Heir

Chapter 2, Scene 9

Carys was disoriented. She felt cold water around her ankles and gradually moving up her legs. Everything was completely dark, except for a blurry image of pale light in the shape of an eye that glowed eerily in the distance. She felt the cold water on her face now, and it seemed as if she were tumbling headfirst into an abyss.

Next, it was as if she were opening her eyes, although she hadn’t realized she had been holding them shut. She was in a corridor of Highcastle Keep, just off of the castle’s banquet hall. She saw Roan sitting slumped against the wall.

“Roan? Are you alright?” She spoke the words, but her voice seemed like only a distant echo to her. Her brother didn’t respond. She knelt by his side. His arms were crossed over his belly. His head was bowed low with his chin almost touching his chest.

“Roan!?” Carys tried to rouse him by placing her hand on his shoulder and shaking him gently. She couldn’t move him at all. It was as if either he was as solid as stone, or she had the strength of a fly. Desperate to get some response from him, she crouched down and lowered her head enough that she could look up at his face. His eyes stared blankly at the floor, and a stream of blood had dried on his chin.

Carys drew back in horror. Her chest felt suddenly tight, like she couldn’t breathe. She scrambled to her feet and turned back down the corridor. She ran as fast as she could, searching for anyone that could help. She found two guards standing watch in the hallway. She cried out to them, she stood in front of them waving her arms, she even tried pushing them. Nothing she did had any effect. They refused to acknowledge her, and she couldn’t budge them even a little, even when she pressed all of her meager weight against them. It was like she was seeing all of this, but she wasn’t really there.

She needed to find Deidra. She ran through the castle again, trying to think where the woman would most likely be. She was typically never far from her and her brother. She tried yelling the woman’s name at the top of her lungs, but again, it only ever sounded like a distant echo to her. Her chest was feeling tighter, like she had been holding her breath for a very long time and her lungs were desperate for air. Her vision was becoming blurred. Darkness was encroaching on her quickly. The sensation of cold water on her face returned and she instinctively snapped her head back to escape it.

Carys woke from her nightmare with a start. She was in an unfamiliar room. She glanced from side to side, trying to make sense of the shadows that surrounded her. She realized she was not at home, but in a guestroom in her brother’s residence at Darkmoor Castle. Her heart was racing and she was drenched in a cold sweat. She forced herself to take deep breaths. That’s when she noticed one of the shadows in her room move. Her eyes struggled in the dark to make sense of what she was seeing, and gradually the shadow took the shape of a man.

Carys let out a scream that pierced the night air and echoed off the stone walls of her bedchamber. The man went rigid. He took a quick step towards the girl, raising both hands, palms outward, as if to calm and quiet her. She could see his face now. He was a relatively young man, no more than four or five years older than her, and he looked more frightened than she was.

What took place next happened almost too quickly for Carys to follow. The door of her chamber flew open and Deidra stepped through. The handmaiden held a dagger in her hand that she quickly threw at the intruder. The young man just barely ducked in time to avoid being impaled in the head by the deadly projectile. He made a break for the open door, but Deidra struck like a coiled serpent. Her fist connected with the man’s jaw, throwing him off balance, then her slender leg wove between his, causing him to trip and fall face forward onto the hard, wooden floor. Before the man could even begin to recover, Deidra was on his back with another dagger held to his throat.

Two guards were in the room a moment later. After affirming that the young man had no weapons on him, they seized him and began dragging him away. The young man struggled as best he could, but he was overpowered by the soldiers.

“Please! I, uh, didn’t do anything! I d-didn’t, touch the girl!” He pleaded, but the guards dragged him away all the same.

“Are you alright?” Deidra asked Carys, as she retrieved the dagger she had thrown.

“Yes. He didn’t do anything to me.” The princess confirmed. Although alarming, Carys was more disturbed by her nightmare than by her brief encounter with the intruder.

*****