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Casja
THEY HAD TAKEN HERdown when I gathered enough courage to peek into the room again. Her eyes were closed. A white sheet covered her body, and her long dark hair was positioned so that it covered the bruising on her neck.
I cast my gaze down.
There was dirt on the floor. Had she been so depressed that she had failed to clean her room for long enough for dirt to accumulate?
My chest tightened as I took a few steps back to keep myself from looking at her again. A shiver went through me.
She was dead.
She was young and dead on her bed.
“Did she have any family in the castle?” The soldier who wore King Duncan’s sigil asked the guard standing before him. We were all standing outside her door as though none of us wanted to be in the room with the body.
“No, sir,” the guard replied sheepishly as he visibly avoided looking inside the room. “The maid must have heard the chair falling off. She said she found her dangling from the ceiling. Cold to the touch.”
I knew that wasn’t true. Seren had said she came into Liltra’s room because she couldn’t sleep, not because she heard the chair falling off.
“I talked to the maid,” I whispered. “She said she heard nothing.”
“Who are you?” Finally, King Duncan’s soldier realized I was standing next to him.
“Casja,” I replied. “I am staying in the room next to hers.”
“One of the light fae champions,” the guard explained. “The one who stayed behind when the others left.”
My cheeks burned as the soldier’s expression softened. I wondered if he knew why the others had left me behind when he put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly.
“You should go back to your room,” he said. “This is not a thing that a young girl like you should see.”
Like everyone else, he thought I was too weak to handle serious and scary things like this. Jasmine and the others had left without me for that exact reason.
And could I say they were wrong? Wasn't it me who avoided looking at Liltra’s body because I was too scared? Hadn't I just lost control and made the air cold when I was supposed to be comforting Seren?
I could not blame them for thinking I was weak.
He turned to the guard. “Take Lady Casja to her room. Alert your superiors. Make sure the king hears of this. I’ll keep watch on the body.”
The young guard grabbed my arm. I did not make him drag me away but cooperated as we walked to my room.
He stopped when we reached my door, allowing me to open it myself. He waited outside the room, and I did not close my door as I stepped away from him.
“Will you be alright?” He asked, his voice polite.
I walked a few steps away from him. To my right, Liltra was on her bed, dead. I stared at the wall keeping our rooms apart. It was the side of the room with the hearth burning brightly. The chair in front of the hearth did no longer look comfortable. The books scattered around would not be the haven I had thought they would be.
“Yes,” I replied without looking at him. “I’m fine.”
I heard the guard move. My gaze darted down to the floor. Suddenly, an unreasonable fear took hold of me.
There was dirt on my floor too.
Was I also depressed? Would I end up like Liltra if I did not put a stop to this?
The sound of footsteps took me out of that dreary thinking spiral. Someone had just entered the hallway.
“What happened?” She asked the guard authoritatively.
