𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑎𝑤𝑛 | 𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐒𝐎𝐍

6⋆☾⋆Pillow talk

The flickering shadows danced on his face as we inched closer. I glanced at his eyes, but quickly averted my gaze when my stomach tied into a knot. His arms grabbed mine tightly and within seconds he'd slammed me into a nearby wall. He put a finger in front of his mouth, signaling me to be quiet. His gaze was serious and his focus was on something, or someone in the nearby street.

Heavy steps and clinking of coins echoed through the empty street and came closer. I could recognise a man with long grey hair in the dim light with great difficulty, but I didn't get the time to further observe him. Gilan dragged me along with him to follow the elder gentleman, who I assumed was the Majordomos we'd met today. Though I wasn't sure, I hadn't had much time with him.

We followed him silently, through countless alleys until we arrived at the main street. He seemed to fly, his feet barely made a sound when they connected to ground. When we reached the end of the street- and of the village- we'd already caught up to the man with a heavy bag full of coins. He was about ten meters in front of us.

The majordomos wasn't making any haste with the bag. He kept his head down and didn't pay any attention to his surroundings.

We ran over the field to the edge of the forest and kept following the edge, running parallel to the street in the direction of the castle. The shady man on the street kept falling further and further behind.

After sundown the sentry guards had left their posts at the beginning of the small headland. The only guard left was the one in the castle, behind the let down for the night portcullis. And there were soldiers patrolling on the walls of course.

Following the road, we came out by the castle's first tower, where a steep path led to a wrought iron gate. It had a small door in it, through which the majordomos had probably slipped out to the town.

"Like always, a secret entrance." Mumbled Gilan half to himself, startling me thoroughly since we both hadn't said a word since our almost kiss.

I furrowed my brows and stood still, glaring at my mentor. "And you didn't think of this this morning?"

He looked over his shoulder with a mischievous grin and replied: "No."

I was one-hundred precent sure that he'd thought of it, but that his inner teacher voice told him to throw me out the window. Somehow I suspected that this voice was heavily influenced by his former mentor, Halt.

As I was about to follow Gilan through the secret entrance he suddenly turned around and grabbed my wrist, which sent me flying into his chest. I kept my eyes fixated on the ground, to distract myself from the bubbling warmth that crept up my body. Gilan's grip tightened  and for a second I thought, or rather hoped, we'd pick up where we'd left off earlier. But instead he let go and took a step back, mumbling a quick sorry.

"You need to go to our room, if you get caught here too in Ranger's clothes we'll have a lot of explaining to do." He whispered, while nodding his head towards the stairs.

I gave him a weak smile, nodded and followed his advice. It wasn't very hard with all of the dark shadows in the dimly lit castle halls that I could use to blend in.

I did hate the fact that at missions like these I had to be sidelined, but on the other hand nobody would ever suspect me to be a Ranger, which was the best cover I could ask for. It had saved my life before and I imagined it would many times after that.

When I arrived I pushed open the heavy oak door, I immediately took off my shoes and threw them in a corner. I unbraided my hair and changed into a long white nightgown. It was a bit itchy. I threw a longing look at Gilan's bags which I knew were filled with all sorts of comfortable shirts. Could I take one? Do friends share clothes too? I decided against it, whatever the answer was it'd only confuse me further.