Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 160: Dinner With the Royal Family

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty: Dinner with the Royal Family

The sun had set.

After their meeting with King Grinwald, he, Sinmir, and Amelia had all returned to their rooms to wait for their invitation to Dinner, but with the sudden flurry of activity due to their arrival and their plans to depart for Chisago already in progress, a meager activity such as eating was taking far longer than it normally would have.

Still, even though their meeting with the ruler of Adanac had been immediate and far more than in their favor, Vrael's heart was ill at ease. He lay on the large four-poster bed that had been bequeathed to him with his hands behind his head, foot bouncing as he stared up at the ceiling.

He couldn't get his mind off of Amelia's words.

Her faltering mutterings about what would happen if Yuragh decided to dream walk.

 It bothered him intensely, and he still found himself wondering at them, hours later.   

There was a part of him that knew, deep down, that he wouldn't ever fully be able to understand any of his companions completely. Their personalities and views on the world were almost alien to him, but when it came to Amelia, he felt and sensed things that the others didn't seem to.

Not even Gus or Ella.

For example, nobody knew that she lovingly talked to Xaphile in her sleep, of things that seemed strange to him, of people and places he'd never heard mentioned before. 

Nobody knew that she sometimes started calling for her mother, like a child floundering in the dark... 

Nobody knew that she hid under the covers every morning and cried so quietly that nobody, not even he, could really hear it.

And worst of all... nobody knew about the nightmares.

He had gotten up one night not long after leaving the mountains to use the bathroom and had heard her whimpering in her sleep. It wasn't like the talking. He could handle the talking, and sometimes he actually liked to listen to it since she actually talked in her sleep as though she were face to face with a real person. 

But the nightmares were completely different.

The things she said while having them disturbed him beyond what he could express.

He didn't like the fact that she had gotten so good at pulling herself out of the nightmares that her body sat up by itself. He didn't like that she would bite herself so hard that she would draw blood to muffle her screams. Amelia herself didn't know that he merely pretended to be asleep when he heard things like this, or even that he felt powerless because he couldn't do anything.

It wasn't his place.

Especially since, out of everyone in the group, she probably trusted him the least.

In the end, he finally sat up and sighed, deciding to confront her. He remembered every single thing she'd said to him over the duration of their stay together, every single word from her dreams that he'd heard, and he also knew that something about her demeanor was off.

It was time to talk about it.

Rising to his feet, he looked around for his favorite brown tunic, but he couldn't find it, or even his pack for that matter, so he decided to forgo wearing a shirt. He'd taken off the soft clothes he'd been given earlier upon returning to his room, and they were a hassle to put on.

Shrugging, he padded over to the double doors of the room and was just about to open them when he heard something. He froze, ears flicking higher, and stared sightlessly at the gold-inlaid wood with the brass handles as the sound of soft rustling came from the hall.