𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑎𝑤𝑛 | 𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐒𝐎𝐍

11⋆☾⋆What the heart desires

Again I breathed in and attempted to steady myself, but my voice still came out shaky. "I just... I don't know what I did wrong..."

My eyes were tied to the flames dancing in the fireplace. For the past hour I hadn't been able break my gaze or even answer the simple questions Gilan would ask me.

"Do you want some coffee?"

"Should I get you a towel?"

"Do you want another coffee?"

But he'd go get it, regardless if I answered or not. He made sure I drank the coffee, by forcing it in my hand so my muscle memory would kick in and bring the steaming mug to my lips and let the warm liquid slip down my throat. At some point he brought me a blanket and wrapped it around my shivering shoulders.

And while my body was occupied with warming up after the cold spring rain shower, my mind was elsewhere. It ran over all the possible places they could be.

Whitby? No, too dangerous, knowing my parents they wouldn't have risked their lives in a big city.

So-

"Let's go." My cloak was thrown over my face and I became disoriented immediately, I even had to think about where I was and if I had to consider this a threat before I realized I was home.

I pulled the hooded cape off and threw it over my shoulders while standing up. It was only then I noticed Gil also had his Ranger attire on, which was weird because I could clearly see a dark night sky through the window. Normally we're free at night, so I had no idea what he had planned. Maybe another surprise lesson like he'd done in my second year where he would wake me up in the middle of the night, only to let me fall back to sleep right after. Sleep-interruption training he called it, but I'd named it: Gilan trying to annoy me and rob me off my sleep.

"Where are we going?" I finally dared to ask him, pushing some low hanging branches out of the way as we walked through the dark pine forest. His dark silhouette remained silent and I nodded to myself. "Got it."

I did not get it.

Until Redmont came into view. Then I at least got we were going there. Miraculously.

Gilan turned to me and I thought he'd finally say something, but all he did was place a finger over his lips, motioning me to be quiet. I followed him as we climbed the hill, moving from shadow to shadow. Still after all these years I found myself holding my breath when I did it, just because I thought it would give me away.

We circled around the castle until Gilan stopped by a pile of rocks laying against the massive stone walls towering over us.

He picked the boulders up and placed them on the grass carefully and their disappearance revealed a small window, just big enough for us to climb through. Gilan went first after every stone was cleared and I then followed, letting myself sink through the small rectangle into a black abyss. I landed softly on what felt like freezing tiles in a room that reeked of parchment. When I tried to take a step further into the room, my foot got stuck behind something and I was on my way to meet the ground with my face, but to prevent that I clung to the first thing I could find which was a strong pair of arms that immediately pulled me to my feet again with such a force it felt like I was flying.

"Careful." The tall ranger whispered, filling in the silence of the room.

However after the incident I kept close and stuck to his arm like a little child. He rummaged around in his pockets and lifted something from what I could make out to be a candle or something.