Inside the Beast's Castle

Chapter 2--Vadik

"I don't trust easily, so when I tell you, I trust you. Don't make me regret it." --Anonymous
_______________________________________

"That's all you do! Ever since Mom di--"

Slap!

I gently reached up and prodded my cheek. It stung a little.

Definitely a bruise. How do I get to explain this one?

I sighed and stared down at the water below me, trying to make out the color of my cheek through the ripples. I was at the river, where my feet carried me from my encounter with my father. I had no clue how I ended up there. I guess I wasn't thinking clearly and went wherever I was most comfortable.

Which, apparently, was at the water.

My more pleasant memories of the town had happened at the river. The memories themselves mostly involved me and Joshua pranking people. Shocked faces of the Watsons--who were the town doctors--and Margaret Carter--the only person who I could halfway call my friend--circled around in small waves of the water. Jokes gone awry, embarrassing asking-outs, everything that I laughed at had happened at the banks of the river.

With Joshua.

Needless to say, being at the water wasn't helping me calm down very much.

My stomach growled, roaring so loudly that I could be mistaken for a lion or bear of some kind.

Shush, stomach. You've been hungry before.

And the saddest thing was that my thought was completely true.

After we had left the Upper Kingdom, my father, brother, and I had to find food and a home. We had gone hungry for weeks, eating the few things that we knew were safe, like berries and sticks. When we finally found a house that we could live in, I immediately had to start working somewhere to pay for everything that we needed.

That was when I was eight.

The baker had kindly allowed me and Joshua to come in on the weekends and work for him. Joshua found a job a year later and registered for the yearly draft. He told me once I asked that all he had to do was to scribble his name down on a slip of paper and place it in a large bowl. He said that the king would draw names from it whenever someone was needed, and the people who were drawn had to go to war.

"It's just one name in a bowl full of thousands, Zara. What are the odds that it'll be me?"

The odds were never in our favor.

Stop thinking, girl.

I tuned myself out before my thoughts overwhelmed me and sat at the edge of the river, feeling the water slosh up at my feet. The rays of the sunset reflected off the surface, making the water catch the colors of the sun. A rare-in-the-spring cool breeze blew, rustling the leaves of the trees around me.

How have I missed this?

"It's so beautiful," I whispered to no one.

My days would normally start out with me coming to the river to bathe and wash the few pieces of clothing my father and I owned. There was never anyone down at the banks in the morning; they were always sleeping. Of all the times I had come down at sunrise, I had never seen the sun actually rise. I was always too caught up in my work. Watching the sun set was an even bigger rarity.

The corners of my mouth twitched up into a smile. I let it spread.

"Ono prekrasno, nyet?"