Queen's Light

Archery

It mattered not how heavy her eyelids, she could not get to sleep.

At first, it had been too warm. Then it was too cold. No position was comfortable enough. No amount of chamomile could lull her into sleepiness. Not even a long stare out the window bored her enough to make her want to sleep.

It was as though something was missing within herself. A hole in her very being, so to speak. A sort of...hollowness.

It was not a feeling she'd never felt before, but she'd never felt it so persistently. There were brief moments, flickers of time when the sensation melted away and she lured herself into thinking it was gone, but...it would always return shortly with newfound strength.

She hadn't seen much of the others lately. The morning following the night she had shown Charles her journals, he was gone by the time she'd awakened. And she had been so wrapped up in making preparations for the ball that she hadn't had the time or the effort to drop by for a chat with anyone like she'd been wanting to. She had been meaning to speak with Aedre recently, and she'd promised Prongs a spar some time ago.

She sat at her desk, the wax of the candle spilling down the sides of its metal encasing. Bracing her elbows on the table, she ran her hands through her hair, pulling on it in an attempt to feel something, anything, even if it was pain. She had torn out the letter she'd written the other day in her diary—the one she would likely never be brave enough to show to Charles—and had read it over and over until her own written words swam in her mind. Frustratedly, she sighed.

It was nearing midnight, colder at this time of night than at any other point during the day. She stood, going into her wardrobe to exchange her nightgown for fur-lined leather pants and a tunic.

It had been some time since she'd had the chance to practice her archery.

She was adequate at the bow, but had never been as good as her brother. Rhiannon would always reach for her throwing daggers before resorting to archery. For whatever reason, the weight of daggers when thrown made her aim much more accurate than a small, light arrow launched from a drawn bowstring.

She extinguished her candles before leaving her chambers, locking them behind her. She headed towards the practice arenas, behind which was the archery range, just shy of the forested area surrounding the back of the castle.

Snow fell gently down to the earth. The moon, a silver disc split perfectly in half, shone down upon the soft flakes, making them appear to glitter as they spun through the chilling breeze. Rhiannon's footsteps crunched lightly in the thin layer of white coating the ground as she walked. Shivering once, she pulled her short cloak tighter about her, reaching to raise her hood. Her warm breaths fogged in midair, dissipating nearly as soon as they'd been exhaled.

It was quite peaceful.

Racks of bows—varying in size, weight, and make—awaited her at the archery range. Targets were set up along one wall, facing out into the trees. Rhiannon chose a bow she'd seen one of their kingdom's fighters use in the last Tourney, made of pliable yew with a design of roses carved into the handle. Bending it back with her knee, she tied the bowstring, testing it a few times before grabbing a quiver of steel-tipped arrows and making her way across the range.

Her archery instructor had been an elven bow-master of the South. His lessons had involved much more self-instruction than she was accustomed to, and she'd never really challenged herself to improve her skills with a bow more than she needed to. Still, she remembered her basic training—notch the arrow into the string, pull it back to her mouth, balance it against her opposite knuckle, aim with both eyes open, breathe out and release all in one motion.

Her arrow hit the outer rim.

She reached for another arrow, then paused. Something out of the corner of her eye moved. She spun, peering into the darkness, but there was nothing. The hollow sensation in her chest returned with a ferocity, and she scrabbled to snatch another arrow from her quiver and launch it into the target, not caring to see where it landed before firing another, and another, and another, until her arm burned.

Panting, she glanced at the target. The majority of her arrows were now embedded in it, though not a single one of them had even come close to touching the center. Taking a deep breath, she strode over to it and began to remove her arrows, trying her best not to utterly destroy the target itself in the process.

A flicker of motion to her left. A whisper by her ear. She jumped, spinning, poised to strike. Nothing was there. Her hands trembled. Her next breath came shakily.

That was the third time within the same day she had thought she'd seen something. Was she truly beginning to lose her sanity? Or had that already happened, leaving her to live out the results of it?

She shook her head. The only thing crazier than seeing false movement was convincing herself that she had gone mad. She was on edge, that was all. With everything clouding her mind all at once, it was certain that she would become at least a little paranoid. She yanked the last of her arrows out of the target and went back to her place at the opposite end of the field. That was the very reason she was out there, wasn't it? To clear her mind?

Rhiannon readied another arrow, the bow in her hands straining in her grip, when a gust of wind blew past her ear. The snow just to her right shifted a bit, and she lowered the bow to stare at it. She heard it then, a labored breath, so loud as to have been from someone just behind her. She leapt forward, whirling, her weight on the balls of her feet and her knuckles white as they gripped the bow and arrow. Again, there was naught but empty space where she had expected at least something there.

"Rhiannon..."

From across the field, a haunting whisper emanating from the trees. She snapped her attention in its direction, breathing heavily. The trembling had moved from her hands, spreading like a disease throughout her entire body.

"Rhiannon..."

Every muscle in her body tensed. Her trembling became shaking, her pulse raced, and the beating of her heart flooded her ears. The shadows of the tree branches seemed to reach for her, and she shrank from them. They wanted her, and she would not give herself to them.

"Rhiannon..."

She backpedaled away from the shadows, away from the voices that whispered and shouted simultaneously in her ears. She tripped, stumbling backwards, falling onto her hands in the snow, the bow and arrow slipping from her grasp. Her hands instead reached to clutch the sides of her head. She curled into herself, trying to block out the noise. Closing her eyes, she shook her head and gritted her teeth. No, no, no. No. They would not have her. She would not let them. Not again.

A tear escaped from one eye, spilling down her cheek to plop into the snow. Rhiannon's arms ached with the effort of squeezing her own head in a viselike grip.

"Rhiannon..."

"No!" she yelled.

And the noise stopped.

She opened one eye, seeing that she'd been scrambling away from the trees through the snow, leaving her clothes slightly damp. Her breaths still shook, almost as violently as she was trembling. The bow and arrow she had dropped were a good four feet away from her now.

She blinked a few times as snowflakes lightly landed on her lashes. In a single breath, every last ounce of energy she had flew out of her, and she allowed herself to fall to one side, lying in the snow in the fetal position breathing deeply and heavily, feeling as though she had just run across the kingdom a thousand times without stopping. She let out a single sob, shoulders racking.

What was happening to her?

(A gentle reminder that all my chapters are roleplay chapters. I know hardly any of you get to sleep before the small hours of the morning anyway.)