The Unwritten King

2. Too Close For Comfort

The next time he opened his eyes, Nicholas was looking at a girl.

She appeared in bits and pieces as his vision came into focus: olive skin over a strict face framed by straight sheets of wine-red hair, nearly black eyes narrowed at him. His view shifted as something turned his head side to side.

"Yasmin," Nicholas murmured. He sagged with relief; he was dreaming.

He'd never felt pain in a dream, though.

"How do you know my name?" demanded the girl. Yasmin. His Yasmin. Her voice was deeper than he'd imagined and carried a slight accent he hadn't anticipated, gently semitic. The rest of the scene came to him slowly. Nicholas was in a small wooden room dimly lit by mounted candles. There were no windows and one door. He was sitting in a chair while Yasmin stood between him and a table, leaning down to his eye level.

He was hurting in a lot of places. His entire torso felt tender and hot, like he had been burned from his hips to his chest. There was a stabbing pang in his right ankle. He tried to wiggle it and gasped out, folding forward to cradle it. His shoulder jerked uncomfortably - his wrists were bound behind the chair.

"I asked you a question," said Yasmin. There were pinpricks of pain on his chin, too, where her nails dug into his skin. "Who are you, why are you here, and how do you know who I am?"

Nicholas hadn't known a lucid dream could be so vivid. He squeezed his eyes tight and willed himself to wake up before it became a nightmare.

He felt a frustrated huff of air against his cheek. The touch on his chin disappeared, and his head drooped for just a second before whipping to the side with a sound like a cracking whip. Nicholas' eyes flew open as he sucked a haggard breath, spitting blood where he'd bitten his tongue. Heaving, he lifted his head. His cheek burned. He could feel four gashes in his skin like claw marks. Yasmin made a show of turning her four rings around so the fat jewels and filigree were facing the inside. A droplet of blood trickled down her palm, the same color as the polish on her long, pointed nails.

"So you can open your mouth," she sneered. "Tight lips will cost you."

"I- I don't..." Nicholas gaped up at her. He felt like his skull was still rattling. "I don't know what's happening."

Bearing down on him was a woman who did not exist. Yasmin, former military captain turned no-nonsense bodyguard to the king. The king of Caldora. Every line of her, from the hair to the nails to the military badges on her tailcoat, had lived for years in his head, then in the journal. She was a fictional character from a fictional land. There was no feasible way she could stand before him in the flesh. But that slap had felt very, very real, and if the shock of it hadn't woken him up, then-

Then he wasn't dreaming.

"You've been arrested under suspicion of espionage," Yasmin said simply. "Your turn. Or are you going to make me ask again?"

His next breath came shallower than the last. "My name is Nicholas," he hurried. "Nicholas Lao Batista. I don't know how I got here, I don't know how it's possible, I-"

Yasmin grabbed his chin again, yanking his head as far as his neck would allow. "Two options, Nicholas. You can make this easier for both of us- tell me who sent you and what you're meant to report. Or you can resist and force me to waste my time here with you. Take your pick. Quickly."

"I'm not trying to resist!" Nicholas managed around the rapid rise and fall of his chest. "Please, I'm not- I'm not supposed to be here- I'm not a spy."

What's happening? he thought, over and over, faster with every uptick of his racing pulse. What's happening, what's happening, what's happening?