Chapter Fifteen
Iopen the door to Draven’s study slowly, poking my head in. Looking around, I see no signs of Ludwig. I step in and quietly shut the door behind me.
Just because Draven is gone, does not mean I have to stop searching.
I walk over to the cabinets that hold all of the files of the kingdoms incantors. With a deep breath, I open the drawers and search for the letter I.
Once I find the tab, I search for Ivorie’s name. Realization hits me that I do not even know what her family name is either. Ivorie is not a common name so surely there is only one.
I finally find her file with her being the only Ivorie in Vryko, thankfully. Her family name is Rain. Ivorie Rain.
I pull her file out and carry it over to the table. When I sit down, my eyes flick up to the seat across from me, missing a familiar presence there. My eyes scan the room, seeing no shadows lurking in the corners or under the table.
I sigh as I realize that I am not looking for them with apprehension. I am looking because I miss them.
I take out the contents of Ivorie’s file and begin to read through it.
Ivorie just recently started working as a lady’s maid in the castle. Previously, she worked for a bakery and was their transporter. She carried baked goods from the bakery to the castle. Every one of her employment records over the past fifteen years has been linked to the castle.
I stop and put the folder down. I cannot believe I am doing this right now. I feel like this is an invasion of her privacy. Knowing her, she would just tell me whatever I needed to know if I asked.
But I do not want to feel this suspicion I have of her. The only way to make it go away is to prove myself wrong. So I continue to read through her file.
An hour passes and I find nothing. Absolutely nothing that could indicate she would ever even do something like this.
But wouldn’t it be the perfect cover up? A lady’s maid to the future king’s betrothed. You do not get much closer to being in the castle than that.
I tip my head back in the chair, running my hands down my face. My head aches from all of the reading and lack of sleep.
Where is Draven when I need him? He would know what to do. He would be able to tell if I am out of mind or not.
I close my eyes for just a second, thinking of his golden eyes.
? ? ?
My feet hit the ground, hard. I am in a white gown and barefoot, running so fast the trees around me pass in a blur.
A thin tree branch smacks across my face as I pass it, my cheek stinging.
I lift my hand up to touch the spot that it hit, feeling warm liquid seeping out of the cut.
I pull my hand away to look at my fingertips, my blood is black as tar.
I keep running. I do not know where I am at or where I am going. but I keep going straight. The sound of footsteps running behind me increases in speed, matching my own.
I finally break out of the trees and I am surrounded by a large field of grass. As I am running through the grass, I notice an iridescent shimmer across the sky in front of me. The night sky seems to almost end as the shimmer begins. I have never seen it before but I know what it is.
The Line of Ether.
I try to stop myself from running toward it, but my body does not stop. My legs keep pumping faster, pushing in the direction of the line. I scream in attempt to get my legs to stop moving, but they won’t.
I hit the barrier, hard. Bracing myself for the collision but instead of stopping, I go through it.
I roughly land on the grass on the other side and roll onto my back, heaving at the impact. There is no need to open my eyes to confirm that the sun is shining down on me. I can feel it against my skin, burning it. I look down at my arms and hands, but I see no signs of the burns.
I am in Faeria.
I sit up to look around, but pause, bringing my hand up to cover my mouth at the horror around me.
Bodies are scattered every direction in a perfect circle around me.
I stand up quickly, breathing heavily. Looking around I see that each body has been badly burnt.
Each individual’s skin bubbled and raw. Vampires.
Around me is a sea of dead vampires, roasted by the sun.
I look around in a panic, seeing there is nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.
I start to back up but my calves’ bump into something. As I look down, I see they didn’t bump into something, but someone.
My eyes meet the tips of familiar leather boots peeking out from underneath black dress pants. As I work my way up, I see an unbuttoned white shirt, untucked and disheveled. I do not have to look at their face to know that it is Draven.
I drop to my knees in front of him, the pain of my skin masked by an entirely different type of pain.
His skin is flawless and smooth, but his soft, beautiful eyes are closed. Tears pour out of my eyes and drop onto his chest, sizzling as they land. I shake him but he does not wake.
Draven is dead.
