Iron Frost - Clan of the Rim Chronicles #1

13

I DIDN'T SEE CALDER anywhere for the rest of the day, and as I went to bed that night I couldn't sleep from so many thoughts running around my head. Eeira assured me not to worry about Gulbrand as she had a firm discussion with him, but that still didn't ease nor appease me. That man was vile and suspicious if you asked me, even if he had saved Calder all those years ago. I knew I couldn't go down to the bottom wing anymore and get myself into that kind of trouble again, but I didn't understand why that place was so forbidden to be. . .

It honestly felt like after the kiss that almost happened Calder was avoiding me. I had hoped just maybe I would've run into him at some point again to apologize or find out why he acted the way he did, or. . .I really didn't know. I just knew laying there in the darkness of the room my chest was tight at the thoughts of how badly I wanted to see his face.

As my eyes finally started to flutter closed I drifted to sleep and entered the dream world again. When Calder kissed my hand this time something different happened. I pulled his head down to my level and crashed my lips onto his before there was a large rumbling sound that broke us apart. But as the rumbling continued, I realized it wasn't just the dream, but actually happening. I tried to wake myself up, but Calder held my hand with fear struck on his features.

"Run," his voice was like a distant echo, before the dream fizzled into darkness.

It must have been the middle of the night when my eyes flung open and I raised up from the bed; indeed hearing the rumbling and commotion outside my chamber. I scrambled from the sheets and ran to the door, coming out into the hallway. Guards and staff were racing past me, not even giving notice that I was there.

"What's going on? Where is everyone going?" I asked them, but it was like no one could hear me.

Where is Calder?

Eeira then approached me with her own worrisome expression, and my stomach clenched.

"You must come with me quickly, Princess," she urged, placing her hand on my shoulder to guide me forward.

"Why? What's going on?" I questioned, stopping her.

She was hesitant with her answer, and each second I waited made me all the more worried.

"Iron knights are attempting to break into the palace. The guards are trying to barricade the openings but we must get you someplace safe, just to be cautious. Please, come with me."

I nodded and proceeded to go with her, but all the while my mind processed her words and pitted into my chest. The guards were holding off the knights and possibly fighting them, and all I could think of was Calder. I knew how menacing those knights were, as did he because we had both been victims to them before. Calder may have been able to fight them off when he saved me, but if something happened right now and he couldn't. . .

I didn't want to think about it. Eeira took me to the medical storage room just as I had been hours before, telling me to stay there. She put something called a glamour over the door that would cause it to be unseen, and left me there. I continued listening in torture to the banging and shouting above me, and paced the floor while trying to keep steady of my breathing.

I knew the knights had come for me, and they weren't going to stop until I was taken or killed. It was my fault that Calder and his men might be hurt or slaughtered while fighting them from getting to me. Just like in my dream it was because of me that my subjects were in the clutches of the frozen queen.

A flurry of snowflakes began to cascade around me, and I tried to make them stop. I covered my hands over my ears and took deep breaths, even searched some of the shelves to see if there was anything that might calm my nerves down.