With Rhylan. And the royal family.
I allowed the females to comb and arrange my hair into some sort of crown, just like the queen wore hers and dress me the way they wanted to, in the hope that I would finally see Ansgar. I wanted nothing more than to be returned into his embrace and apologise for the night before. I wanted him to trap me in between those big arms of his and never let me go.
Unfortunately, it became clear that my wishes had been in vain when there were only four chairs at the table this time, inside a huge hall overlooking other sets of tables, where I assumed other members of the court took their dinner.
Rhylan stood at the sight of me and offered me his hand, which I half-heartedly took and allowed him to arrange an escaped lock of my hair and serve me a glass of blood-red wine. He must have read the question in my eyes because he explained, “The commander and rest of the soldiers have other dining arrangements.” And that was that.
I allowed an inaudible sigh before I continued the charade and took my allocated seat at the table. It felt weird dining like that, having a view of everyone and everything, almost like the king and queen had to supervise their subjects constantly and demonstrate their supremacy over the others.
Even the air around us was flooded with tension. The king looked at me like I was a bug who all of a sudden gained merits to sit at his table while the queen inspected me with the same disgust, but also a dash of something else, a feeling I could not place.
She was the first to address me, breaking the long-settled silence.
“Tell me, girl, do you realise how lucky you are?” She turned her head to me regally, with an elegance that had clearly accompanied her for centuries, acting like she was a precious work of art. She looked beautiful, I had to admit and even though old age had settled around her features, flashes of youth still kept a good fight across her cheeks, making her look decades younger than her partner. A partner who, I had to respect above everyone, I had been told. No one could do anything, even move or breathe the wrong way, until the king settled himself at the table and no drink or food could be touched until he had tried it first or allowed us to do it in his stead.
“I am not sure I could call myself that,“ I responded cordially, keeping my tone even, focusing the tension on a big gulp I eagerly swallowed from the wine Rhylan had poured for me.
“A mortal betrothed to Fear Gorta? Out of the billion beings he could have chosen? No one could even dream of such a lucky strike of chance,” the Queen immediately jumped to contradict me. And there it was, the feeling I couldn’t place before. Jealousy. Suddenly everything clicked into place. The smiles, the delighted looks, the way Rhylan lived for her attention, and the way she purred like a cat while he was her canary. In front of the entire court and the king, who seemed very used to this, as though it was a daily occurrence.
I turned to face Rhylan, who bowed his head, showing how grateful he was for the compliment and I knew I had found my way in. Something to engage the queen with and keep her entertained, just like I was supposed to.
“You are right, your majesty,” I responded. “Not in my wildest dreams had I seen this happening.” To make my point, and to prove my theory, I extended my hand and reached my wannabe fiancé, grabbing his fingers into mine and squeezing slightly, while I made sure to throw him my most dashing smile.
Rhylan almost choked on the half-chewed piece of steak, but surprisingly, lifted my hand and placed a thirsty kiss on my fingers, after which he threw me a genuinely happy smile.
“Well, since you too are so eager to consummate your vows, there is much to do and much to plan. We can have a feast right in this room, can’t we, Drahden?” the queen turned abruptly towards the king like she wanted to block the image of us from her mind. Bingo.
“Oh Anwen, there is so much planning to do,” she seemed to change her mind and turned her full attention back to me and the hand I was still touching Rhylan with, which she snatched from his hold and made a grand gesture of squeezing my fingers across the table, as though we were some kind of sorority planning the ball of the season. We all read it for what it was, her inability to see me touching Rhylan, but I played along. That was what I was supposed to do there, after all.
I allowed my mind to drift away as I ate whatever was served on my plate while engaging in small talk with the queen, the conversation solely concerning dresses and underwear, Rhylan’s favourite colours, and how my hair would look better in a bun. I acted like I was supposed to, treating it like any other business meeting where I had to nod and smile, make myself pleasant, and engage on a satisfactory level, without overpowering the conversation.
After dessert, ‘my future husband’ invited me for a walk which I, of course, accepted with a smile and we asked for permission to retreat. The queen excused us with fake excitement while the king nodded, concerning himself with more walnut pie.
“You did a marvellous job,” Rhylan said while walking me back through the corridors I had started to recognise.
“And we didn’t even get to the Irish party bit,” I huffed and when it came his turn to frown, I explained further. “Jack and Rose, they go to the third class party to drink and dance?”
He smiled, pointing to the right, advising me to follow the path he had shown. “Cressida loves that movie.” His words surprised me, especially since I had been so overwhelmed with everything, I hadn’t even had a chance to think about home. Nor did I want to, because that would be a subject matter where my tears would not be contained any longer.
“I miss her,” he continued, making my stomach twitch at the thought of my friend. Of how I wished I could talk to her and receive one of her friendly smiles. Or one of those tight hugs she always was so generous with.
“I miss her too,” I admitted, just as we reached the door to our room.
“I have some unexpected duties to take care of after that dinner, so I must leave you. Good night, sprout. I'll pick you up tomorrow at the same time.”
“Good night,” I nodded and pushed the door to open our new room. To find everything intact, every single piece of broken furniture had been replaced, not one hair out of place, it all looked impeccable. I swallowed hard, expecting to find Ansgar already in the bedroom. I had no sign of him throughout the day.
Since he hadn’t arrived yet, I decided to bring back memories from the mansion, where our only worries were caring for the plants and enjoying each other, and headed to the kitchen. After hunting down the ingredients I thought I might need, I had enough on the table to hopefully be able to make muffins. Something about the easiness of the action, the normalcy of it all calmed me down enough to even turn on the radio. I didn’t know how it worked or if it was just a recording, but hearing a Maroon 5 song almost brought me to tears.
Here I was, after everything we’d been through, baking for my man. I chuckled at the thought and started mixing things together, eye measuring rather than struggling to find a recipe and follow it. I figured not much could go wrong if I added flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs, and cocoa. I even found some vanilla extract and chocolate chips and mixed them together, then carefully separatedthe contents into blue polka dot cupcake holders and baked everything until I was satisfied with the result. Thank goodness for Rhylan having electricity in his quarters.
About half an hour later, I finished baking muffins in a place that could easily be described as the underworld and felt very proud of myself. The clock in the kitchen announced ten o’clock and I hoped Ansgar would be back soon. After all, how many hours of training could a person take?
I hurried in the shower to scrub away remains of flour and forced conversations from dinner and washed my hair quickly, then applied body lotion — thank you Rhylan for thinking about the small details — and wrapped myself in a cosy bathrobe I found hanging on the door, my hair twisted in a towel.
“Hello,” Ansgar’s voice surprised me. He was in the bedroom, searching through the closet, and my mouth automatically watered at the sight of him. My prince had adopted his ‘uniform’ if I could ever call it that from back in the forest, which meant pants hanging low and bare torso. All of him was smudged with dirt and a few bruises pinched here and there, but the sweat pouring down his body and messy hair made him all the more remarkable. He looked like melting ice cream and I felt the need to do the honours and eat him whole.
“Hi,'' I said, readying to unwrap myself from the bath robe and get dirty all over again, rubbing onto every single muscle of his body, but to my surprise, he turned and avoided my touch, walking decidedly towards the bathroom.
