Chapter 12 Jane
As we scrambled into the marble castle, I had completely lost track of how much time had passed.
It could have been hours or merely minutes—who could say?
The excruciating pain throbbing throughout the left side of my body pulled my focus away from everything else, rendering time and space irrelevant.
The prince’s strength was nearly depleted after he swung me over his shoulders like a firefighter, climbed the rope ladder out of the pit, and carried me in his arms the entire way back to the castle.
Soldiers of the Castle Guard took me into their arms as we entered the gates, relieving Glade of his duty. Yet he followed along, overwrought with worry, jogging beside the guards as they transferred me to my room.
With each step through the foyer and up the stairs, each time I was passed between hands or jostled in my position, debilitating misery shot through my arm, my leg, and my pelvis.
In fact, there were moments during the hike when I had lost consciousness altogether—a welcome reprieve from the torment.
My semi-conscious body was carefully laid on the crimson sheets of my bed, and a moan escaped my lips. Sweaty, panting, and breathless, Glade called out Kaiyah’s name repeatedly.
The handmaiden rushed through the door. “What happened?” Kaiyah demanded, shuffling across the room to kneel at my side.
“She fell about twenty feet into a pit,” Glade said, as he guiltily lowered his chin to stare at his feet.
Kaiyah turned to him, her eyes wide and bewildered, before shifting her focus back to me. “It’s going to be alright, Jane. Healing broken bones is well within my abilities.”
My sweet friend repeated herself as she dotingly rubbed my forehead. “Give us space!” she ordered the guards, her voice booming throughout the room with newfound authority.
The half-dozen men exchanged glances, unsure of whether to take orders from a handmaiden. However, Glade’s commanding presence asserted itself almost immediately.
“You heard her. Out!” he barked, pointing firmly toward the door.
The guards shuffled back through the doorway, and at last, the room felt quiet and calm.
“Will it hurt?” I nervously asked my friend between muffled sobs, though I couldn’t imagine my body hurting more than it already did.
Kaiyah chuckled, brushing aside the few stray pieces of leaf-riddled hair from my forehead. “No, Jane. Everything will feel much better in just a moment.”
Glade drifted to the corner of the room, watching from the shadows as Kaiyah squeezed her eyes shut, creases forming on her forehead.
After three deep breaths, her palms began to glow with lavender Light, shimmering beneath her skin.
An orb appeared within her grasp—radiant yet heatless, dancing like a flame but unlike fire in every other way.
Kaiyah delicately positioned the glowing orb at the crook of my elbow, where the pain was most intense.
As the orb seeped into my skin, I watched the lavender Light disperse throughout my elbow, extending up my arm toward my shoulder and down to my hand.
It then travelled to my chest, throughout my abdomen and finally into my pelvic region.
Within moments, the hue shone brightly from underneath the muscles of my leg.
It tingled pleasantly, offering relief as the pain ebbed.
The blaze was so vivid that I could see my cracked bones magically weaving together beneath the skin. Part of me wanted to marvel at the miracle; another part wanted to vomit.
Within minutes, the glow faded, and Kaiyah opened her eyes to assess her work. A smile spread across her face as she saw that my body had healed completely.
“Y-you did it. You healed me,” I stammered as the sweat on my brow evaporated. I lifted my arm, studying its joints and moving it freely and painlessly. “Kaiyah, thank you!”
“Piece of cake,” she replied with a smirk, and I suddenly felt utterly enamoured with her.
The ability to heal the sick and wounded was an incredible gift. What wonders could be achieved on Earth if we had such powers back home? Then I recalled that we were not worthy, and my jaw tensed at the memory of Glade’s callous words.
He emerged from the shadows, his face alight with joy. “Jane,” he nearly cheered, but I raised a hand to stop him before he could reach me.
“Thank you for carrying me back to the castle, Glade, but I think you should go,” I said sternly, struggling to contain the tumult of emotions churning inside me.
Kaiyah’s glance shifted between us. However, she chose to remain silent.
Glade pressed his lips together, disappointment—or was it guilt—chiseled on his face, but he nodded in acceptance and sulked toward the doorway. Kaiyah rose and bowed to the prince as he passed.
