Chapter 9 Seren
Chapter nine
Seren
My armor had nearly cracked. Two days in a row, I had been confronted. My fellow Guardians had cut me with their words and pried at my carefully buried emotions. They twisted deeper than any sword could.
I felt the painful splinters digging into the flesh beneath my ribs. Were those shards pushing into my bloodstream? Creeping toward my heart?
I ran a hand over the steel at my chest. It was intact, unblemished.
The blows they had dealt were not to my person, but they had turned me into a ragged thing, shaking with heaving breaths.
My forehead pressed against the cold stone of the ivy strewn wall of the palace.
I forced myself to focus on each inhale and exhale, fingers tangling in the vines and eyelids squeezing tightly shut.
With great effort, I straightened my spine and went about the rest of my day as if nothing had changed. As if I was not growing tired of the rules I had set for myself. I thought again of the necessity of it all. I must protect myself first, because no one else would.
There was never happiness without pain, and if I must keep myself forcibly numb in order to save my heart from shattering once again, then I would do it.
This mantra repeated itself, ringing through my mind long into the night. I was here for peace and for justice. I had spent the last five years taking back what belonged to me. My heart would be mended with the blood of those I fell.
Yes, that was why this was all so important. That was why this pain was worth it. It was temporary. It was for him.
My mind finally stilled. I slipped into the fuzzy blackness of dreamless sleep, a warm blanket around my shoulders, but it wasn’t long before the cold, battering river of dreams dragged me beneath the surface and into the depths that I dreaded most nights.
I lifted my heavy head to the scene before me. I blinked to clear my vision and was surprised to find the room around me less blurred than usual. My hands rested on the plush arms of a velvety chair, but my fingers could not feel the soft texture beneath them.
Voices came into hazy focus. My gaze lifted to the man before me, with red hair and a golden circlet. I had seen him before.
He spoke firmly, hands moving in rapid gesticulation. I felt my head nodding though I had not willed it to do so. My mouth opened of its own accord.
“You expect my coronation so soon?” The words slipping past my lips were clear, but the voice was not my own.
“If all goes according to plan, the crown will sit atop your head by the end of the year, Ayla.” He leaned back in his chair, shoulders straight and fingers steepled in front of his broad chest.
Ayla. Where had I heard that name before? The thoughts ricocheted through my skull with head splitting pain, but I could not even gasp.
I tried to shake my head—tried to let him know that I was not who he thought I was—but I was locked in place, unable to alter the events playing out before me.
“What is the plan? Is my father planning to abdicate? I… I expected to be crowned queen someday—of course—but it is too early. And why would he not tell me himself?” My mind swam as confusion and fear washed through me.
No, through Ayla.
The man’s red hair fell across his forehead as he leaned toward me, hand squeezing my knee in familial comfort. “The king is a busy man, my dear girl, and you know how impersonal he is—even among family. Don’t you trust me to prepare you for the throne? Have I ever once let you down?”
The body that was not my own sat up straighter, fighting against the weight settling in my chest. “You’re right… He has only ever let me down, and you have always been there to pick up the pieces.”
His face was smug, the image clear enough that I could make out the fine lines around the edges of his eyes and mouth. His hazel eyes glinted in the firelight, cold despite the warm wash of light. He waited, triumphant.
“What would you have me do?” I whispered, the words falling off my lips were petals from a dying bud.
“I have a contact. She believes your mágik could grow to be far stronger than we have ever imagined. We will ensure you are the most powerful queen Acsilla—all of Szrestia—has ever known. I will make sure it is so, but we must keep this between us. Do you understand, Ayla?”
No… Came the barest whisper in the back of my mind—her mind. I don’t understand.
“Of course, Uncle,” Ayla said, a wobbly smile curving her mouth. The words tasted like ash, bitter and untrue.
It was not quite fear that panged through my chest. The feeling was more akin to an untethered ship lurching in the tide, a feeling of not belonging. The edges of the room were going hazy, and as I finally turned my head, I found that I was no longer inhabiting the woman’s body. I sat beside her.
Ayla.
The chestnut haired girl I had met in so many dreams, on so many restless nights. Her expression was tightened in confusion, but she made her agreements quickly and with an unwavering voice, as if she had no other choice.
“I love you, Ayla.” The man leaned closer as he said the words, but I could not focus on anything except for the golden circlet glinting in the firelight.
The image was already swimming—I was already drowning in the loss—but I reached for her hand as if I might take it in my own, and with a final wash of blackness across the dimly colored picture, I was sent back to the realm of dreamless sleep I so craved.
I did not wake to the frozen grass beneath me and a lightening sky above.
My limbs lay tangled and sweating in the warmth of my blankets, my stiff mattress only slightly more forgiving than the ground outside.
My head still ached to a fierce rhythm, and my stomach turned.
But it was not the sickness that clutched at me.
It was the fact I could not remember the last time I had dreamt of them without sleepwalking.
Likewise, I could not remember the visions ever having been so clear.
These dreams seemed so vivid—real in an inexplicable way—and I could not help but feel as though my connection to these dreamscape characters was growing stronger.