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Now it was my turn to be stunned into silence.
“It wasn’t my choice,” I finally said slowly. “Are you so ignorant of your own kingdom that you don’t even know that much? My father made the vow when I was a mere child. I am being given to the temple. Like a gift. Not through any choice of mine.”
He was silent. The horse continued to plod along, hooves clapping softly against the cobblestones.
“I did... not know that. Or, I suppose I must have forgotten.” Draven cleared his throat. “Where I am from, the lives of the kings and queens of Camelot are... not particularly interesting to us.”
“What a refreshing place that must be,” I muttered.
He made a choking noise. Was it a laugh?
“Here we are,” he noted. We were riding through the castle gates. I caught a look of shocked surprise on the faces of the guards by the gates as they saw me.
“I think this has gone far enough,” I declared, and slid down off the horse as soon as it began to slow and before Draven could stop me.
“Not even a thank you, Princess?” he called as I strode away. “I’ll miss you, too.”
I refused to give him the pleasure of another look.
The door to my roomwas slightly ajar when I returned. A servant had left my medicine and must have forgotten to close the door all of the way. A gold goblet was waiting on a tray on the desk, filled to the brim.
I glanced at the wall where my mother’s picture usually hung, then reached for the goblet. I had pushed back my usual time for it by a few hours and wondered if it would matter. The other night, the medicine had been so debilitating while I was out hunting that I had decided I couldn’t risk that happening again tonight before I’d gone down to the marketplace.
I quickly drained half the goblet, forcing the thick liquid down my throat, then paused. There was an odd taste to it tonight. Perhaps some of the herbs had turned rancid. I wrinkled my nose and downed the rest. It was not as if the medicine had ever tasted anything close to “good.”
Putting the goblet back down on the desk, I wandered towards the bookshelves on the far side of the room. I was in the mood for an old favorite. Something I had read before to comfort myself after the horror of the night.
But as I touched the spines of the rows of books, all I could see was Baudwin’s face as he lay dead on the cold cobblestones.
They say there is peace in death. But I had never known that to be the case.
Baudwin had certainly not looked peaceful. His eyes had been wide, his mouth half-open. He’d looked stunned. As if he could not believe that death had truly come for him.
Death in the shape of Kairos Draven, who had killed for me.
But if death had not come for Baudwin on this night, would it have come for me instead?
Had Draven been right? Would Baudwin have been complicit in my abduction and murder? Oh, somewhat unwillingly. But as Draven had pointed out, Baudwin had been willing to lure me there. To bring me to men who seemed only to have harmful intentions.
I felt dizzy and nauseous. The medicine was taking effect even quicker than usual. I put out a hand to steady myself on the bookshelf.
On second thought, I did not think a book would be much comfort tonight. The dizziness was rapidly becoming an incessant wave, threatening to completely overwhelm me.
Suddenly my bed seemed very far away.
I let go of the shelf and began to walk slowly across the room, one step at a time, very conscious of every inch that lay between me and the bed.
This was ridiculous. I would have to speak with the Master of Potions. Clearly he had mistakenly made the concoction much too potent and now I was paying the price.
By the time I reached my desk, half-way to my bed, it felt as if hours had passed. The room had become a dark blur around me. I put out my hand to steady myself against the desk’s edge and waited, moment after moment passing until my hand finally touched the wood surface.
What was happening to me?
I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to clear it. That was a mistake. When I opened my eyes, the door to my room was opened wider than before. Had I forgotten to lock the door?
A figure stood in the opening. But no, that was impossible. I reached out a hand, to push the door closed. But my hand touched only air. And then I was falling.
Spiraling down into darkness.
