Impossible to Love (Book 1 of The Starlite Heart)

Death of the Doomed

“Why are you so hell bent on getting out of this castle?” Dai asked Sophie on week seven of confinement.

“I feel really weird here,” Sophie said closing her eyes. “And it’s getting worse by the day.”

Dai stared at her with questions in his eyes but dared not to say anything. She looked fatigued.

Sophie took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “At first I thought that I needed to adapt to this environment. This is a new place and I’ve always had trouble sleeping in unknown beds. But that little feeling kept growing. I feel like every nook and corner is hiding some imp or monster. Every sound feels like the sound of doom. I can’t stand the dark anymore. And I’m having terrible nightmares. I have never had such nightmares in my life.” Dai felt that Sophie would cry, but she did not. She continued, “This confinement is driving me insane. I’ll die of boredom here.”

Dai heard all this with a solemn face. If he had any misgivings, he kept them to himself. “The empress will be sorry to hear such an account of the castle.”

He could see that something was amiss. Dai had known Sophie since childhood. He had seen her in extreme fear but never before he had seen her like this. Her eyes were in a state of permanent terror. Dai had suspected it earlier but now he could see that it kept worsening by the day.

After taking leave her leave, Dai went straight to Enand Sengar. Even the medic did not look in good spirits. When he saw Prince Dai, he composed himself as best as he could and welcomed him.

Dai thanked him for saving Sophie’s life. Enand received the gratitude gracefully and reminded him that the poison was a fake.

“You don’t look so well,” Dai said, “if I may enquire.”

“I assure you that this has nothing to do with my health.” Enand sighed. “My dog just died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?”

Enand gave a wry smile. “I’m sure Your Highness is here to talk about something much more important than my poor dog.”

“I’m afraid that Commander Antofurota is not feeling well,” Dai said peering into the man's eyes.

The eyes shied away, the face was full of sweat. "She is just tense because she thought that she would die."

“Where did you learn to make that universal antidote?” Dai asked. His stare shook Enand to the core.

“I..I,” he stammered, “I have travelled far and wide and have learned many things from many masters.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“I’ll need a list of all the ingredients,” Dai commanded.

“Yes, Your Highness.” Enand hunted for his notes in the messy room and handed them to the prince.

“It says that only a special spoon has to be used to feed the potion into patient’s mouth,” Dai said after reading his notes.

Enand nodded. "I don’t need to hide anything," he said to himself.

“Do you have the spoon with you?” the prince asked.

The medic silently handed the spoon to Dai. It was made of a metal which neither of them could recognize.

When the prince left the room, he had left the human in worse condition than he had found him. Dai was sure that something was not right about Enand. He told the guards to keep an eye on the man.

Instead of returning home, Dai went to see the empress. He was surprised to know that she was in a tri-council meeting. He deduced that it was an emergency meeting as he knew all the scheduled ones.