Oh my, sprinting to the finnish line! I did not have any inspiration the last days and now I am trying to finish in time nonetheless... This chapter is extra long^^ Only one shorter one to go now!

I hope you all like it, leave me a review :)

22.

A Difficult Decision

The rest of the day passed by in a blurr and Rolanda's head had been spinning all the time. She had literally been staggering around instead of walking, her knees as weak as warm butter, even a few hours after her conversation with the king.

Rolanda had spent the rest of the day with brooding inwardly, as the king had left her enough time to do so. Down in the kitchens, she had been sitting on one of the tables together with Sturgis, nibbling on a piece of fresh herb bread and listening to him chatting with some of the other servants that were walking around in the kitchens.

She had been unable to tell him anything about Severus' offer, unsure about what he would think about her, and what he would say about this offer. Normally she was not the type of person who did care about the opinion others had about her or her actions, but right now she felt like it was not a good idea to tell anyone about the things that had happened earlier this day.

Not only because of everything she had learned about magic today, something that sounded unbelievable and a little bit insane, and this alone would have been enough to keep quiet.

She could totally see why he kept his magical skills a secret, it was nothing an intelligent person would go peddling with – though she had never experienced any dramatic or dangerous human flaws until that fateful night in which King Severus had taken over the reign, she had heard and also read enough stories about people who were driven by greed, willing to do anything to achieve their goals.

There surely were many people who would dare to use violence to get someone to use their magic to give them benefits...

And as she thought about it, about the opportunities that this discovery was offering her, she could not deny that she saw this too. Provided that she would be able to gain more control over her magic, she could be able to gain so many things. More gold, a better, bigger cottage, more food, liberation from all the worries the cold and hard winters were bringing with them...

However, the other reason why she did not feel up to informing Sturgis about everything was the fact that the king had offered her to unite with him.

She did not feel like the other servants would show her the same amount of respect and kindness and helpfulness they did now after hearing about what she had been offered. They would surely not look at her the same way after receiving that information, after all, they thought of her as one of them at the moment. That would change if she should mention anything about the king's offer.

Then she would be someone above them, because they would see that she was not being treated equal to them, even though she was only a servant too, even if she was the personal servant of the king.

Maybe they would think that she had been pursuing any higher goals all the time, acting friendly towards the other servants to pull them to her side, to ensure that she would have a rather comfortable time at the castle. And in fact, they were all very kind towards her, taking some work away from her because they felt like that she was having enough to do with escaping the king's tantrums.

As the evening came, Sturgis' voice ripped her out of her thoughts, sounding a little bit concerned as he asked:"Rolanda, is everything okay with you?"

Rolanda blinked, actually a little bit surprised as she realised that she was still sitting on the tabletop of one of the tables in the kitchens, Sturgis looking at her with a questioning expression.

"I... uhm... yes, why do you ask?" She answered, shoving her braid over her shoulder and eating the last bite of her bread only to have something to do.

"You were staring into the air, looking as if you were thinking about a complicated problem," Sturgis replied, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "In case you want to hear some advice..."

Had she not been occupied with her heavy thoughts, Rolanda surely would have registered a light tingling sensation in her arm upon Sturgis' touch. However she did not and she looked up at him, shaking her head while trying to surpress a sad expression to sneak into her eyes:"I am sorry, Sturgis, but I do not feel like you would be able to help me with this..."

Releasing a sigh, she jumped down from the table and saw how one of the maids placed the tray with the king's dinner on the table just the same moment.

"I guess it is time to go upstairs...," she murmured and Sturgis nodded, still looking a little bit concerned.

"If you decide that you still want to tell me about your problems, I am here."

Rolanda bit her lip and smirked slightly as she decided that it was time for a little joke to relieve her heart and mind a little bit:"I always knew that you are not the sleeping type. I hope you are not annoying the maids too much by staying down here all night."

"Do not worry about me," he winked and Rolanda smiled at him before leaving the warmth of the kitchens behind.

As she slowly climbed up the many stairs, balancing the tray in her hands, she felt a certain amount of reluctance to return to the king's chambers building up inside of her. Every step seemed to need twice the amount of energy, her legs felt so extremely heavy... She did not wanted to return, she did not wanted to step under the king's gaze again...

