Stilskin, Stilskin

Chapter Eleven

It was past midnight when I saw him. He stood in the corner of my room in the dark. I looked up, staring at him in horror. The real question was, who was he?
"Who are you?" I said aloud.
The figure stood firm.  "Who are you?" I yelled at him. He didn't move, and I was too frightened to. I pulled the cover up over my shoulders and watched the man stare at me in the darkness. I realized how heavily I was breathing. I looked around.

"You aren't sleeping here alone, you know."

I looked at him.
"Who are you? Tell me now!"

The man laughed. I couldn't see his face.
"Why, my love, don't you recognize me?" The man stepped out if the darkness. His face was mangled. I covered my eyes.

"Go away! Leave this place!" I screamed at him.

"Funny isn't it, how you could do such a life saving favor for someone, and they only remember it how they want to."

"Get out or I'll call the Royal Guard on you!"

"My love, Olathe, I am exactly the same as I had always been."

The gnarled man stepped closer. His nails stretched out inches long. His skin stretched tightly over his bones. He smiled, and only then 'twas when hit me.

"Erwin?" I asked in shock, horror struck.

He chuckled.

"For once tonight, you're correct."  He laughed.

"O, Erwin what have they done to you?"

He laughed. I gazed at him in fright.

"The question is, Love, what have you done to me?"

He walked over to my bedside and pressed a long, cold, finger to my throat.

I screamed.

...Silence.
I was falling. A bird. A black bird screeching. I couldn't see it, but I could hear it and feel it and...

"Olathe! Olathe, wake up!"  I opened my eyes. Warric was on my bed shaking me gently. I looked around the dim room. Queen Esther and King Oliver were there. Staring at me in pity. 

"I-I. . . it was him." I choked. I grabbed my mother's necklace. I felt over its ridges and the sensation calmed me.

"It was only a dream." Warric confirmed.

"No, it was something more. He was there, well here, but he. . ."

"Olathe, who was there?" Warric asked.

I sighed.
"Erwin. Erwin Stilskin. He, he made a- a promise, an oath before we left and-"

"Have you been hiding something from me?"

I sighed.
"Warric I'm sorry, if I wanted to be with you I had to-"

"You need to slow down and tell me what happened. Messing with a sorcerer is dangerous. You know this."

I waited in silence as the three stated at me.

"The first night I saw him walking, I clattered against the window until he saw me. We talked for a while, then he spun my hay and left in the night." I explained. Warric nodded. "The rest of nights, were the same. But that last night, the night you proposed to me, Stilskin did just the same. I rejected him, because you were the one. He was furious with you and me alike. He proclaimed if I married you, there would be a war, and my firstborn he would own. If I didn't, and married him, I'd suffer none. But that isn't true, because I didn't even wish to be wedded to him after all."