There Is No Me Beyond You

~18~

I would give anything for a shower, I mused as I walked towards my room and much to my surprise found just what I needed-- another steaming bath ready. It wasn't as big as the one from the previous night, but it was definitely better than nothing.

I smiled as I shed my blanket and sank into the warm water, careful not to get my hair wet this time, knowing that I had to thank Vlad for this. He knew me so well.

I washed quickly and even got dressed on my own, noticing that the light coming in from outside was not as annoying to my eyes anymore, before Katerina appeared with my breakfast.

"I see you are finally up," she offered in lieu of a greeting, making me laugh.

"Oh Katerina, always so proper... I missed you, you know?"

I watched her smile at me as she laid my food on the small table by the window and urged me to start eating, before she disappeared towards Vlad's chamber, surely to summon her small army of maids to clean and tidy up.

She had promised that she would tell me everything she could, but as I watched her moving around my room, speechless, when she returned, I knew I would just have to pull everything out of her.

But first I needed to see Shadow. The presence of my wolf always made me feel better, and bolder. I closed my eyes, concentrating on my latest memory of him and in no time we heard a couple of startled squalls from the direction of Vlad's chamber, where he must have found an open door and got in, surprising the maids at work. A few moments later he sat at my feet, licking my hands.

"Did you call him, my lady? Well done. Your mother had the same ability..." Katerina said, stopping in her tracks, as if struck by a sudden memory.

"Don't you have this ability, too?" I asked, not knowing where to start my interrogation.

"No. I can glimpse the future, and do a few other tricks, but I can't summon and tame wild beasts," she said, smiling at me.

She walked towards the empty chair placed across the table from me and sat down, looking in my eyes.

"I know what you are doing, and I think you are right, this is the best way. Little by little, one thing at a time... There are too many things I should tell you and I don't know where to start. Ask what you want to know now."

"The last time, Katerina, why didn't you tell me anything?" I asked, my hands buried deeply in the wolf's fur for comfort, still surprised by her sudden will to talk. She hadn't been like this before.

"Because when you arrived the other time, after all those years, you remembered nothing and no one, apart from your feelings for Lord Vlad. You would not understand anything straight away. When you began to get your first glimpses of the past, you had to cope with your husband's new reality, things that happened in his life after you had left, and did not expect to find-- Lady Jusztyna, their son... And later... As I said, sometimes I can glimpse the future. I knew what was about to pass and could not prevent it-- that's the worst thing about my skill. Knowing that you were with child, and that Lord Vlad would not be here when the portal opened, there was no point to talk, to tell you that he might leave this place, if he leaves it with you. I knew that the young lord would take you back into your other world, and under the circumstances it was the safest thing to do. I let them take you to safety and hid, knowing that no one would be here to help me when Lord Rareş would come to look for the two of us."

"Where did you go?"

"Can you believe that I spent most of the time in the mill, under the Council's very eyes? You can't imagine how many times they searched the castle and even the village..."