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Chapter Twelve

Reema couldn't sleep.

In spite of the unfamiliar lack of a headache and the peculiar sense of calm that seemed to have enveloped her following the princess' admirable ability to fall asleep almost instantly, the queen was unsettled. Strange images and broken sentences kept flashing into her mind's eye—images of a hospital ward, of Delgra, of a young girl perhaps four years old who seemed to be nothing but smiles and laughter. Voices, speaking both the universal language and the language of the Wryn, were jumbled and unintelligible but ever present. Reema felt as though she was dreaming, but she understood fully that she was awake.

Her dark eyes found the shadowy curves of the princess' body as she lay on her side on the smaller cot a few meters away. The blonde was still as she slept, but Reema could hear the telltale sounds of air being pulled through her mouth and nostrils at odd, inconsistent rates and without rhythm or pattern. At the same time she thought she heard the princess sob once in her sleep, a shockingly clear visual of the Escadian second-in-command—Hazel, as Althea had called her—burst into the forefront of Reema's mind and she witnessed the woman being pierced through the midsection by a pair of swords that looked much like Reema's own.

I'm seeing her dreams, the queen considered inwardly. It must be the bond. The Wryn couldn't manipulate a conscious mind to this level of detail—least of all mine.

A shudder passed through her, and she sat up in the bed.

Could they?

Another image, this time of a young blonde girl's reflection. Her clothes were tattered and her skin smudged with dirt and...soot? There were singe marks on her rags, and Reema found herself wondering how much of the flesh beneath the clothing was burned and blistered. Abruptly, the queen's mind went blank, and she realized then that the princess, too, was now sitting upright in her cot.

Reema froze, uncertain whether Althea had seen that her roommate was also awake. When she spun away and swung her feet over the edge of the cot farthest from the queen, however, Reema felt her body relax. Althea stood and headed for the lavatory, and the queen took the opportunity to quickly lay back down on her side so that she was facing the cot. The princess was less than fifty feet away from her and already her head had started pounding.

When the door opened again, the queen squeezed her eyes shut lest the princess become aware of her wakefulness. She didn't particularly feel like talking to the younger woman. The sound of scraping metal against the fibers of the carpet confused Reema, but she maintained her cover of sleep until the noises—and her headache—ceased. Another few seconds of shuffling followed before the room fell into silence once more, save for the princess' now steady breaths. Reema allowed a minute or two to pass before she chanced opening an eye.

The cot—and Althea—were now just a foot or so away from the queen's bed.

Apparently I wasn't the only one feeling that headache.

Reema sat up again, only to look down at the smaller woman while she slept. She chewed on her bottom lip in the dark—a nervous habit she'd not caught herself doing in years—and then quickly lay back down to stare up at the ceiling.

If the mirror bond was strong enough to cause such intense headaches at even short distances as from the lavatory to her bed...Reema couldn't imagine what would happen if they were ever forced apart by an enemy who wanted to hurt them. She was grateful for the princess' quick thinking to move their beds closer together that night though—Reema herself would never had done it, for she felt it was improper enough for two strangers to share a bedchamber let alone sleep so close by within that chamber. Plus, the queen clearly had a higher threshold for pain than Althea did. That could prove troublesome in the future as well. Unless, of course, it was the absence of basilisk venom that was affecting that portion of the princess' behavior.