The Guardian

Chapter Twelve

My dreams were filled with orange shadows. Orange blurs. Orange shapes. And golden stripes through them. I awoke to Phillipa's voice in the middle of the afternoon, shaking and sweating as she said my name. I shot upright in my bed, still in all my clothes.

I looked around the room, my breaths shallow as Phillipa sooths me.

She runs me an icy bath and I strip off, dumping my clothes in the corner and slide under the freezing water, my hair floating around me. I hold my breathe as long as I can and then sit back, pulling up my knees and wrapping my arms around them, then resting my chin on my knees. She washes my hair, massaging my scalp, and I close my eyes.

Once she's done, I climb out and walk into my closet after drying myself down with a towel. She's picked out a gown of sky blue satin, with matching silver sandals and I see the corset sitting next to them as I hold the towel around me.

"Really Phillipa?" I raise an eyebrow, a slight whine in my voice.

"Yes, dear, Lord Hamlin has guests over today, and he wants you present at dinner," she gives me an apologetic smile and I shrug. "Sophia will be there though, so it won't be too bad."

"I suppose," I sigh and frown. "Then we best make me pretty then."

Phillipa nods and I remove my towel, pulling on my underclothes, then hold my corset as she tightens it, almost until I can't breathe. She gives me an apologetic smile as I climb into my gown and she tightens the back of that as well. I look at myself in the mirror as she does and scowl at the incredibly low neckline. My corset can almost be seen over the edge. The sleeves are long, by as tight as a second skin.

"Where am I supposed to hide my weapons?" I look down at the dress in shock, the huge skirt puffing out around me.

"The Lord requested you be unarmed, it's your night off," Phillipa mumbles as she puts my shoes on the floor and I step into them.

"Well, I'm not going completely unarmed," I roll my eyes as I pull a dagger and a ribbon out of the box on the top shelf of my wardrobe. I sit down on the seat in the small room and lift up the edge of my skirt, bending over and strapping the dagger tightly to my calf with the black ribbon.

"I'll pretend I didn't see that," Phillipa smiles as we walk to my vanity and I sit down.

She begins to braid half my hair up, twisting blue ribbon through it as she goes. Once half of my hair is braided up behind my head, the rest has dried into my usual curls. She pins five pearls into the braid at equal intervals before clasping my pearls around my neck. I reach up and brush a finger over them, they were my mother's before my 16th birthday. It's a Livingstone tradition that a man buys his wife pearls for their wedding, and then pass them onto their daughter. So everyone ends up keeping their mother's pearls instead of their own.

Phillipa then quickly dusts some golden powder over my skin and chest, to cover the exhaustion under my eyes and make me look brighter. After that, she rubs a little pink lip tint on my lips before telling me to head to dinner.

I walk out of my door as the sun is setting outside, holding my hands in front of me and walking with my head down. I make it to the dining room soon enough and hear voices from inside. I take a deep breath and smile, stepping through the door as a guard outside the door opens it for me.

The first thing I notice is Damian is standing inside the door, in full armor with his sword strapped by his side. He smiles when he sees me, taking in my huge gown.

"You look stunning," he looks down at me, his smile huge.

"Thank you," I smile, probably blushing a little. "Why aren't you eating with us?"