As the door swung shut behind him, I crossed my arms over my chest, a flicker of anger reigniting within me. He might have rescued me from the hidden pit in the forest, but in many ways, he had also put me there.
My handmaiden’s eyes darted between the door and me, a look of curiosity settling on her features. “What was that?”
“Oh, you noticed?” I replied sarcastically.
Kaiyah’s mouth fell open, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the space even though Glade was long gone. “How could I not? The tension between you two was…palpable.”
“He’s an asshole,” I hissed under my breath, brushing aside her implications.
She pulled one side of her mouth inwards, biting the inside of her cheek as she wrestled with her thoughts, caught between honesty and her duty to the royal family. “He is a complicated man, it seems.”
“Complicated?” I repeated, baffled. “He’s an arrogant, childish, impetuous bastard!”
“He might not be as bad as you think, Jane. He seemed genuinely concerned for your well-being just moments ago,” she reminded me.
“Yeah, well.” I paused to consider my response, deliberately ignoring the insinuation of her words. “He probably just felt guilty about my injury or didn’t want to get in trouble.”
She hummed, as she clearly reflected on something. “Glade hasn’t always had it easy in the castle. Long before I even stepped foot in here, the king shunned him. Us servants talk, you know.”
I struggled to muster any pity for Glade and his grand, shining castle while he played the role of captain and soared off on adventures with his dragon. Still, I tried to imagine what his childhood might have been like.
“He did mention something about…being a spare,” I muttered resentfully.
“The only reason a king and queen have a second child, especially when their first is a male, is as a backup,” Kaiyah explained.
“Prince Glade was born three years after Prince Jion, in hopes they would never have to rely on him. They trained and educated him in case he was ever needed, but the king barely acknowledged him; he never gave him any of his time. The queen loves her children, but from what I’ve seen, she can be rather aloof and carefree. ”
The queen who had always diligently appeared at her husband’s side appeared as little more than a trophy, a mere commodity in every encounter we had.
I had no doubt she obeyed his every command, adhering to his every word like a compliant housewife.
Yet, beyond that facade, I knew nothing of her, this woman who was meant to be my mother-in-law.
Was she a good mother to Jion and Glade? I had no idea.
“I’ve heard that Glade was quite the rambunctious child,” Kaiyah continued.
“He had a knack for getting into trouble—stealing, sneaking out past curfew, drinking, chasing after girls. There were countless times when fathers or merchants came to the king, demanding retribution for Glade’s antics, and he was forced to cover for his son or somehow make things right.
Once Glade came of age, he was assigned to the Castle Guard as a form of punishment for his actions, a way for the king to keep a watchful eye on him.
Over the years, he worked his way up and eventually became captain.
But even after maturing and moving past his wild ways, the king still doesn’t trust him, and I doubt he ever will. ”
She looked genuinely sympathetic for the prince, which made me want to scream in protest. “Glade has wanted to join the fight against the Tenebrae for a long time, but the king has never allowed it. I think that’s a mistake. Have you ever seen him in the training pit? He’s absolutely deadly.”
Once Kaiyah had composed herself, she smoothed her skirt and added, “He may be rough around the edges, but in the few conversations we’ve had, he has been kind and pleasant.
You should consider giving him another chance.
After all, he’s going to be your brother-in-law very soon, and you’ll be seeing a lot of him. ”
I was often easily distracted by the mayhem of Ornath and casually forgot the true reason of why I was brought here. Meeting the beautiful and majestic Mir had made it easy to overlook my purpose.
My nose crinkled as I pondered her words. Glade was a human…a complex one at that. Fine, I could accept that, but it didn’t excuse the hurtful things he sometimes said to me or about Earthlings. I bet I was the first one he had ever met.
But what if I wasn’t an Earthling at all?
I still hadn’t come to terms with the possibility that I might have been born on an alien planet.
If that were the case, how did I end up on Earth?
Babies didn’t just magically materialize out of thin air in the middle of a forest like a ghost. Who had placed me there?
And how could the king be sure I was the one he had been searching for?
A sombre weight settled over my soul as I contemplated the chilling thought that I might be the last surviving human of Domus.
If that were true, it meant my parents—and anyone else biologically related to me—were dead and gone forever.
There was no family out there for me, no one who shared my heritage or history. I was truly alone in this universe.