I snap up out of the chair with a scream. Hot tears hit my cheeks as they fall, my face soaked in them. My breathing is sporadic and uneven. I close my eyes and count to ten, taking a deep breath with each number.
When I open my eyes, I look around and see that I am in Draven’s study. But Draven is not here, he is in Faeria. The place where I just dreamt he was dead at. I close my eyes and continue to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth slowly.
Draven is not dead, I would know if he was. It was just a nightmare, he is safe and okay.
I look around the study, seeing that I must have fallen asleep while looking through files. I glance at the clock. It is three in the morning.
Well, I surely slept through dinner and wedding dress designing.
Standing up, I turn my head side to side, stretching out my stiff neck. I look down at the chair, questioning how I even fell asleep in it to begin with.
As I walk toward to door to leave, I turn around to look around the room one last time, not being able to shake the feeling of being watched.
I am being paranoid because of my dream. There is no one else in here with me. I turn the handle to step out, then shut the door behind me.
Walking through the castle at this hour is eerie. There is no one else walking the halls. Sconces holding candles create unfamiliar shadows that linger on the walls and around corners. I quicken my pace.
I swear I hear footsteps come up behind me.
At first, they were far away and I thought nothing of it. Now, they sound like they are almost right behind me. I make a turn. They make a turn. I pick up my pace, they follow suit.
Screw this.
I break out into a sprint. This feeling being way to close to the dreams I have been having. I run as fast as I can and I do not look back.
My hand wraps around the door handle and rips the door open, then slamming it shut behind me. My back slides down the door and I place my ear up against it, listening. The footsteps stop outside of my door.
I glance up at the handle and see it start to turn, but it stops halfway. My pulse pounds in my ears.
The handle releases abruptly and the footsteps start again as the person continues walking down the hall. I release my breath then slump to the floor.
So that was not a dream and someone was just following me. The person who was following me now knows where my room is at. Great.
There is no way in hell I am going back to sleep and there is also no way in hell I am staying in here either. I walk into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face.
I glance at myself in the mirror. I look like a tangled mess of emotions. My cheeks are flushed. My eyes are swollen from where I was crying in my sleep, and out of it, and the dark circles under my eyes aren’t hard to miss.
There is one thing I have learned from the two nightmares I have had.
I need to start running.
I walk over to my wardrobe and pull out my training leathers, quickly putting them on. Walking over to my dresser, I grab the dagger from the drawer and look down at it. Draven told me to always wear it, and I haven’t been. That is about to change.
I strap the dagger around my thigh, pulling it tight to secure it. As I walk toward the door, I wrap my hair into a bun on top of my head.
Opening the door, I stick my head out to see if anyone is still out there. I do not hear, or see anything, so I step out of the room and head straight to the arena.
No footsteps follow behind me this time.
The rest of the morning is spent on training and weight lifting. When I am finished with that, I run laps around the arena until my legs cannot take it anymore.
My enhanced speed still has not settled, but I do not care.
I run anyways.
? ? ?
The taste of iron hits my tongue as soon as I open my bedroom door. I freeze in the doorway, looking around the room in a panic for any signs of a broken crown.
When I do not see one, I step into the room and shut the door. Everything in my room seems normal, nothing is out of place, nothing is missing.
I circle the bed and glance over at the nightstand. Sitting on it, is a vase full of pink flowers. The petals are a deep pink, the flower itself pretty. The stems are long with green leaves that almost look like daggers. The pointed end on them looking sharp enough to cut.
I slowly walk over to them. Bending my head toward them, I inhale sharply then stumble backward. The familiar smell aggressively flooding my senses.
These are the flowers I smelt that day in the missing man’s room.
I back away from the vase, looking around the room in sheer panic. Someone came into my room and left these flowers on my bedside table knowing that I would know what they were. That I would know what they mean.
A warning.
I run over to Ivorie’s door and bang on it, hard.
She opens the door, looking me up and down. “Solene, we have to leave in thirty minutes. You are drenched in sweat and flushed, what is happening?”
She steps into my room and I stand there in silence staring at her.
“Who has access to my room?”