How she wished that she could just leave the tray in front of the door and go. Of course she did not know where she could go to anyway. There was nothing left outside this castle, her village was burnt down and the chances that her family's cottage was only a construction of burned wood too were high. Her home was gone, her parents were gone...

Alannah was the only person that was left now, and she realised that her little sister was the person who was binding her to this place, the reason why running away from the castle was pointless. Let alone the fact that she surely would never be able to reach the gates and the drawbridge behind. She was convinced that there would be enough guards who knew that she was not supposed to leave, or even go to the courtyard after all.

Thinking about it, she had barely seen any daylight since she had come here, and she had not been outside at all. Suddenly she longed for the smell of the wide meadows around her village, she wanted to inhale the fresh air into her lungs, and feel the still warm rays of the autumn sun on her skin. The castle seemed so cold to her right now, like a predator that was swallowing her down.

Tears were stinging in her eyes by now and she sniffed, stopping in front of one of the rare windows that were positioned in the corridor that she had to walk through before reaching her final staircase.

Trying to calm herself down because her hands were trembling, causing the bowl of soup on the tray to sway dangerously, she took a few deep breaths, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

The sun was just going down, floating the valley with gold, red and orange light that was spreading a calm atmosphere, migratory birds were flying towards the glowing ball of light.

How she suddenly longed for a hug... On evenings that were like this one, Alannah and she had used to cuddle in front of the fireplace in their living room or, when the weather was still warm enough, outside in front of a campfire. For a moment, she could hear her mother's voice over the cries of the birds, and she told the two sisters the stories their grandmother had used to tell their mother when she had been their age. The smell of freshly fished and roasted fish lingered in her nose and she could almost taste it on her tongue, along with the fresh bread her mother used to bake.

Rolanda gulped hard, feeling her heart ache slightly and she surpressed a sob. The wish to just throw this damned tray to the ground and run down to the dungeons, to her little sister, was extremely prominent in her mind and she could actually feel the muscles in her legs twitch upon this thought.

She wanted to go downstairs, throw this dress away and accompany her sister in her cell – she felt like this was the place where she belonged to, with the last bit of family that remained to her as close to her as possible. For a split second, she thought that she did not care about what the king would do with her if she ended their little pact that was protecting Alannah at the moment. In that very situation she surely would think different, but right now she said herself that starving to death or being executed did not seem like something to fear if she only had her little bird with her.

Would the king decide to kill her if she should decide to return to the dungeons to be with her sister? After all, he had told her his biggest secret, one that could possibly dangerous for both of them, even though she did not really think that anybody would believe her if she tried to convince them that the king was a wizard.

Or maybe he would try every possible way to get her to stay with him, torture included?

She was not a seer, and the king was such an volatile character that nobody in this world could be able to foresee what he would do in such a case.

Should she just throw everything away and go see her sister? Over the last days, she had surpressed her feelings, how much she missed Alannah and now, her soul seemed to be screaming for her sister.

Had she been able to summon enough courage, she surely would have turned away to walk down the stairs again, but Rolanda was only human and she was, after all, a little bit afraid of death and especially of causing any harm to her sister. And so she turned the opposite way, her fingers gripping the tray so hard that her knuckles turned white and she climbed up the last staircase, feeling like she was walking the wrong way.

OoO

The king did not speak with her during the dinner, but while eating in silence, she could feel his black eyes observing her, attempting to drill into her mind and into her soul. She felt uncomfortable, his gaze reminding her of the hungry way he had looked at her earlier this day. It was clear to her that she was showing her discomfort openly to him with shuffling slightly whenever he looked her way, but she just could not stop herself from doing so anyway.

To be honest, she had expected him to try to influence her by presenting her more arguments why she should become his apprentice – he was talented with words, that was something she had found out within a short amount of time after becoming his servant and she did not doubt that he could have been able to persuade her into agreeing.

Thinking about it, he surely did not really need to give her time to think about his offer, he could have made her join him only seconds after his offer. But obviously he did not wanted this – he wanted her to agree of her free will and he also seemed to be relatively confident about how she would decide. This was actually making her feel even more uncomfortable, really, because this meant that he knew exactly that some of his arguments had been extremely strong, too strong to not be considered by Rolanda.

