The Rogue Lady

Chapter Twenty Two (E R I C ' S P O V)

     I'm not very happy with this chapter. Sure, it gives you a bit more insight on Eric's thoughts about Svana but in my opinion, the chapter just failed. I might not even keep it in the book when I want it to be self-published.

     Anyway, Hunger Games; Mocking Jay part 1 tomorrow!! Excited!!

Check out the map in the external link, and let me know if there are any mistakes

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     Once more I had failed miserably to write the letter to my parents, which I had wanted to write for such a long time now. Even when I was still staying with Jarrick I had wanted to write them. And at first I did; once a month Jarrick would let me write a letter to them before he would take it to the nearest village and send it by eagle. But after a year, the studies had gotten harder and I had had less time to write to my parents, and then eventually I had stopped writing them all together.

     The corridor was dark now, except for the occasional torch, the flame flickering in the draft caused by the window at the other end. Everything looked the same in here, gray stone walls and gray stone floors, wooden ceilings and wooden doors. In that aspect, I had liked the castle of Roseacre much better, built in its special pale pink stones; it had seemed like a much friendlier place. Even the silence hadn’t felt so heavy there. But there was something different about this silence. It was the fact that my mind kept playing Svana’s words over and over. I kept hearing her low voice almost whispering the story of the double-bladers. I had been mesmerized by her words; they had been like magic. And I knew what actual magic felt like.

     Wordlessly, I walked into the room I would stay in during our temporary stay here. Inside were now three beds instead of one. Tom and Alex were already sitting on theirs, talking animatedly. I felt them look at me as I made my way to my bed but they didn’t say anything to me. It had been a long day, and I was glad I could actually go to bed. I never quite understood how William managed to stay awake for so long after a fight. And if it had been for Svana, yet again, he wouldn’t have gotten any sleep. But he had kept his promise and gone to bed after he had solved the issue with Darrick. That was even before I went to the library. He was probably already dead to the world by now.

     With a sigh, I stopped in front of my bed and kicked off my boots, not caring about where they ended up. I pulled my shirt up and over my head, letting it drop onto the stone floor before throwing myself onto the bed. It felt so good and was a welcomed change. A real bed with an actual feather pillow. I couldn’t relax though. Folding my arms behind my head, I stared up that the ceiling unseeing. It was horrifying how my evenings had gone from been the time when I relaxed to not being relaxing anymore. Ever since Svana joined us, the outlaws, I couldn’t recall a single night where I had lain in bed and she hadn’t crossed my mind at least once. There was nothing I could do about it either. She intrigued me; there was something about her that made it impossible for me not to think about her. Svana was a mystery. She had been a mystery when Darrick first dragged her through the camp, bound at the wrists. She hadn’t had a scratch on her while the grown men around her had looked terrible. She had been a mystery when I had gone through her mind, looking for anything that proved she might be a danger to the rebels; every personal memory had been carefully locked away, leaving nothing for me to find but the hatred she had for the Queen. There had been blurry memories and feelings but none clear enough to make out.

     Svana was a mystery then and she was still a mystery now. I knew her parents had died. I knew about her personality. I knew I could trust her, I had known that from the beginning. The energy around her, it felt like spring. Late spring when the summer is almost there, when everything had come back to life for a while but the summer storms weren’t far away. That was what Svana really felt like; life but with a fierce aftertaste, as if she could suddenly explode. But even with the things I now knew about her, she was still a mystery. Yet when she told me that story, about the double-bladers, when she told it to me, I felt as if she was finally opening up to me. It was like the first of her secrets that she let go of. Hopefully the first of many; and hopefully they would follow soon.