2- Encounters

Now, Akkarin was resting in his bedroom, and she was standing before the residence, waiting for the witness of that strange scene by the spring to show up. She knew for sure he will. He will want to know. And indeed, she soon heard him call her name:

"Sonea!"

She sighed and turned in his direction. "Dorrien."

An awkward silence followed. Then,

"How long have you been there?"

"The beginning. I always go to the spring when I need to think, and I needed to think. About you, about us. About the obvious change in your feelings. Well, I suppose that now, I know what was going on. The High Lord, heh? You seem to have found yourself a very important lover. Should I present my congratulations?"

"Please, Dorrien, stop that. You can't be so stupid that you would think I was expecting or wanting that to happen? He was not in his normal state, a blind man would have seen that!" She sighed. "I'll have to ask Takan what drugs that was, and make sure Akkarin doesn't take them anymore."

"Now he's Akkarin, heh?" he noted. "Well, sounds to me that you're already quite close."

"Oh, just shut up! If you're not going to help me dealing with it, you can leave me alone! But do NOT speak to anyone about what you've seen, you understand? The High Lord had taken drugs; everything will be back at the normal by tomorrow morning."

"You can trust me; I don't plan on ruining your chances with him…"

As Sonea was going to tell him to go to hell, he spoke again: "Just by curiosity, why are you going to answer, when he'll come asking on tomorrow?"

She realized that she hadn't thought of that. Eventually, she said: "It is highly improbable that he will ask again without drugs – if he remembers anything that happened today, and I don't think he will."

"Too bad for you, isn't it? You should be very disappointed, no?" he replied, with a very sarcastic voice.

Sonea couldn't take it back any longer and yelled "Go to Hell, Dorrien!" before going back at the residence to have a little chat with Takan.

Takan was in the kitchen when she returned. He asked her: "My Lady, have you seen the Master today?"

"Yes Takan, I have. He is sleeping now –at least, I hope he is. Takan, I have to know: what did he take, that could put him in such a state? And why could he take it, whatever it is? He should know how dangerous a Magician can become when under alcohol or drugs effect, and he's already the most dangerous magician in the Allied Lands! Has he really lost it and decided to kill every citizen of Kyralia?"

Takan transferred his weight from one leg to the other, obviously ill-at-tease.

"My Master is not… as cold-hearted as you think he is, my Lady. He too has problems… personal problems to deal with…"

"What problems could be more important than the lives of all Kyralians?"

"No, don't worry, my Lady, he wasn't going to do any harm… Those herbs I gave him… he asked me for something which could… relax him, which could have made things easier for him. As for his problems… although he didn't tell me exactly what they were… I understood that it has something to do with…, well, with you, my Lady. Hasn't he spoken of them when you saw him?"

Realization slowly came to Sonea's mind. But he couldn't possibly have taken drugs with the only purpose of… proposing to me? Or could he?

"Well, he might have-" she said, to answer Takan's question.

"I truly hope you did your best to help him speak his mind. He looked almost desperate. I've never seen him like that."

At these words, Sonea's heart tightened a bit. What was it? Guilt? Surely not. I've done exactly what I should. This is completely insane. And yet…

"I fear that I… I may not have understood what he went through…"

'That's very unfair, my Lady." There was definitely something reprimanding in the way he was speaking. "I know you don't seem to like him much, but could you try to be a little nicer to him?"

'I will try" she promised.

Back in her room, she was thinking. Takan's words had moved something inside her.

"You don't seem to like him much…", "…don't like him much…"… Ah no? Well, if that's so, why do I feel so guilty and worried? Oh, I shouldn't be, that's crystal clear. He is, after all, the one who abducted me to be sure that Rothen won't tell the Guild that he kill slums dwellers. And yet…

Back there, at the spring, he hadn't been this man. Takan said it too. "He's not as cold-hearted as you think he is". Well, he had been definitely… human there. Could it be… Could it be that the man she has seen glimpses of at the spring, the man with so much passion in him that he had to take drugs to express them, was the real Akkarin, rather than the always-serious High Lord?

It that's so, it would not bother me to be loved by him… And to love him?

She thought back at how she liked it, when he'd kissed her, how she's been flattered when he was being jealous, how it has irritated her that Dorrien asked her about her intentions for the next morning… Could he have been right? Had she really been disappointed at the thought that Akkarin would not remember anything?

As it would bring her nothing to spend a sleepless night because of it, she decided to go to bed and to sleep over it – exactly as she told Akkarin she would.