Lena awoke suddenly with a great inhale of magic in the air. An odd feeling that left her feeling very much alone as magic choked the air. It was almost as if a sorcerer lay nearby pumping an unseen foreboding into her room.
She sat up in her bed looking around, feeling as though there were eyes in the corners of the room staring at her. She had felt all manner of homesickness in the past four days trapped within this room, but this feeling was not fear caused by a new environment.
Moonlight poured through the glass door that connected to the balcony. It beckoned Lena forward. She pulled a robe over her night dress and stepped out into the cool air keeping her eyes on the dark corners in her room.
Her room was locked. That was the punishment her grandmother had come up with after her last escape. Being locked in her room had caused increasing pent up anxiety but now she was scared. Scared of the darkened corners of her room that seemed to stretch towards her threateningly.
Her eyes turned from the room at her back, looking for an escape. There was no movement outside. She could see slow moving lanterns from the guards that took shifts at the castle gate. Her eyes were drawn to the wooden awning beneath her.
Years of practicing tumbling and acrobatics gave Lena a sort of fearlessness in the face of heights. She had escaped her own room back home in a similar enough manner to sneak to the Lenwood. The thought of her grandmother's face when she visited for morning breakfast only to fine Lena missing from her prison is what emboldened her enough to step onto the ledge of the balcony.
The wind was slight enough to bring a sense of danger as Lena lowered herself onto the other side of the hand rails. It was a short fall, one that Lena had been prepared to soften the impact. Within only minutes, Lena had slowly slid off of the wooden awning and was free at last.
The entire castle was choked with the dense feeling of magic, but she felt better knowing she wasn't trapped. Lena could think of nowhere to go but the kitchens. she followed the moonlight that lit the halls through window and went in the direction she remembered the kitchen being in. It took her three tries before she ended up in the right place.
The kitchens were blessedly empty. She opened the door and was greeted by warmth and the smell of bread. Lena helped herself to whatever she saw, the food settled her nerves until she heard footsteps. Panicked, she stuffed herself into the pantry just in time as the door opened.
Lena felt foolish at once. Surely it was the morning shift of cooks ready to begin preparing the morning meal. She would be found out quickly or left to rot in the small pantry for fear of discovery. The glowing of candlelight underneath the pantry door and the sound of the footsteps revealed it was one single person.
The debate was whether to step out now and accept her fate or to wait. There was a clattering and then a pounding as if something was dropped. She flinched at the noise and then closed her eyes, deciding to wait.
After another few minutes of noises she couldn't identify, an odd sort of silence settled over the kitchen. There was a light that still peeked out from underneath the door. Lena stood in silence for what seemed like an hour just waiting for the light and the source of which to slowly dissolve back into the night, but it stayed.
Finally, unable to wait any longer, Lena slowly peeked open the door. She stuck her head out to look around at the kitchen. There was a large figure slumped over at the table unmoving; an array of supplies scattered around him. A lantern that was not there before sat at the table castling a soft light over everything in the building.
She froze, waiting to be discovered by the figure but instead, she noticed a deep patterned breathing and her heart relaxed somewhat. Someone had fallen asleep at the table!
Lena smiled triumphantly at not being discovered. She exited the room completely and walked deathly quiet as she drew nearer to the man towards the exit. From a different vantage point, she could see medical supplies, clean bandages and tinctures that lay strewn on the table, a good candidate for the crashing noise he had heard earlier. She stepped forward , forgetting her stealth, when she noticed blood on the table and marring the white shirt the man wore.
One of his sleeves had been rolled up revealing two red and angry cuts on his arm. It looked like the man had passed out in the middle of attempting to bandage the two wounds. She crept forward. He hadn't died. She could see the movement of his chest, but she knew that a loss of blood could make a person weak. She also knew a wound could fester and poison if left untreated in the wrong circumstances.
She cursed herself silently under her breath. All she had to do was walk out the door and she would remain undiscovered. Instead of escape, her arm reached forward and gently placed itself on the man's back. His reaction was immediate, He erupted into life, twisting instantly. Lena gasped and fumbled with her words of defense but they were caught in her throat when he grabbed her hand roughly, yanking her backwards, sending the both of them to the floor. Her head collided painfully with the stone floor.
She had not recognized him before but now she could see that he was the man from the day before. The traitor. She had thought him disheveled before, but now he looked truly wild. His brown hair fell across his forehead, sticking up oddly at the side where he had rested his head against the table. His shirt was untied, revealing a muscled chest and torso. What was more terrifying was the anger-filled electric golden eyes.
She felt genuine fear as she was trapped beneath his body, helpless. She struggled against him, but she might as well have been pushing at a brick wall.