It was a relief as the king decided that they would go to bed early today and Rolanda felt like the darkness, that fell over the bedchamber as soon as she had extinguished the flame of the last candle, was giving her a little bit of her confidence and comfortableness back.

She listened to the king's calm breathing as he fell asleep and once again, though it surely had never stopped completely, her mind started working again, spinning around the offer he had made.

It was undeniable that he had promised her everything she could ever wish for, and also things that she did not really think she needed in her life, though they seemed tempting. Rolanda actually was a little bit surprised about herself as she started to think about the king's offer in a serious manner, though she had earlier preferred the thought of returning to her sister.

Learning magic sounded like a fairytale, but she had seen him perform it, making her realise that this was real and he believed that she was very talented too... With his assistance, she surely would be able to expand this talent he had told her she did have.

What she would be able to achieve was incomprehensibly and all she could do was think of smaller things, though she was sure that the king did have other goals with her magic. He did not care about her family, their modest wealth or their peace or luck, as he was obviously pursuing higher things. Surely he wanted more power, more land and more gold, it could not be different, and Rolanda asked herself if she really wanted to help him achieve this. Also, would there be anything left for her? Would he care about what she wanted to achieve, about her small, in comparison nearly innocent goals?

In any case she was sure that agreeing to his offer would mean the end of fear – she felt like her life and the life of Alannah would not be endangered any more, and maybe the king would even show mercy towards her father. Her taking away her father's guilt could mean freedom for all of them. Maybe he would release them all after some time, or at least the rest of her family...

Rolanda felt how her dark mood started to lighten ever so slightly as she realised that she, even though she was only a normal young woman, could possibly be able to change some bigger things. Suddenly she saw other reasons why she should accept, not only because of her family.

The hungry gazes the king had sent in her direction over the whole day suddenly meant something else than unpleasant shivers for her. It meant that he obviously wanted her, and she realised that he had already done a lot because of his desire – he had spared her beatings and anything worse, he had behaved so friendly towards her in between his tantrums...

Why had she not seen this earlier? Had she been blind, or simply too occupied with her personal worries to see that he was more than willing to do nearly anything for her?

What if she could be able to influence him after gaining his trust? Maybe he would permit her even more things after she had accepted his offer? Accepting surely meant something like possessing her completely to him, and if she played his game right, she could be able to gain a certain amount of power over him.

There was this possibility, she could not close her eyes to shut it out and she could feel the careful warmth of hope spreading through her body. After some time, she could possibly dare to use the power over him to turn all the things that were happening at the moment around, for the sake of everybody. What if she had the ability to persuade him to end all the murder and destruction that was going on right now?

He had offered her to become his partner, an equal, hell, his QUEEN if she wanted, and this showed her that there definitely was a possibility. Obviously he was giving her enough trust to help him decide and she knew that he would want to listen to her.

Of course it was a high risk – there was no doubt that he would be more than furious if he discovered that she had used him, that she had influenced him to pursue her own goals. His revenge surely would cost her her head and Alannah would also need a lot of luck to cling to her life, but Rolanda still felt like the positive aspects were weighing more to her.

If she should succeed, everybody, and not only she, her sister or her family, would benefit from it. Though she was not that megalomaniac to believe that she would be able to bring peace to the whole kingdom of Ulidia, she still believed that she would be able to change a lot.

Her heart was beating fast in excitement as she turned around under her blanket, deciding that she would take the risk, just so she would feel like she had done more than only sit around and wait until things were sorted out by somebody else.

oOo

Thanks to the decision she had made that night, Rolanda found that she had been able to sleep better than she had ever done since she was at Blackdown Stronghold.

It was easy to get up and prepare everything so that the king would have a pleasant morning.

After the breakfast table was cleaned up, Rolanda expected the king to retreat into his working room, but as she came back, he was standing in the middle of the living room, his face once again a unreadable mask as he asked calmly:"Have you decided if you want to accept my offer, Rolanda?"

Rolanda took a deep breath as she stepped forwards, looking into his dark eyes with as much determination she could muster as she answered:"Yes, I have decided. I will become your apprentice, your highness."