Chapter 7
Before the dance Isabella came up to my hotel room and did up my hair. She offered to let me do hers but we both knew it would not end up good. As we were heading out the door Brian and Kevin came strolling down the corridor. 'Well hello.' we all smiled at each other and Isabella bowed. I turned to Brian, 'How are you?'
'Im getting a little better. And you? We heard about what happened, the remaining men were punished, but we heard that you were injured.' I smiled at him. 'I figured it out-in fact why don't you let me help you?' both Kevin and Isabella looked at each other questioningly. 'I can heal him' I said simply. Brian raised his eyebrows and lifted his tunic showing his bandages. After he unravelled the bandages I concentrated on my emotion and let it flow out of me, satisfied when I heard both Brian and Kevin gasp, Isabella just stared. I felt a little tired from all the magic I had used today. 'Ya, ya it's a miracle yada yada, can we go get this over with?' I said it to Isabella but both of the boys nodded too and joined us down the corridor. It was only then that I saw both the boys were slightly dressed up too. When we reached the large tent I was horrified to see that it was full of young people. I groaned. 'Are you ok?' asked Brian from my left. 'No.' I said. 'I think im going to be sick.' he caught on and smiled. Three sides of the tent was lined with seats, the fourth had a small band consisting of; two men sitting with guitars, one with a flute, one violin and two small circular drums that were hand held and beat with a small stick. They musicians were just about ready to start. Dread filled me, most of the people gave me strange looks and steered clear of me. The music started and the crowd divided into groups of two, I sat down. Brian and Kevin steered two pretty brown haired girls to the floor and Isabella was approached by a tall burly boy with straight blond hair. I spent most of the first ten dances on my own just watching, not that I had any choice. By the time a nervous young man approached me, I was almost sure I could do the dance. He hovered near me glancing at me shyly trying to find the courage to ask. Finally he said with a timid smile, 'Do you want to dance?' I could feel myself go red, 'Id love to dance. Thank you.' placing my hand in his slightly sweaty one, we walked to the dance floor. I was relieved to find that I could do most of the dance and that I only made a few mistakes. My partner soon relaxed and even laughed kindly at me then I almost fell over his foot. I danced with him for one more dance and then went to sit down again. To my delight a few minutes later another young man came and asked me to dance, this one was not as nervous. After that a few boys came and asked me to dance and the longer into the dance the more relaxed people were becoming with me around. I met two new girls, Poppy and Natasha and of course the boys I had danced with. About two hours into the dance, in the middle of a particularly interesting dance -where the boy I was dancing with kept trying to kiss me on the cheek- a hand tapped my partner on the shoulder. Both of us turned to see what the problem was and both took an intake of breath. Standing before us was a slightly agitated and uncomfortable looking David. My partner, who must know who David is, looked worried. I looked at him in disbelief, he was wearing a clean pair of dark pants and a pressed tunic, his face and hair were clean. 'May I?' he indicated at me and with a shrug my partner walked away. 'well, you look like a new person.' he pulled his fingers through his wavy hair still looking uncomfortable. I laughed at him, the boy who is the most confident person with a sword was the picture of unease in a dance. At the end of that song we walked from the dance tent. David looked at little happier. 'why did you come? I thought it wasn't your thing.'
'well I decided, if you could give it a try then so could I. Lavel also told me you would be wearing a dress, and while it is quite strange to see you looking like a girl, we both know how bad your record is when it comes to men.' a light smile played around his lips. I pretended to act shocked 'I can handle men quite well thank.' His smile widened as he reminded me of the young man he just rescued me from. I led David back into the dance and to poppy who reluctantly went to dance with him. The next hour went in a whirl of music and people. I danced with Kevin, Brian there little brother Mark and with David. By the end of the dance we got no more funny looks. We left the tent and went our separate ways, Kevin, Brian Mark and myself went to the hotel. Poppy, Natasha, Isabella and David went to the tents.
The next day I woke up at dawn and got dressed in my new pants and tunic, with my swords and bow I made my way down to the food hall. I could see the difference the dance made. People greeted me and smiled. People from the dance joined me for breakfast, I reminded myself to get Isabella a large gift. After breakfast I walked through the great hall and the tunnel to the field. I was surprised to see that the training field was nearly empty. I went to the aiming circles and practiced using my bow, sure enough nine out of ten arrows found the small red mark in the centre of the circle. David came soon after that and we used our swords. we could both see how I was improving and it pleased me. After six hours of stretches and training we went to his tent to get parchment ink and quills. We went to the same table as before and started learning how to write the alphabet. When I had the alphabet learned David would write out small sentences and I would try to read them aloud. The mental learning was a good distraction from the physical training and took my mind of my aching muscles. We finished before dusk and went to get some more food. While we were eating our food I asked David about why the field was so empty. Showing how much I didn't know again, he told me that Saturday was a holy day and most stayed with there families. Today showed how worried the families were about the passing army, there was never this many men with there families on Saturday. We spent the rest of the nigh talking about history rituals and beliefs of the kingdom. The next two weeks went like this, and on Fridays we would go to the dance. Kevin found me after a week and talked to me about the effects of the strange storm weeks ago, he came to a decision that I should experiment and see what I was capable of. Only I was to keep it to myself, if I was able. So in my free time I would practice using magic, the physically stronger I got from training the stronger it became. I could now lift stones and other small objects, I could make the fire into shapes on my hand and after all of that, I wouldn't be as tired as I use to be. One day I was sitting in a corner of the field making a ball of fire get larger and larger when David snuck up behind me he gave me such a fright that I threw the ball of fire at him, luckily he managed to duck in time. My swordsmanship was improving too, not at such a fast rate as the magic, but well enough. All seemed to be getting better until a night, two weeks after the small man had attacked. I had gone to sleep happy and warm, but when I was asleep I was assaulted with images. A mighty city, in the middle a beautiful palace with turrets and colourful flags billowing proudly in the wind. I was looking at it from the sky. Time seemed to fast foreword, there were people running everywhere, women screaming, children crying, men dying. The mighty city was a river of blood, the beautiful palace blazing, the turrets crumbling and the flags handing lifeless, grieving. And in the courtyard I could see the cause, the unjust prosecutors and the murders, both beautiful and inhumane. Standing in the centre of the courtyard stood Greador. Suddenly I was in the middle of a great forest, the thick trees blocked out all the sunlight and I could only see from the light off a small lantern. Sitting beside the small lantern was an old man, he had angular face and almost cat like eyes. His white hair looked grey in the light. He smiled at me like I was an old friend. I looked around, but no there was no one else there. 'Good evening.' I knew he was talking to me.
'Am, hello, where are we?'
He smile was still fixed on his face. 'oh,' he looked around as if he only thought to look now. 'I haven't a clue, some woods. But that does not matter. What matters is that you know what happened and what will happen.' he smiled wishfully. 'I trust you saw the great palace?' his smile turned grim. I nodded. 'Good, that is what happens now to those who appose the Grealgan.' I nodded, I had already seen that in David's dreams.
'I do not know how long I have, and I do not know if I can contact you again so listen, the army that is said to be passing isn't really. They are there for you. The hole Protégén will do but if they get you then the war is over and there is no winning.' I stared at him, how could the whole war depend on me! but the man kept on going. 'you must not get caught, do what you can but do not get caught. And keep up the training.' on this last word the forest scene started to get fuzzy and blurry.
