I Choose You

Forty

Gwendolyn 

"Hey, hey are you alright?" I can hear a familiar voice and a warm hand touch my body.  My eyes flicker open and everything is hazy.  I give out a slight moan of pain and exhaustion.  

My vision slowly comes back to life, the lights become more clear and the edges become sharper.  Then I see who is touching me.  

Tiberius Calore.  

I would snap my whole body up and run away from this silver blood, but I am still strapped down tightly.  

"Don't move, I have a healer coming," He says warmly.  His golden eyes stay on me.  I still struggle to move through the stabbing pain.  I have no idea what happened.  

"What happened?" I ask weakly, my words are hardly audible. 

"Volo Samos did a deal on you," He says sadly.  "I wish I could have done something to stop it."

I breath heavily. "Why didn't you? What were you doing?" I question, my faint words sounding dead. 

"I was at a party, for my brother and Mare's engagement," He says like he is leaving out something, or that he is forgetting something. 

"And?" I ask. 

"I got drunk, everyone was, that is all I remember," He shakes his head.  I can only look at him with my eyes due to my head being strapped in one place. 

A lady walks into the room, not saying a word.  My breathing quickens.  Who knows what she could do to me, Tiberius could attack me at any minute and burn me alive.  

"It's alright, Gwen, she is here to help," He sooths me.  Or tries to sooth me.  The lady puts a hand on my largest wound on my lower leg, making my whole leg seize up in pain.  I stifle in a scream, but before I can, the pain stops and my whole leg goes warm.  

I groan out in satisfaction.  Her hand feels like warm honey on my skin, making my eyes roll back.  I glance at my leg for a moment and the stab wound is gone.  She does the rest of my bruises and scrapes and now I am fully healed.  She must be a healer.  

She leaves quickly without saying a word.  

"Feeling better?" Tiberius asks me.  I nod.  He goes into his suit pocket and pulls out a key.  He unlocks the chains and leather straps, bringing me back to full motion.  Then, like a wave of pure glory, I can feel my ice flood back to me.  The glory feels so amazing.  

"I feel really good now," I say with a smile.  

"Don't use your abilities yet, your body has to recover from Silent Stone," He says cautiously.  

"Alright, thank you," I say, I sit up, ignoring the pain in my stomach. "What is going on?" 

"I have to attend a meeting thing, Maven has his weekly announcement so nothing special," He explains.

"Where are my friends?" I change the topic.  

"I don't know, I can go look for them when I have the time," He shakes his head.

"Okay, thank you," I try to smile through my worry.  He copies my smile before turning to walk away.  

"Thank you, Tiberius," I repeat.  He stops and doesn't look at me. "For healing me."

"Anytime, Gwen," He pauses. "And you can call me Cal."

Evangeline

I carry Coriane as I walk through the halls, someone has to watch her while I go to Maven's announcements.  Don't want a screaming child while the King speaks.  I haven't seen Mare recently, so maybe she can watch her if Mare isn't going along.  I have seen Maven eating his breakfast without Mare.  

I know where Mare would be, in her large suite room.  

I find it quickly, it being my room when I was engaged to Maven for a short while, so it is easy to find.  

I give a slight knock on the door. 

"Come in," I hear her say.  I push the cracked door open.  She looks up from sitting on the bed and lights up when she sees Coriane. 

"Hi sweetie," She says brightly and sweetly.  She holds out her arms to hold her, I hand Coriane to her, she starts cradling her.  Coriane smiles brightly.  

"I have a favor to ask you," I say, sitting down next to her. 

"Yes?" She doesn't look up at me, to busy making strange faces at Coriane.

"Would you mind watching her while Maven does his announcements?" 

Her face lights up again. "Of course I would!" 

I clap my hands.  "Great, I will get her when we finish." 

I turn to leave, but I am getting vibes from Mare to stay.  "Are you alright?"  I turn my head back to see her. 

She looks at me dead in the eye, like I emotionally slapped her across the heart and she might burst into tears at any moment. 

"Yeah, I am fine," She puts on a fake smile.  I copy the smile, knowing she is lying, but she doesn't wish to speak about it.  After that I nod and leave. 

***

The bleachers is full of silvers.  Some other silver children and lords crowd me.  But Elane is next to me, holding my hand as we wait for Maven.  I can see in her eyes how much she misses me.  I can imagine mine are the same since I miss her too.  

I made a promise to her the other day, that I will come out to my family and then we can be together.  Raise Coriane together, have a life together.  Cal can raise her too, if he feels ready. 

I see Maven come into the center, applause rings.  I don't see Mare which is expected.

"Where is Mare?" Elane asks me, her voice like sweet sugar. 

"She is watching Coriane, something seems up with her," I turn my head to face her, then look back at Maven when I am done speaking. 

Maven raises a hand and the whole crowd goes quiet.  "Hello Norta!" He blows into the mic, a wave of applause comes through for a quick moment before it fades out. "I have your weekly announcements."

I let him speak, his words going in one ear and out the other unless I hear something important.  I scan the crowd, I see my mother but not my father, who knows where he is.  I see the pool of reds down below, most looking ragged and over worked.  I hope Maven does something about them, or Mare even.  As much as I would hate to admit it, she would make a great Queen and a great change to society. 

"Now that we have finished the simple things, I have an announcement for my niece Coriane," 

I perk up, hearing my daughter and hoping it is something good. 

Mavens eyes meet mine, looking at me with loads of bottled up emotion in his blue eyes, I can't tell what emotion it is. 

"For the best for my niece and princess of Norta, I will have an engagement between my brother, Coriane's father, Tiberius Calore the 7th, and Coriane's mother, Evangeline Samos,"

Hello, sorry it took me forever to write another chapter.  I am currently without an editor since she is g r o u n d e d.  So sorry if this writing is crap.  And here is a plot twist. 

Love y'all my aliens. 

Hannah