(Not) a clichéd fairy tale

Chapter 16

Liarya

When the bath water had the right temperature, I stepped into the wash basin and immediately sat down.

The water was warm and it felt so comfortable, I never wanted to get out of it again.

I pulled my knees to my chest and sat there for a while, doing nothing. Then after a while, my thoughts floated back to Tirian.

He was a strange person. I have had a feeling he was opening up a bit over the course of the last few days, but I still knew little about him.

Whenever he was talking about himself he told me about magic or Nearon or how talented he apparently was in wielding a sword. But never about his life or his job or his family.

He knew about my family, somehow, and also about basically anything else in my life and I didn't have much information about him.

According to his recent 'survival lessons' that was something that should never happen. But I didn't worry about that fact when I was with him. 

He couldn't hurt me after all, nor did I believe he would want to...

Thinking about it now, his clothes weren't what I imagined knights would wear.

I had no idea how clothing was in Nearon, but his clothes were of high quality and more to show off power, and how good he looked, than to protect him in battle.

Deep in my thoughts, they suddenly went to Tirians looks again.

The black hair that reached down to his shoulders, his green eyes that resembled the most beautiful emeralds I had ever seen, his lips that looked so soft I wondered how they felt on...

No! Liarya, get those shameful thoughts out of your Head!

I felt my cheeks heating up and it was surely not the heat of the water that was responsible.

I sank into the water a little more, until I was completely under water except my nose and eyes.

When I felt the water cool down again, I hurried and washed my body and hair as quickly as I could before leaving the water.

I half-dried my hair with a towel before applying new hair colour, making the blue stronger again. Then I got dressed before sitting down on my bed and pulling the skirt up to look at the wound I had gotten from the wolves a few weeks prior.

The pain was almost gone completely and was now replaced by a terrible itching feeling that made me want to scratch away every single piece of the scab.

Sometimes I also tore it off together with the bandages, as it kept sticking to them.

Putting those unpleasant facts aside, I almost forgot I even had the wound, as it hat stopped hurting several days ago.

After I had finished tending to the wound, I let myself fall onto the bed and stared at the clock over the door.

I waited for the second hand to reach the number twelve on the clock before I started counting.

"One... Two... Three..."

Soon after I lost count and had to wait for the second hand to reach the number twelve again so I could start again.

"One hundred and fifty... One hundred and fifty one... One hundred and fifty three... Damn it!"

Just as I was about to start counting again I heard soft knocks on the window.

At first I thought I was imagining it, but as the noise didn't stop I finally looked up and saw a raven sitting outside on the windowsill.

After I opened the window it immediately flew inside and landed on my desk. There was a little envelope tied around it's leg.

I quickly opened it and started reading.

"Dear Liarya,

It has been quite a while since we last heard from each other. I would love to hear what you were doing those past weeks but there is no time for this. Wherever in the three kingdoms you may be, pack your stuff and leave immediately! I am looking forward to see you in person again dear sister, until then, take care of yourself.

Anakin"

His letter confused me slightly but it was very likely that someone had found out about my whereabouts and had told mine or Orions father.

Just as I was about to put the letter back into its envelope, I noticed that there was another piece of paper inside.

The first few words written on this paper made my blood run cold.

ANNOUNCEMENT!

Crown prince Anakins Coronation

In two weeks at the snow white beach
Attendance is unexceptionally required!

Normally I would've been happy for my brother, and Nularis' citizens,  but there had been a tradition in Nularis and Eldarmar for the past few hundred years.

Both crown princes of Nularis and Eldarmar are always crowned to be king on the same day.

But for Eldarmars crown prince to become king, he needed to be married. Orion was the only child of the royal family and I was his fiancee.

This meant that whoever planned this was one hundred percent sure that Orion and I will be married in two weeks.

After some minutes the door flew open and I turned around, ready to fight whoever kicked it open.

Thankfully it was just Tirian looking as angry as always after his secretive trips to God-knows-where.

He stormed into the room and slammed the door behind him before walking up to me.

"We need to leave."
"We need to leave!"

He stared at me for a second before I handed him the announcement paper I had just read.

After reading it Tirian tore the paper apart and muttered a few curses.

"You keep all of Anakins letters in the drawer,  right?"

I nodded.

"Burn all of them. Put on clothes that you can comfortably wear for a few days in a row and leave the rest here."

After that he placed a small dagger into my hand and told me to hurry up, as we would be leaving immediately.