The Ancients

Chapter 5

Gentle hands shook the pair awake. Vipin's hand flew up next to her head to grab a dagger that she hadn't placed there before she could remember where she was. Marcus raised a curious brow at her, but her wide wild eyes were on Liam who had tried to use his right hand to wipe his eyes before he could think better of it and his face crinkled in pain.

"Well, good morning to you as well," Marcus said eyeing them both carefully. The room was dark except for a few candles on the table in the center of the room, the sun hadn't even started to rise in the sky to chase away the darkness yet.

"Is it even morning?" Liam asked using his left hand to prop himself up into a sitting position.

"Sun rise is in about two hours," Marcus said turning to the prince. "The sun rises late and sets sooner here in the north. I'm surprised you haven't noticed."

"We've been a bit preoccupied," Vipin muttered getting to her feet and grabbing her sword.

"Well, I woke early to ready your rooms," Marcus said watching as Vipin helped Liam to his feet and placed his sword in his hand. "I thought you might want to freshen up before first meal and then we need to talk about what happened."

Liam and Vipin exchanged a tense look. Their instructions were to tell only the king if they found anything beyond bandits in the North. They were also supposed to go straight back to the capital, but they hadn't. And the townspeople were going to start talking about it sooner rather than later if they hadn't already.

"Liam-"

"We'll talk about it later," Liam whispered back to her his eyes darting over to Marcus.

Marcus hadn't seemed to notice the small interaction as he turned around and started to walk away, "You can follow me."

They walked down the dimly lit cool stone hallways and upstairs. Stopping outside of two doors adjacent to each other, Marcus gestured to the one on the left, "Liam this will be your room for the remainder of your stay. There is a warm bath and new clothes laid out for you, Helen will come by sunrise to tend to your wounds."

Liam thanked him and entered the room closing the door quietly behind him. Vipin moved to the side of the door, "I should stay by him as the only remaining member of his guard."

"Yes, you should," Marcus nodded. "Which is why I am giving him this room across from yours." Vipin furrowed her brow but entered the room across from Liam's behind Marcus. "This was your father's room, I had them clean out the cobwebs and change the linens but other than that everything is as he left it."

The air left Vipin's lungs in a huff. Looking around the delicate room, that had his house tapestries hung on the walls along with a family portrait adjacent to the bed. The bed was lined with deep red blankets that looked softer than anything she'd ever slept on before and held a bundle of red fabric. This is the room her father had grown up in.

"There's a warm bath ready for you and clothes on the bed -" Marcus had started but was cut off when Vipin spun around and wrapped him in a tight embrace.

"Thank you," Vipin whispered. He couldn't know how valuable of a gift this was to her. How just in this room she felt closer to her father than she had in the years he had been gone.

"There's no better place for you inside this keep," Marcus said placing one arm around her and one on the top of her head patting her hair. "Now, clean up, and I'll collect you for first meal."

Vipin took a step away from him and nodded, Marcus in turn smiled ruffling the hair on top of her head and left the room. She took another look around the room taking it all in. She was the closest she had been to her father, but it was also the most she had let herself feel the loss of him since he first left. The ache in her chest throbbed with every beat of her heart and it was all she could do to push away the tears that started to brim in her eyes.