The light from outside made the linens that covered her window glow gray. It seemed Sasha, or whoever came up with the coverings, knew a thing or two about headaches and the after-effects of Aurelie's power. It had greatly helped her the day before, but now it just helped the room retain its staleness.
Her dream, especially the end of it, still haunted her. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the end of the quilt, and pulled her legs out from under it, letting the morning air cool them.
The air smelled of rain, the heavy kind that brought thunder and lightning that could, for a split second, make night look like day. It also smelled strongly of wood. Something about the cold and wet morning must have made the walls bulge and ripen the air with its scent.
On days like these, Kaiden and Elizabeth would usually stay home, depending on how tragic the weather was, and the house would always smell of something sweet that Aunt Elizabeth baked. She'd open all the windows and let the rain soak their curtains while Kaiden's fire burned in the chimney.
She heard the rain start outside, and got up to pull the linens down from the window. Large drops plopped down on the thick grass, and on the grapevine that crawled up a net that was fixed to the wall of the inn. Her room was on the second floor, facing a rather impressive garden. The planting beds were lifted a little higher than the earth by large wooden planks. Every vegetable had its own neat, little box. The boxes, some longer in length for the more common vegetables, went up to the fruit trees, at the very back, started in rows.
The wind began to howl and the rain whooshed down with a temperament. Aurelie wrapped her arms around her chest as gooseflesh rose on her skin. She understood now, stuck in this small space, why Elizabeth kept the windows open. It was to feel the possibility of freedom. Not having to leap, but knowing that it could be made.
The sound of the rain must have muffled out the sound of the door opening because she felt a presence in the room with her that had not been there a second ago.
She turned and caught a man in the midst of closing her door. His face was shadowed by the darkness she instantly knew who it was when he started to walk closer to her. His steps had an arrogance to them. The same arrogance that it took to jump through a burning doorframe and greet two armed guards as if they were little kittens waiting to be scratched. She quite liked the spark of the man in the tavern with the wild hair. Daerious, she said the name in her mind, testing the pronunciation.
He turned and smiled at her, his fangs a little longer than normal, giving him the likeness of a wolf.
"Do you always walk like that?" she asked him.
He stopped and cocked his head. "Like what?"
"Like you've just wrestled a bear and won."
"Perhaps I have." His green eyes narrowed playfully.
"Have you?"
"No, but now I wish I had before I came in here."
She smiled and stole a proper glance at him when he looked at the tray on her bedside table. He wore the clothing of a person who spent most of his days hunting in the woods, a tattered cloak, leather pants, and a quiver across his chest. His white shirt was torn and dirty, stained with what looked like a mixture of mud and blood.
"I'd have believed you if you said you had. You certainly look like something dragged you around in the woods for a couple of hours."
"Uh." He rubbed a hand over his hair, curls spiraling back into position once his hand had passed them. "I got caught in the rain."
"Did you slip down a mountain?" she asked, looking at the gash above his wrist. The blood had clotted on the edges but the middle was still bleeding a little.
He covered the wound with his hand of which the knuckles were newly bruised. "I got caught in the rain by a patrolling guard."
"Ah." It was getting cold by the window and the sound of the wind made it hard for her to hear Daerious speak. She came to sit on her bed and drew the quilt up to cover her shoulders. "Is it your turn to check up on me?"
"Turn? No. If we had turned, there'd be a brawl outside your door from now till next week."
Aurelie furrowed her brows. "Why?"
"People are excited to see you. We brought you in at night so a lot of them don't even believe you're really here." He came to sit at the foot of the bed and eyed the fruits that lay on the tray. "The youngsters have been calling me a cock tease because of it." His cheeks reddened at the realization of either what he said or who he said it to. "I don't think they quite know what it means," he quickly interjected. His eyes fell on the tray again.
Aurelie hid her smile and eased the conversation away from the awkward turn. "You can have them if you want."
"Oh, no, thank you. I don't eat those."
"Fruit?" she asked, amused by his disgusted expression.
"Yes, I'll have them in jam on bread, but just plain like that," he wrinkled his nose, "can't stomach it anymore. Haven't touched any since I left Jermyn. I lived off apples and bloody grapes for a year until he realized I'd need something else before I die. After a while, you get creative and start making raisins. Can't stomach those either."
"He gave me a stew."
"Bastard."
Aurelie laughed out loud and quickly closed her mouth with her palm, feeling her cheeks redden.
"Is he doing alright, Jermyn?" His expression grew serious, making his cheekbones look as if they had been sculpted from stone.
"It's hard to tell with him," Aurelie said, trying to think of a better answer. "Sometimes he looked absolutely miserable and then he made time for a terrible joke right before leaving me, and I thought he was going to be just fine."
