know everything about his patient. The thought that he might be so close to a vital clue and was not able to hear it just yet was infuriating.
"Well, could you at least tell me if it was a valid memory?" Tristan asked through gritted teeth.
Radon slowly nodded his head. "In a way…yes, I think it was."
While the three cousins argued, Rose lay on her bed, her weeping having grown more sedate by now. The swirling memories of the night before and that terrible nightmare had acted as a catalyst to the eventual venting of all her repressed emotions. She had been lingering so long in uncertainty over uncovering her lost memories. She knew she harbored some internal drive that kept urging her to seek out the horrors her mind hid from her. Yet, there were parts of her that wished to remain forever ignorant of her former life, of the terrible incident that had torn people she must have cherished from her.
Now, everything was different. A child was involved, a child she loved and yearned for even more deeply than she had previously believed. She did not care if the boy was her true son or not, for he was just as important to her either way. She could not longer shirk her memories, those things she pursued and avoided at the same time. She needed to dash away this uncertainty and regain her decisive composure. She needed to find him; she needed to learn what became of him. For better or for worse.
With this brand new platitude in mind, she pulled herself out of her misery and rose to her feet. She walked slowly to her vanity table and peered again at her pitiful reflection. Her face was blotchy and red from her tears, her hazel eyes tinged with redness. Her skin was sweaty, causing her nightgown to cling even tighter to her skin. Her fists clenched, as she struggled to recall how she was supposed to look. What was it Tristan had told her?
He had told her when they first found her she had been quite muscular, but not to the point of overdoing it. Rose lifted up her left hand, noting the thin, fine scars that languished between her thumb and index finger. She fingered that flimsy web of skin bearing the scars, remembering what those scars represented. She had been trained in the arts of war. Perhaps she had been a warrior, or perhaps she had merely dabbled. Who knew? What everyone had been certain of was that she had been in fine shape when they found her and now her figure had diminished severely.
This was the key, she decided. Her memories were ambiguous, but her body was part of the tangible, physical realm. She would focus her energy on what she could easily manipulate first and then move onto the more abstract keys to unlocking her life. It was time to become what she had once been, at least in body if not in mind.
Upon deciding this strategy, she smiled sardonically at her reflection. Her hazel eyes were wiped nearly clean of doubt and fear, having been usurped by resolve and strength. She much preferred this look, for it made her body appear less fragile than before.
She traversed the length of her bedchamber to the door in a few long strides (she ignored the slight twinges in her leg). She flung it open much to the surprise of the bickering trio in front of it. The two boys and the girl backed away and stared incredulously at Rose's scantily clad form. Radon could not help but grin appreciatively before he was elbowed harshly by Lilly. Rose, on the other hand, didn't seem to care how she was dressed.
For Tristan, it was not so much the way she was dressed as it was the look in her eyes. Something had changed within her. Whatever had occurred in that dream had been far more significant than he had foreseen. Gone were those furtive, fearful gleams. Gone was the vulnerability. Gone was the insecurity and doubt. All those negative emotions had been pushed back behind the new vitality he sensed rippling from her.
His mouth dropped agape in amazement. What a magnificent transformation had been wrought! She had always been minutely pretty in a famished sort of manner to Tristan, but now with this new strength flowing from her, she looked like a beautiful, brazen warrior queen. It did not even seem to matter that her actual physical capabilities were probably mediocre at best at the moment, for her presence alone demanded one bow subserviently.
While her brother romanticized the moment in active hyperbole, Lilly took a tentative step forward. "Rose, are you okay?"
Rose met her friend's gaze, taking Lilly aback with her fierce eyes. "Oh, I will be, Lilly. Mark my words, I will be."
The fairy book was among one of Ella's most treasured possessions. She would spend hours just perusing the enchanted pages, using the item as her window to worlds beyond her reach. When she and her husband went traveling, they always brought the book with them to keep watch over their children. She rather enjoyed spying upon her boisterous twins especially, for when they were young they could be quite the mischief-makers. Now, however, she mostly used the book for sole enjoyment, taking pleasure in whatever it had to show her. Rarely, if ever, did it show her things she would have wished to scour from her memory.
Unfortunately, the book chose to show her such things on this fair winter morning, when everything should have been festive and bright. She had not even been looking at the book; it lay open on her desk on what had been a wonderful romance story. She had been brushing her long, dark tresses when she heard the pages stir of their own accord. Having never witnessed such a phenomena—but, nevertheless, not overtly shocked, for it was crafted by fairies—she watched with mild curiosity, her hairbrush still raised up in her hair.
When the pages finally rested, Ella slowly approached the book, wondering what significant visions it had to impart to her. She was obviously astute enough about mystical things to know if a book that had never really turned pages on its own was now doing so, it was for a reason. Her bright green eyes centered on the page, eager to see what the tome wanted to show her.
At first, she was only able to discern darkness and the faint outlines of what she surmised were trees. She leaned closer to have a better look. Suddenly, a moving shape appeared through the trees, and the book quickly abruptly changed scenes to follow the shape and give Ella a clearer picture. It was a person, a girl dressed in a fine velvet gown of exotic origin and style. The girl's face was stained with dirt, blood, and tears, and her gown was ripped. It did not seem to impede her running though, for she was swiftly darting around trees and leaping over logs. Her movements were suggestive of the nimble felines, so sleek and agile. She ran in long, forward moving strides, with none of the silly arm-flailing many are wont to do while running.
"Rose," Ella breathed in shock. The book was showing her a glimpse of the terrifying incident that caused Rose to land in their care.
Ella could not hear her, but she could imagine Rose was breathing heavily from exertion and terror just by looking at her face. Her hair appeared to have once been tied up in an elegant braid, but was now loose and practically undone.
Finally, Rose stopped, exhaustion appearing to have overcome her. She leaned against a tree for a quick moment to catch her breath. Ella almost found herself wanting to scream into the book for Rose to keep going, but the child was far too traumatized and tired to move at the moment, it looked. She held her breath as Rose peeked behind her. In that instant, moonlight illuminated the golden chain round her neck, and the diamond shaped charm flung over to her shoulders during the running. Ella could not make out the insignia on the necklace, which was most unfortunate. She had no doubt it would have been a critical intimation to where she had come from.
Again the scene shifted, this time to a far more grotesque picture. Ella's eyes were held fast to the book, as if she were under a spell. She saw a woman with hair as black as midnight and hands that were drenched in blood. In fact, most of her was drenched in blood. There were flecks of blood spattered on her face and all over her chest. The woman appeared to be laughing maniacally.
Ella felt her entire body tremble in spite of the fact that she was only seeing this in a book. She wanted to look away when the woman started to saunter away, because the queen felt that whatever she was to see next would be horrific beyond words. Her eyes, though, continued to stay where they were, barely blinking even.
Ella cried out in disgust mingled with horror, wrenching herself away from the tome and tripping over the hem of her gown in the process. On the floor, she had her eyes squeezed tightly shut, hoping that whatever she had seen had not been real. She had seen rather unspeakable things as she had traveled the world with her husband, but nothing she had seen could come close to what her book had shown her. Her mind could not even conceive of such horrors.
After a few moments of heavy breathing, in which Ella sought to collect her wits, she shakily rose to her feet. Though she would rather not have seen the horrible picture again, her eyes made a cursory sweep of the book just to see if the scene had changed.
The pages were blank. Neither a word nor a picture graced the surface. It was as if the pictures had not been there at all, which Ella fervently wished were the case.
The Kyrrian queen shuddered and swiftly slammed the book shut.