Page 19 of The Truth-Teller's Bargain
“Nakir will return soon. He suggested it would be best if you stayed in the tent.”
Just “Nakir.” Not “His Majesty.” No honorifics. Not evenLordNakir. Just... Nakir.
“Suggested?”
“It’s not an order, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Ah.” Alethea didn’t know what to make of that. Should she test it and wander around camp? A bold voice within her urged her to go on, but the helpless side of her held back, thin fingers gripping the edges of the tent flap. “What’s your name?” sheasked the guard, realizing how rude it was of her not to have asked.
“Cyrus, Your Highness.” He met her gaze, calm. She wished he would not bow his head the way he did, as if she were someone who’d earned his respect.
“Cyrus. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You as well.”
Alethea slipped back into the safety of the tent, finding her way back to the stool she’d occupied earlier. She didn’t allow herself to think of the chair Goran Arranil had been tied to, or how she’d so readily returned to this one. All she could do was sit and wait and try not to let the panic overwhelm her.
By the time Nakir had returned, less than ten minutes later, with a bowl of soup and a few hunks of fresh bread, her restlessness had faded to exhaustion.
“It isn’t much, but it’s what we have in abundance around here,” he explained, offering her the humble meal.
She hadn’t eaten much in the past few days, and she made quick work of what he’d brought for her. With each spoonful of soup and every bite of bread, warmth spread through her body, and a sense of satiation she hadn’t felt in days settled within her. As soon as the last bite was finished, she knew her eyelids wouldn’t allow her to stay awake much longer.
“Where am I meant to sleep?” she asked her captor.
“You’ll have the bed,” Nakir replied, his tone calm and matter-of-fact.
She frowned, too tired to hide her trepidation. “That’s your bed, isn’t it?”
“It isabed,” Nakir affirmed, unwavering.
“Where will you sleep?”
“On the floor, in a bedroll, on the opposite side of the room, for propriety’s sake,” he explained, his voice laced with a touch of formality.
She snorted at his use of “propriety,” as if she were some unblemished maiden.
“I’ve slept in far worse places,” he assured her, gesturing to the bedroll, which appeared reasonably comfortable for something meant to be temporary.
Alethea sighed, too tired to argue or overthink. She only bothered to remove her shoes before slipping under the covers, the softness of the bed a small luxury she hadn’t anticipated. With her head on the pillow, the events of the evening and the tumultuous days before finally caught up with her, and she succumbed to the embrace of sleep, her exhaustion pulling her under the moment her eyes closed.
As a young girl,Alethea’s dreams had rarely been quiet. Voices would enter her mind as she slept and whisper secrets of the universe to her. She’d never known who those voices belonged to, each one unlike the one before it. Before her father died, she liked to imagine they were the calls of her ancestors, guiding her toward some fate.
Now she was no longer naïve enough to believe she had a great destiny.
The whispers had faded with time, and her dreams were eventually replaced by nightmares.
She found herself in a familiar grand hall adorned with intricate tapestries, where two youthful rulers sat upon magnificent silver thrones. Their faces were radiant with joy as they cradled their newborn son. Their fingers traced the contours of his forehead lovingly, bestowing upon him the name Nakir:bringer of justice.
But the scene quickly darkened, and Alethea’s vision shifted like the turn of an ancient scroll. She was now a silent observer in a grim tableau, witnessing the tragic demise of those samerulers unfolding before her eyes. Their faces contorted in fear and agony as they were ruthlessly cut down by the blades of her mother’s assassins, the stones and sand around them now painted in shades of crimson, the blood of the fallen monarchs splashing against Alethea’s white nightdress as she stood helplessly on the sidelines of the dark, deserted courtyard.
In the shifting sands of her dreamscape, she found herself again in a different time; a chilling echo of a more recent reality. The courtyard had dissolved into the cold stone of the great hall of Hyelea, the air carrying the same metallic tang that still clung to her nightdress. She watched Goran Arranil forced to kneel before the court, hands bound as they shoved him onto the executioner’s block, his proud eyes defiant even in the face of certain death. His gaze bore into her, as if he could pierce the veil between dreams and reality, locking onto her very soul.
His last words etched themselves into the corridors of her mind, a haunting refrain that sent shivers down her spine.“End it now. Seal your fate. Your destiny is coming.”
The axe fell with a finality that echoed through the corridors of her soul, leaving her heart pounding with dread. A guttural scream tore from her throat as she reached out, futile, her fingers grasping for a man she could never reach—not in her dreams, nor in her waking life. The scene warped and twisted, the court incinerated by an inferno that seared the edges of her consciousness.
But the nightmare didn’t end with Goran’s demise. In the fiery chaos, her mother emerged like a specter, her form shifting and contorting. She seized Alethea, her grip sinking into her shoulders like fangs. The queen’s voice slithered into her ear, a venomous whisper that coiled around her thoughts.