Daerious smiled, his mind distant, dwelling in some memory. "He's a right bastard sometimes, isn't he?"
"Certainly."
"I wouldn't have survived without him, though, little as I was when he found me."
"Neither would I." Now they both crept back into their memories, seeing the big tree before them, grouchy as ever but helpful in his own way. "How did you meet him?"
Daerious twisted his fingers in his lap, an invisible weight baring his shoulder down. She was sorry she asked him, it was clear he didn't like to go through these memories too often.
"Every true follower of your grandfather knew that when Emile took the throne everything would change. My father was part of the late king's guard, so I suppose, my family knew this best of all. King Emile had a loyal following long before your grandfather died. People thought the old king was too interested in his books and too little in the affairs of the Kingdom. Funny thing is, they were actually right about that, but they put their faith in the wrong man."
"My dad said it had made him shiver to his very bone when the King warned his loyal guards to flee. Not because he was afraid to die or fight, but because of how eerily calm the King had been and how little warning there was for what happened. The King wasn't sick, there wasn't an outright war going on between powers, he just told them to leave and the next day he died."
"Dad led us toward Redayrah. Loyal followers of the new King ambushed when we reached the Dead Wood. You know how it is there, all the trees are dry, there's not a bush in sight." He took a moment to look at her for confirmation and took a deep breath when she nodded her head.
"I don't know if he gave the command, he had barely taken the crown yet, but people go crazy when power changes hands, you know? They must have seen us as traitors and well . . . that was that. Jermyn was disguised as a tree standing in the middle of the clearing when I ran past and tried to hide behind him. There was so much death and I was barely five years old."
"He turned me to bark as the men came nearer, and hid me inside his form until they were gone. We went back to the bodies of the villagers and buried them as best we could."
"I spent the better years of my childhood in Jermyn's tree. The memory of my parents lingered in me every day. When I was big enough to fend for myself, I left in search of . . . just something. I found Sasha in Berillian," Daerious said.
"I'm sorry, Daerious," she said.
He nodded, pain twisting the corners of his lips downward. "It's so sudden, you know? That feeling in your stomach when there's nothing beneath your feet, nausea, and emptiness. That's what it is to feel a loss. You don't land on your feet again, ever, you just get used to having your gut turned inside out."
"Forever doomed to feel like you're falling when you're standing completely still," Aurelie echoed. She looked down at her hands, fighting the urge to cry.
"So we both have unfinished business with the King then," he said and rested his hand on hers. "I'm sorry to have dulled the mood."
"It's alright," she smiled weakly enjoying the warmth of his hand on hers, "I asked for it."
Daerious wasn't obviously handsome. It was as if his face was clad in undiscovered treasures that revealed themselves bit by bit to keep her looking. Just now, she noticed a subtle dimple on his right cheek when he curved his lips at just the right angle.
"I had the strangest dream last night," she started, unsure of why she felt like she needed to share it with him or why he'd care in the first place, perhaps it was to just keep talking, he had a rasp to his voice that was pleasant to the ear. "The world was changing all around me. I think It was my own interpretation of the castle. Emile's castle," she elaborated. "And there was this pompous man there that called himself the Dream Keeper. Anyway, the strangest partâ"
"The Dream Keeper?" he asked, going slightly white in the face.
"Yes."
"You're not supposed to be allowed in there yet."
"So, it's a real place?" She felt stumped. It had crossed her mind that it may be but not for long. Keeper of dreams, prisoner of thoughts? She caught her eyes at the start of a roll just thinking about it. What did that even mean? Prisoner of thoughts? Was he a prisoner of her thoughts? Was he kept against his will? He certainly looked like he was enjoying every moment of it. Pompous little . . . She shook her head out of her thoughts, realizing that Daerious had been talking all along.
"...not going to believe this. He'll flipâ"
"Who?"
"Kirin, you'll probably meet him tomorrow. He's our castle spy." He stuck a finger out toward her face suddenly, green eyes wide and curls bobbing. "Never call him that, though. He absolutely hates it."
"Noted."
"You'll like him . . . probably. Or not. Every girl here has fallen in love with him at least once. It's like a rite of passage." He winked. "Then they talk to him and change their minds."
"Why?"
"Got your interest, huh?"
He smiled wickedly, baring his fangs again. She wished he wouldn't do that, it made him look awfully handsome.
"I'll tell you everything you want to know over breakfast. Come on, I promised them I'd finally get you out of this room."
She frowned. "I've only been hereâ"
He cut her off, sticking his palm out to silence her. "You've been out for three days since you spoke to Sasha, two days before that. That tonic of hers will tranquilize a tiger. Or a bear. Heard you like those."