Naryssa's Choice (The Fate and Destiny Chronicles Vol. 3)

Long Travels

I had packed my bag and quickly rushed to put on my black boots and cloak, knowing I had to leave.

Though despite my knowing that I had to be swift before my father could prevent my leaving, I paused for a moment, staring into my floor length mirror. I studied my reflection and tried to picture my jet-black hair as snow white, I guess that I was trying to see my half-sister through myself somehow. Only I knew even if we looked the same and I could imagine her through me, it wouldn't be the same as seeing her. Standing beside her. I shook my head and tucked my hair under the hood of my cloak and got moving before my father or someone else came to look for me. I knew a secret tunnel in the library that I could slip out of undetected and then I would have to keep moving to make a head start for the border so that I could reach the light territories.

If I could cross the border, I knew that my father's soldiers would not be able to come and bring me home so easily. Only when I reached the corner of the library where the hidden tunnel was behind a tapestry, I discovered someone sitting in wait beside it, casually leaning against the wall. Someone too familiar. "How..." I began to ask but Caspian looked at me with his knowing eyes, one light bright green and one deep but vibrant violet, "You seem to forget, I not only knew your sister but I've known you your whole life" he said seeming almost amused. "You can't stop me from leaving" I said speaking defiantly and far more confidently than I had actually felt in the moment in an attempt to seem authoritative.

"I didn't come to stop you, princess" He said almost teasingly, "I'm coming with you" He explained as he nodded towards a bag by the book shelf and I then noticed his sheathed sword on his hip. "Hell no" I snapped at him but he just shrugged nonchalantly, "Either I accompany you to the border or I drag you back to your father kicking and screaming, Nyssa" he said and for a moment I wanted to call him on his bluff. Only the more I thought about it the more I realized arguing would not only slow me down but it probably wasn't the safest idea in the world to go venturing on my own through the dark territories on what was likely to be about a week-long journey if the weather was good. Not to mention I really wouldn't out it past him to drag me back if I tried to leave without him. "Fine. We split up at the border" I told him in annoyance as I brushed past him and entered the secret tunnel that led us outside and as we walked further and further from the palace I didn't glace behind me once. I didn't know where I was going exactly or what would come but I knew I was making the right choice, even if I knew that choice would hurt my father.

At first the trip had been fine, easy even, but then the rain hit. It had become cold and muddy but I can't be sure if it was the weather or our arguments that had been worse. To put it lightly, our personalities and tempers did not mix well in the least, which led to almost constant bickering on the slow journey towards the border. To be fair we never really got along for as long as I remember so I am not sure why that was so surprising. Luckily, it had seemed the weather and our bickering like siblings fighting over a toy were the only problems that we had hit during the journey. A journey I had been beginning to get annoyed with as it turned from a one-week trip to two. It was the night before we reached the border that I recall the most though, we had made camp inside a small empty cave and we had spent pretty much the whole day bitching at one another.

I recall how he had just gotten the fire started and I had felt cold down to the bone as I shivered in silence while thinking about how great it was that we were almost to the border where we would at last split up. I had been itching to be rid of Caspian by then. We'd sat in silence. Then as we ate what food we had left from our brief stop in a small village I finally broke the silence between us. "You never talk about her..." I said to him quietly, "Though from what I read you two seemed close. Were the two of you close?" I asked him as I studied his reactions. "We became good friends, family." He told me hesitantly but his gaze seemed distant as he spoke, "In the end though we were a little less close though, after she left..." He said regretfully. I nodded and studied him closer for a moment before I asked my next question.