A Royal's Tale [COMPLETED]

Chapter 11 - "Lydia won't let us down."

Lydia

Lydia hurried down the corridor, the layers of her silken gown fluttering around her. She knew she was late. She also knew the faces her siblings would give her for being late. Corwin: disproval. Reen: amusement. Vienna: resignation.

By the time Lydia saw them all standing together outside the ballroom doors, she started talking.

"I'm sorry, I know I'm late and it isn't how a princess should act."

Vienna faced Lydia and Lydia froze in her tracks. Vienna smiled, a sad smile, blood running down the side of her face, sticking to her artfully arranged hair.

"Do you think you will ever understand what it means to be a princess?" Vienna said.

Lydia couldn't speak, the breath in her lungs turning to jagged shards of ice. Reen draped an arm around Vienna's shoulders, grinning his boyish grin.

"Relax," Reen said. "Lydia won't let us down."

At the sight of the knife jutting out from Reen's chest, Lydia started to shake.

"Of course she will," Corwin said. "She fails time and time again to understand the responsibility it takes to be a royal."

Corwin leveled her with a stern look. But Lydia couldn't see it, all she could see was the blood spilling from the wound in his side. Both her parents joined their children, her father's neck dripping with blood and her mother bleeding from the chest, offering Lydia kind smiles. Bile rose in Lydia's throat, accompanied by a terrified scream. But it never escaped, it remained trapped.

"I'm sorry," she gasped. "I'm so sorry."

Wearing a puzzled frown, Vienna reached for Lydia's arm.

"Lydia," she said. "You're missing something." She gripped Lydia's arm and Lydia tried to pull herself from Vienna's grasp. "Where is your wound?"

Lydia struggled, but Reen clutched her other arm. They wouldn't let her go, they held on so strongly Lydia could feel the bruises forming.

"I don't know," Lydia cried. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Lydia."

They all called her name, the sound melding into one voice.

"Lydia."

Her name pierced her like an accusation. She lived. She had lived.

"Lydia!"

"I'm sorry," she cried.

"Ly! Wake up!"

Lydia gasped awake. Wilder stood above her, holding her arms, his eyes filled with worry.

"You were crying out," he said.

She shook, reality cutting her as viciously as the nightmare. Hesitantly, Wilder sat on the edge of the bed. He touched her cheek where it was damp. The soft caress sent more tears spilling over.

"It was only a nightmare," he said.

But it wasn't. It was real. The wounds were real. Their accusations real. She'd let them down.

When Wilder pulled his arms away, Lydia went with them, needing their safety. She curled into him, pressing her face into his shoulder and clinging to him. After a heartbeat, he wrapped his arms around her. She stained his shirt with her tears, while he whispered soothingly to her.

"It will be okay, Ly," he said.

She wished with all her heart that it would but she was too aware of the unknown room, the sway of the ship, the scent of the sea. Everything that told her she was running away. That the world she knew was no longer real. That she'd left her family behind.