The Rogue Lady

Chapter Forty One

First of the two updates on 04/08 (US) or 08/04 (EU). I forgot to do it last week so here it is!! Enjoy!! P.S I added the map again, I think it might have been a while.

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“Svana.”

The soft call came from the other side of the dungeon door. The cell was still as dark as it had always been in my nightmares, and I doubted it was any lighter in reality. Identical to every night, I gripped the bars of the cell door’s barred window and tried fruitlessly to make the door move, if only an inch. I opened my mouth to call out to the person inside but no sound came out as usual. It wouldn’t be long now before the Queen would suddenly appear behind me without a warning. And I was waiting for the dreadful moment that she would start telling me that I was too late.

But then something changed.

I heard footsteps coming behind me. No wait, not footsteps, horse hooves in the distance, somewhere far off in the underground maze of the dungeons. That shouldn’t have been possible and yet I heard them. The sound made me turn away from the cell door and, for the first time since my nightmares started, I moved into the darkness that was the corridor in front of me. The further I went, the less I could hear the horse hooves and the less I felt as if I was trapped in my dreams. Until eventually, I shot upright, pulling the blanket with me and off Eric in the same movement. Looking down at him, I was glad to see the magician hadn’t stirred. On my other side, Tom was frowning in his sleep, maybe he had felt me move and had I disrupted his sleep in only for a second.

We were at camp, not yet at our destination so not all the tents had been set up. Like during our own scouting trips, I shared my tent with Eric and Tom whereas Alex, Harper and Bram were in the tent next to us. We had set up our tents at the edge of the camp and also decided that we would each take a watch.

“What is it?” Eric mumbled sleepily, his voice hoarse. Or maybe I had stirred him with my sudden movements.

At first I said nothing and listened to the sounds of the night; the quiet of the night, the crackling of the fire and the soft sound of the wind blowing. “There is a rider coming,” I eventually said.

“There is no rider coming, Svana,” Tom grumbled. “You can’t know something like that. Go back to sleep.”

The archer turned around, wrapping the covers around him more tightly. I had learned a while back that Tom, although very friendly during the day, did not like to be woken up in the middle of the night. When I woke him up for his watches, he usually grumbled a little as well, reminding me of a bear coming out of hibernation, but he always got up. It was funny most times, right now I barely noticed though.

“Tom is right; you can’t know if there is a rider coming. Besides, if there is one, he will be guided to William directly and we will know about it in the morning,” Eric reasoned. “Go back to sleep,” he added gently but firmly.

I did as they had both asked and lay back down, close to Eric’s side, his presence close to me helping with the nightmares as much as my presence helped with his magic. Pulling the covers back over us, I couldn’t make myself close my eyes and cut off the world. Instead I found myself staring at the canvas side of the tent, listening closely for the distant sound of horse hooves. Why would I hear them in my nightmare if I wasn’t meant to know that there would be a rider? Why would I know about an approaching rider if they weren’t coming for me?

Maybe I was simply being selfish. There had been no reply from Woodfall before we left for the Blackwalls. Lucian had not written yet, meaning he hadn’t reach Oldmont yet, where William had sent him. I was getting anxious; over the past few days on the road nothing had happened; we had not crossed any Queen’s men, we had not crossed any farmers, we had not seen anyone and really nothing had happened, meaning something would happen very soon.