Okay, I can already see the finish line... Thanks for all the reviews and the favorites! :)

19.

Truth

Slowly the days passed by, nearly always having the same order of events while barely anything happened that could disturb this constant flow.

Rolanda would wake up in the mornings, sharing her sleep rhythm with the king by now, and go down to the kitchens to order breakfast and warm water for the king's bath. Before noon, the king would grant her some time for herself – to take a bath down in one of the rooms the maids lived in or to change her clothes after having been provided with a second dress of the similar green as her first one. The maids would take her dirty clothes to wash them and they would reappear on the side table she always placed the food trays on.

King Severus mostly spent his time in his chambers – the only exceptions were some meetings in the throne hall, during which Rolanda had been sitting in some corner. Otherwise, he would be sitting behind his working desk while reading through parchments, writing letters or even sketching plans of monuments or buildings. During these long hours, Rolanda would have nothing to do except sitting on the floor and waiting for any orders the king might have for her. Of course this bored her greatly, but sometimes, if he was not too absorbed into his work and was in a good mood, the king would randomnly jump from his chair and pull a book out of one of the many shelves and handed it to her. Sometimes he would comment the book he had picked out for her, explaining what it was about and what he found good about the topic or tale, or, when he was a little bit more busy, he would just push it into her hands or drop it into her lap without a word before returning to his desk.

He never asked her about her opinion about the books, which were of so different natures that Rolanda's boredom was blown away as soon as her eyes took in the first few words. Especially the tales about fantastic lovestories between princesses and princes or about the battles that had once been fought by brave knights were lighting up her own mood. Those were the ones that she had loved ever since her father had taught her to read and even in this situation, she could barely stop reading them.

They turned out to be her opportunity to escape her reality, if only in her imagination and for a few hours, but that was enough for her. Every minute that she did not have to worry about Alannah was a minute of easing. Every thought about her situation being held back by the tales was one weight less dragging her shoulders down.

The odd feeling she had felt about him was of course still more then present, but fortunately it had kind of ebbed down a bit, or maybe she had just gotten used to it, now that it was present all the time, night and day.

One thing that bothered her the most was that the king had not even asked about her mother and father once. It really seemed a little bit as if he had forgotten about the reason why he had made Rolanda his servant in first place – to somehow make her tell him everything she knew about her parent's location, to have her at his mercy by threatening Alannah's life.

Therefore it really worried her that he was not asking her anything about them. But the thought of bringing this topic up whenever they had a little chat was giving her a bad feeling in her gut, and therefore she just remained silent, thoroughly hoping that he would not get back at her for that.

Still, her days were not as easy as one might think – even though King Severus could be rather friendly towards her by giving her a mere hour to take care of herself or handing her a book to help her spend her time with something else than sitting around and staring holes into the air, he still was a shifting character.

He had a lot of nasty mood swings that occurred out of nowhere mostly – she had tried to find out if there was something like a trigger, a person, an event or just anything that caused him to go through this change from one second to the other, but she had not been able to recognise a pattern yet.

Therefore, she just tried to be extra cautious around him, attempting to be as unobtrusively and tolerable in her actions as she could.

Still she was one of his favourite targets, regardless in which way he swayed. Sometimes, he would be cold to her, as icy as a winters night, something that was at least bearable – he would just ignore her, not speak at all, even refuse to eat. She really was not obliged to care about him at all after everything he was doing, but still she found herself being a little bit worried when he practically buried himself into work, ignoring that his body had needs too.

However, only an hour later he could happen to behave relatively normal again, being friendly, talking with her as if they were friends of some sort. In these moments he could be a gentleman who took care of her even though it was supposed to be the other way around. Sometimes she even had the impression that he was trying to flirt with her in his own, odd and hidden way.

Though she had been forced to learn to not get too comfortable with this friendliness – only the next second, he could snap and break out into pure rage. Whenever this happened, he would scream around about things she did not understand and throw everything movable that was within his reach. His fury could focus on anybody that was in the room – Ronan, the servants... but mostly, it was Rolanda who was near. She was the one who had to listen to his tantrums, not daring to cover her ears to muffle his bellowing, fearing that this could enrage him even more. She was the one who had to duck away from flying items – plates, trays, quills, candlesticks... not even his precious books were safe, though he mostly controlled himself enough to keep his hands off these.

So many of her afternoons had been spent with cleaning up the mess his outbreak had left behind once it had cooled down and had converted into another extreme emotion and the connected behaviour.