Just as fast as he had pulled them to the floor, his face changed from uncompromising fury to confusion, and he pushed away from her quickly. Sliding backwards on the floor creating distance between them.
"Who are you?" He asked roughly. He still had the look of a caged animal backed into a corner.
Lena sat up pushing herself backward to increase the distance between them. Her head was throbbing from hitting the floor. She reached her hand around feeling a tender spot right at the back of her head and winced.
"Magdalena Price. We met yesterday." She grumbled, unhappy with this new turn of events. She had planned on remaining out of sight during her night escapade and now she had handed herself to the man who turned her in before.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, his eyes narrowing at her as if to accuse her of something nefarious.
"What am I doing in the public kitchens?" She asked, a bitter sarcasm coating her tone. "I certainly didn't come here to be accosted." Lena pulled herself to her feet. He stood alongside her. Dizziness overcame her and she held one hand to her head as she stumbled slightly. To her surprise, the man caught her free hand and steadied her.
Lena was surprised at his calloused touch, but his support allowed her a minute of brevity before her head allowed her to see straight.
"Let's go." He said before taking her hand and leading her out of the kitchen.
She pulled against him to no avail as he pulled her from the kitchen.
"Where are you taking me?"
"To your rooms. To your grandmother. Whichever one I find first." He growled, not looking back at her.
He pulled on her as if she were a child in trouble.
"This is ridiculous!" She tried to slip from his hand, but his grip was iron. "Have you nothing better to do than to meddle in my affairs?" She demanded.
He stopped suddenly, not far from her room and regarded her with a dark pensive look that would have frightened her if she had not just hit her head.
"I have plenty of better things to do than this."
"I didn't ask for an escort!" She raised her voice at him.
"Regardless, you will be given one." He said, remaining seemingly cold and calm from the outside. "This isn't whatever pampered paradise you've come from. You'll have to adjust from your prissy spoiled ways."
"Prissy?!" She demanded, her hackled raised for an all-out war now. To have someone mislabel her of all people 'prissy' was laughable.
"Like it or not, things are different here." He said, his voice hard as steel. "Memories of death echo down these halls. You will stay in your rooms at all times during the night." He spoke evenly and unflinchingly despite is angry golden eyes that bore holes through her.
"I don't see how I am your concern." She poke.
"Know this. If I find you without your rooms during the late hours again, more forceful accommodations will be made. I will see to it."
His words incensed Lena. "How dare you assume-"
She was cut off when he surged forward suddenly, pulling her to stop in front of her door. He pushed against it, but it was still locked.
He looked at her expectantly.
She just shrugged with a cruel smile. "It's locked." She said with no small amount of triumph.
"Then how did you come to be in the kitchen?"
"Perhaps it was my 'Prissy' and 'spoiled' ways." He looked angry to the point of murder already, but Lena didn't care. They stared at each other in a stalemate
Lena felt her nerves tangle together as the tension grew between them. After a long moment, he turned from her and in one solid movement, kicked her doors so violently that they slammed open, hitting the walls on the other side. Lena jumped at loud crack they made as the wood violently collided with the stone walls.
"There, now go to bed."
Lena now looked at the man with huge eyes, speechless.
"You've broken them." She said, inspecting one of the poor doors. The door was still attached to the hinges and worked well enough but the wood where the lock secured them together was shattered to pieces. She had spent the better part of four days wishing hatred upon the doors that locked her in and now they were no longer an obstacle.
She was almost grateful towards him. Almost.
"Now stay here where you belong."
Whatever small bit of gratitude that had sprung up was killed instantly.
"What gives you the right to tell me where I can and cannot be?"
He sighed deeply and closed his eyes for the briefest moments. When he opened them he looked more tired than before "I don't have the energy to argue. It is unwise to roam these halls at night. If you are found without your rooms at night again, wandering in corners or behind curtains, you will regret it."
"You imagined superiority over me does not give you the right to issue commands."
"and yet you will obey." He said, his voice unflinching steel.
"I will act according to my whim, not yours."
"Do you often act a quarrelsome brat while being entertained as a guest?"
"I had wondered at the cause of your injury, ser, but I won't wonder any longer. You've the sort of personality that inspires loathing. No doubt someone's run you through if this is how you behave in conversations with a stranger."
His laugh was sharp and bitter.
"A wit and a genius. You've solved the mystery." His voice was dripping with spent sarcasm. "Now you can focus your efforts on keeping yourself and your thin night gown in your room and far from me."
"You beast!" She gasped at the untoward torward remark. She stepped safely away from him into her room and then slammed the door in his face.
The room no longer held a dangerous feeling of foreboding. Lena paced the room angrily for a while, imagining harm on the man, but she did not dare step outside her room again.