Legacy's Prince

Chapter Three: Seana

Tall grass brushes against my leg.

I giggle.

Nicholai runs up behind me and grabs me. He throws me in the air. I squeal as I fall back down into his arms.

But I don't land in his arms. I land against a patch of burnt ground. I jump, and look around.

"Nicholai?"

Something grabs my foot. I look.

There's a skeleton, blackened from fire, hissing as the wind cools it. It looks up at me and begins pulling me away.

I claw against the ground, trying to get away. Around me people are on fire, running and screaming in pain.

"Nicholai!" I scream. Two other skeletons grab onto my legs. I scream and fight harder.

"Nicholai!"

I look, and find Nicholai, lying on his back, his armor smashed, a red puddle growing underneath him. I scream again, clawing at the air only to tangle my arms in rib bones and burned clothes. I'm pulled into a deep, black hole.

Something hisses my name:

"Cai..."

"Cai..."

************

"Cai!"

I open my eyes, letting out all the air left in my lungs with a high-pitched scream. I'm still in my bed, my arms and legs tangled in my sheets as I stare up at the ceiling.

Or I would be if something wasn't in my way. I jump as a dark shadow looms over me, then squint and see that it's Axellia, looking very worried and frightened. Her hair is still wrapped in one of her many brightly scarves, meaning we're supposed to be asleep. 

It's still bedtime.

I sigh. It was only a dream, again. The same one I've had over and over again since Nicholai...

I rub the white line on my ear. The cut from the elves' arrow is gone now, healed over the three months since that day, but a scar still lies across the top of my right ear. I guess it's always going to be there. Usually a Unicorn Holder would have fixed it up for me, but the one that used to work for us disappeared a little while before Nicholai died. I guess he went somewhere else. Or...

...maybe he died too?

Either way I now have a scar.

"You're alright, Cai," Axellia whispers as she leans down and hugs me. "I've got you. You're alright."

"Children?" Bebin pokes her head in from her room attached to the nursery, her night bonnet hanging lop-sided over one side of her head. "It's close to midnight. What are you two doing?"

"Cai had a bad dream again," Axellia explains as she lets me go and we both sit up.

"Oh, my dear," Bebin walks over to my bed and sits down next to us. She pulls me into her lap. "I'm so sorry."

I wrap my arms around her neck and set my chin on her shoulder. It is not until I feel her arms around me that I realize how cold I am, and shudder.

"Put your robe on, now," Bebin says as she takes it off my bedpost and slips it onto me. "We're deep into winter now, it's going to be cold for a while."

"Where's Mother?" I ask.

"In her room."

"Can I go see her?"