She had stopped counting how many plates and candlesticks she had been forced to replace, how much food had been wasted because he had thrown it onto the floor. Some afternoons were spent with the attempt to repair the broken back of a book, but mostly he would take it from her hands and order some servant to have it taken to somebody who knew more about things like that.

But of course her days were not only revolving around trying to not be hit in the head by some object that was thrown by him, and there was also more happening then his mood changes.

Actually, she got to witness a lot about the progression of the situation in Ulidia, she was always present when the king was informed about the newest progressions and therefore she was just as informed about everything as he himself was.

About a week after the new king had taken over the reign, his soldiers had reached nearly all parts of Ulidia, or at least they were constantly coming closer to the farthest part, surely leaving a trail of destruction and despair behind.

Rolanda always asked herself how King Severus could think that all this terror could be the fundament for a solid rule without the potential of a rebellion. She could honestly imagine pretty good that there somewhere were people who were ready to summon all their courage and had enough will to sacrifice everything, even their own lives, for a better future.

No matter how hard it sometimes was to be a servant for the king, being at the front line when he got angry, Rolanda still felt like she was gaining some of her confidence back, just a little bit on every day.

She did not look down at her fingers or the floor so much anymore, no, she was able to hold her head high and look the king in the eye when he spoke with her.

And one afternoon, she decided that she was sick of having to wait until her father's corpse would be carried into the courtyard of the castle.

Wanting to hear answers and being determined to get them while being such a stubborn person as she was, she threw all caution into the wind. Of course she still remembered what had happened the last time she had tried to ask the king some questions about her father, but she decided that she would try and throw herself in front of Alannah if she got the opportunity.

The king had demanded some tea and cake for the afternoon, and she had just returned from the kitchens, placing the small tray with the requested drink and food in front of him on his working table. His mood had been considerably stable for the whole day and she decided that a lot of time could change until something like this would happen again. From her perspective, it was now or never, and she decided to take a chance.

Bowing slightly, she took a deep breath and, instead of stepping back as she usually did, she broke the rules and asked:"Your highness... why are you so desperately searching for my father?"

Inwardly she braced herself for the big bang, but once again, the king surprised her.

oOo

Severus could not deny that he was taken aback by Rolanda's sudden question, but of course he still had enough control over himself to not show that she had caught him cold.

Her question actually made him realise that he had totally forgotten about questioning her concerning her parents and it was a hard piece of work for him to swallow his rage about himself down. He had allowed himself to get kind of lulled by the triumphant feeling of finally having her, the one he had been forced to dream of, around him. Also had he found himself wondering more about her magic as he should – to conclude, he had just been distracted from everything, something that had not been supposed to happen, especially not to him.

Nothing concerning her and her father had gone according to the plan he had had in his mind, and this was a good reason to be angry again, but in this moment, he just stayed calm.

All he could see right now was how beautiful she looked, her face full of curiousity as she displayed how strong she was, determined... This attitude of hers was radiating from her, infecting him kind of and suddenly, he had an idea. Remembering the reason why he had taken her as his servant, he decided that it was the right time to take things forward a little bit, to see how much of the truth she was actually going to believe.

By now, he was quite sure that she possessed the same powers as her father, that they had been passed on to her by blood and that he would be able to use her for his advantage. If he did everything right, he could be able to use her powers and he would be able to achieve even greater things through her. That would balance out the fact that he still had not been able to find her father, the one he had originally wanted, or even erase the disadvantege he had at the moment.

Maybe it would not be as bad as he thought if everything did not as he had planned, and maybe everything would be even greater if he only let the things find their own ways. Had this perhaps happened to teach him that he had to accept that the tides changed as they pleased and that one had to arrange themselves with that fact? Yes, maybe... and with a little bit of luck, he would find out if this thought had any truth inside of it.

Taking a deep breath, he stood up and Rolanda took a step backwards, surely expecting him to have a furious outbreak, but he just smiled at her, nodding as he answered:"Well... I guess it is time that you learn the truth. And I will not be the one to deny it to you any more."

As soon as his words had left her mouth, her slightly defensive posture dropped and her golden eyes fixed on him with a nearly expectant expression as she obviously waited for his explanations.

"Before I can go further with any explanations, I need to inform you about something you probably did not know about your father. His biggest secret in his life, I am sure about that. I regret that I am the one who has to tell you this, it should have been him who explained you everything, but as you deserve the truth..."

He asked himself how Rolanda would react as soon as she had heard the truth. Thinking about it, he had never opened up a topic of this kind to somebody, and therefore he really did not know how to say it. After a little bit of consideration, he decided to do it straight forward, quick and without much more words, and he said in a serious tone:"Your father is a wizard."