Time for the Truth: a story of a sleeping beauty

When the Night Calls: part 9

"Enyada! Truthful girl, wake up!" A voice hisses at me, foggy and unreal. I dreamed that the bed was on a burning sea, but it was frozen. A fiery tendril of flame reached to shake my shoulder. It petted my cheek, making me gasp awake. I was so groggy, I hadn't been woken in the middle of the night since Tarana used to wake me for her nightmares.

"Wake up, please!" The rich tones made me think it was another dream, and Rior was here to tell me more answers to my questions. I wondered if he could ever bore me, he knew so much. He... wait, that voice was his! There was someone in my room.

"What? Why are you here?" I felt the blood rush to my face and my nostrils flare. I was wearing only a nightgown. I pulled the blankets up quickly and shivered. He shouldn't see me like this. Wait, was this a dream? It was so dark in my room that I couldn't see my frosty breath before me. My eyes began to adjust and I could make out his face.

"Please, you must hurry, there is no time to lose!"

"Lose time... what? I don't understand."

"Have you never had an emergency in your castle? Where you can get up and leave early?" His accent was thicker, like he was panicked. My body felt too sluggish to react to what he was saying properly.

"No! What should I pack?"

"Nothing, there is no time, please just get dressed. Warm things, tell me where they are." I got up and smacked heads with him. Reeling back I mumbled and pointed to the standing dresser. He flings the doors open and begins to pull things out in the dark.

"Can we not use a light?"

"No, put these on, do not worry about propriety, please, there is danger." He pulled close for this last bit, placing the clothes in my hands. I finally began to feel that it was real, but still numb to the panic. This was a situation, it could be handled. I began pulling the heavy clothing on.

"Here, you do my boots while I put on my other clothing." He hurried to comply, brushing his long fingers over the laces, cursing when it was taking too long.

This was certainly the fastest I had ever dressed, too fast for me to be embarrassed when his hands gripped my legs.

I struggled with the clasp on the cloak, my cold fingers useless.

"Leave it, there is not time. Can you run? The cloak will not hide you." He pulled me upright. "Do I need to carry you?" I scoffed.

"No, it will slow us down. Lead the way, I cannot see." Morijdian's could see better and hear better, he had told me. It was so dark in my room I had to trust him no matter what. 

He opened the door and looked both ways.

"How will the prince react?" Rior barely spared a glance.

"The King gave me orders." He tugged on my hand. I realized now that he was in a battle garb, like the old leather kind that I had seen in the story books with Tutor.

He began jogging until he was sure I could keep up, and then he sped, pulling me faster than my run could.

I was trying not to freak out, because my eyes weren't focusing, and I couldn't quite see.

My breath was a harsh rattle, and I felt light headed as we were skidding to a stop. I landed against his back, and fell back from the hardness of it.

"Offengirn!" I almost giggle, remembering our swear words together, but then stop when the hallway spins, because that is so not funny.

He pulls me in another direction and I hold onto his hand like it is a lifeline. I sprint in the direction he guides me, while my vision tunnels and I breathe as hard as I can.

I feel warmer, breezier air on my face, and I feel the cold wracking my body in shivers. Rior is pulling my arm faster than I can go now, and I stumble, but he is so fast that he catches me and lifts me up as if I am nothing. I know I should be embarrassed, because it's not as though I weigh so little. Although I have lost the weight from my sickness, so perhaps I am lighter than I was. 

I feel something scratchy and I worry that I am hallucinating, because we are in a barn. I am being covered in a blanket.

"You must be very quiet, all right?" Rior brushes my hair away from my face before covering my face, and then covering the covering. It is like being raked into a pile of leaves when I was young. I can imagine the warm sunny leaves now.

I think how memories always seem to do the cold injustice, and make everything tinged with heat. I hear voices fade in and out.

"Do you know where the soon to be princess is, little cousin? Is not she your responsibility?"

"I have no dealings in the king's wishes. I only help to execute them."

"I hear you seem to be enjoying its presence. That you are the only one allowed to." Rior is silent.

"Won't you share? It's just a human after all."

"We do not share the same opinion. She is a lady, and I hope you would not treat my mother as such, and she was a lady."

"I am sorry." The man seems stricken. "I did not mean..."

"You are here to mourn, not to cause issues. You will not cause harm or threaten anyone under this roof, human or no." His voice became menacing and commanding.

"Yes, we only meant to..."

"Distract me here while you looked for her in her chambers to extinguish the possibility of her." The man was silent again.

"Well, I suppose there is nothing left to say, your majesty."

"No." Rior practically growled.

"Long live the Kaven line!" The man spoke proudly, and I didn't hear him again.

I felt the rustles above me, of the hay being removed, but I felt as if I were mostly asleep. Rior lifted me up, and something tickled at the back of my mind. I had heard something so important. What? I felt as though I were being tested on material I had only glanced over, but I knew it, just barely couldn't think. My head lolled for a moment before I woke up more. I opened my eyes, but they seemed glued shut. When I finally pried them open, I could only see the fuzzy outline of his face. Fear struck me now.

"Rior, I can't see!" I heard his intake of breath and felt his warm hands gently open my eyelids more, and close and open them. I felt him pick me up, and walk away from the light of the barn.

"Will you explain why I had to be hidden?" my tongue was heavy and my lips were numb. 

"They are the side of the royal family that does the bad business, so to speak. We all knew they would come after you, and they hold a hatred in their hearts for humans. We had to keep you safe."

I didn't answer as I was lulled by the swinging motion of his walking.

"This will hurt, but you need medicine." I felt a sting, and something hot on my lips, going down my throat.

It took only seconds for my whole body to be on fire. I felt the entire length of my body stiffen and convulse in his grip.

"My truth, I am so sorry. Sie, Sie. I am so sorry." His words had the crooning sound of someone guilty and lamenting, I thought as I fell back asleep.

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