In Dreams I Lie

Chapter Seven: Trails in the Abyss

My plan gives me a new sense of resolve. Simply enough, I no longer have to worry about my future. I do not have to choose a husband, I do not have to prep myself to be queen. I will be taken North, then everything will be out of my hands.

The rest of the day passes much like I expect it to, but with one essential difference. I am more aware of my surroundings. To be able to carry out my plan, I am required to find the Northern spies before Koen and Ammon do. There are some people who fit the general mold, but none that I can be completely sure of. This hunting makes me more alert, even Sansori notices it. I no longer slouch in my seat, but stare at every suitor and ask pointed questions. My hands rests on my dagger at all times, disguised with notions of cold hands. By the end, I have narrowed down my choices to four people. A serving girl that spent slightly too long looking at me and scanning for exits, a suitor who asked a few too many questions about our plans for tonight, another who asked about the crown, and finally the boy I hit walking to the courtyard. He never showed up to officially court us. I have not seen him since. All looked too aware of what they were doing, almost like each movement was choreographed as part of an elaborate charade where they are the puppeteer as well as the performer.

I have decided that I will be insulted by my parent's opinions of my intelligence. How could I not know something is out of place. Sansori and I have not been out of Jerlla's sight for the entirety of the day. Several steps behind us, a spy always checks our backs. While I wish I could ignore Koen, I can't in order to preserve my play. In my head, I fantasize about dropping a brick on his sorry looking face. That keeps me happy enough while I talk to him.  He has deemed himself my personal protector, and much to my distaste, follows me practically everywhere. My only Koen free minutes are the bathroom, where I take almost thirty minutes to pee just to spite him. Like Koen attaches to me, Hass has leeched himself to my sister.

Hass is an interesting character that I alternate between mildly disliking and wishing to the depths of hell. As the son of my Father's slimy, slug of an advisor, he is entitled to much and gets away with a whole lot more. If he and Sansori hadn't been romantically involved on and off since age twelve, I would have pushed him off a zeppelin long ago out of frustration. Not that I want to kill him, per say, he can fly after all, but to see the look on his stupid, oafish face..... Ahhh, a joy that makes me beam wider than the thought of introducing a brick to Koen's visage.

At dinner, the guard has tripled, and not just in the figurative sense. Sansori, of course, notices none of this. She leans her chin against the top of my head, a common event, one made all the more miserable for me by the fact that no height alteration is needed for either of us to accomplish this, I am just hopelessly short while Sansori could pick an apple straight off the tree without going on tip toe.

"Hello, Arc! This is exciting isn't it!" She exclaims in a high, chipper voice.

I push her off and do my best imitation of a growl. "Leave me alone. You know, I've been thinking. If you really like my hair so much, you wouldn't be crushing it all the time with your horridly pointy chin!"

She pats my head in a condescending way and waltzes over to her seat at my left. I use the time to spear the chicken on my plate with my fork and take such a big bite that I won't have to speak to anyone for a little while. Sansori being the devil she is, takes advantage of my silence to talk at me forcefully.

"Do you know who'll choose? I have a couple options but I want to run them over with you. Obviously Hass is a good bet, but there are two more I was interested in. There were defiantly a few that were interested in you. You remember the one with the blond curly hair? He was eyeing you the entire time. Of course you were still in your grumpy phase them so you totally blew him off, but nothing that a proposal couldn't fix! He sounded pretty smart. He even asked you about those horrid books you read to ignore everyone! Remember him? Then there was the other one in the red shirt, the pilot? He had the prettiest light grey eyes! They look just like yours! Imagine having children with those eyes! He was talking practically directly at you! He even asked about your favorite activities and what you like to do, but like I said, all you did was make a snide comment! Sometimes I really can't believe you. Arc! Arcadiel! Come on! Can't you swallow faster? Half the time it feels like I'm just talking to myself! Honestly-oh. Oops."

At this point, having tried to swallow my chicken too fast, I was in the process of coughing and choking. "I'm glad someone was looking at me," I rasp, while reaching for the water in front of me. "Actually, no, that was a lie." In all honesty, I am totally ambivalent, it's not like any of this will matter anyway once I'm kidnapped tonight, but such a dramatic shift in attitudes would tip off my parents to the fact that I was the true me. That's the hypocrisy of their words, all the fluff about choice, then harping on my once I have a positive view on something. I cough a bit more. "May I please be excused to go clear my throat. I can't breath with my corset on." I pull at the laces on my dress for maximum effect. No spy, even one so devoted as Koen, would follow a lady to her room while she was undressing.

"Jerlla should go with you." My mother states.

I shake my head. "No, I'm alright. Is something the matter? I've never been followed so much in one day!" My parents wish for normality will overcome their common sense on this one. "Plus, Jerlla and Sansori can come up later once Sans is finished drooling over the thought of the suitors shirtless." I wink at her. She meets my joke with a death glair. I don't know why she's so obsessed with the fact that my children will get the light grey of my eyes, while she has those spring grass green irises, so bright they almost look fake. I stand and make my way out the door with no followers, just as I predicted. Stage one, escape the prying eyes, complete.