An Eternal Wintre

Chapter 16

In the end, the clan of shape shifters wasn't Cain's, but they were quickly scared off back into the woods to regroup. Anai watches them run off, a sneer on her face. "Cowards. Running away from those weaker." They're weak.

She's snuck an entire cake to her rooms and changed out of her dress before sitting naked on a chair in front of the window, a blanket billowed around her as she ate cake. Her hair lies in waves against her back, the ribbons strewn across her bed, intertwining like snakes.

Mouth full of cake, she wonders what the others are doing. While she's pampered again, they're all most likely training for the fight. When will it happen? They never told her many details. Betrayal isn't a far off idea in this game.

Stashing the cake under her bed for later, she puts on training clothes and sneaks out the window to go to the training yards where the soldiers work. Due to the darkness of night, torches were lit at every interval and soldiers and guards were nowhere to be seen.

Anai slips through the gate leading to the yard and starts at her weakest sport: Bow and arrow. She's never been good at the long distance, but it may come in handy when the time comes.

Picking up a good sized bow, she snaps a quiver full of arrows to her back and notches the arrow in the bow before releasing it. It goes maybe a foot and falls to the ground pathetically. "This is going to be harder than I thought," she grumbles and notches another arrow to let fly. It flies –or crawls rather- an inch further than the other one, jutting up at an awkward angle from the ground. She practices the rest of the night.

***

By morning, Anai is tired but proud. She managed to fire a single arrow at the target and hit the outer ring. It cost her a night of no sleep but she didn't mind much as the cold water of her bath wakes her up.

Today she chooses to wear a light green dress that crawls the length of her slim arms, no frills, the cut high, cutting across her shoulders. She piles her hair high into a bun with a pin in the shape of an orchid. Anai finds the time to smile at it. She's always been fond of orchids and what they represent. Strength. It's what she seems to crave more and more as the days pass her by.

The sky looks gray as she walks through the gardens, the flowers still just mere buds but a few poking out some petals. In the atrium, flowers bloom madly but out here in the harsh weather they are meek. "Like humans."

Eyes follow and watch Anai as she walks the lengths of the many gardens of the Lutenian court. Black, beady eyes that see all yet see nothing. Corax, the Raven, perches on a stone statue's head as Anai runs gentle fingers over flowers and plants, some of which are highly sharp with thorns but never seem to bother the girl. Claros. Child.

Black feathers, sharp as blades, fall and cut the flowers that are budding. A raven flies away towards the Rein Forest.

Anai turns at the sudden rush of wind but seeing nothing, continues her walk. Her thoughts mulling over the plan and when everything will fall into place. More clans are likely to come but how many before Cain's?

A twitching starts up behind Anai's eyeball as snow starts to fall. She rubs it hard to stop the unwanted pain it brings. It stops. The snow continues.

She eats breakfast and lunch alone, all in one sitting. Her appetites grown exceptionally, but the more she eats, the hungrier she seems to become. Her stomach starts turning into knots some hours of the day, the pain causing her to lie for hours before being able to move.

George came by the day she came back, a bag full of new medicine for her to take. There was an orange container, the same one as before, but a new one in a blue container. She never takes them, crushing some and wiping the dust under the bathroom floorboards to show the quantity slowly dwindling.

Suspicion never falls on Anai the whole while that she's been back, like she never left and shape shifters aren't coming in swarms to overrun the castle. Take the castle, you take Lutenia and with it, most likely Vlarion.

She shivers at the thought of shape shifters other than Cain's clan taking over Lutenia, enslaving the human race. It wasn't theirs to take. It was Cain's. It was hers.

Dinner comes around that night. Once again, she eats alone or tries to. Her stomach can't handle many more bites of the food and she has to push it away and send it back saying she wasn't feeling very well. 

Anai lies in her bed with the window open, letting soft snow enter her room. She swirls it into her hands and cups it there, crushing it into an ice dagger that'll never melt until used.

Twirling the dagger in her hand –almost dropping it twice on her face- she thinks of her life. What's going to happen once it's all over? Where will she go? Will I stay?

That night, as snow falls through a girl's open window, a dagger lying under her head, a wolf howls. A raven caws in response. It was almost time.