The Silenced Speaker

Chapter 41

It was five in the morning.

Loud stomps echoed on the corridor as high heels hit the wooden floor. Under the dim light from the candelabra, two dark shadows were cast on the wall, moving.

“Your Highness, you can’t – It’s not yet morning –” A hushed voice called out, low yet urgent.

“I don’t care!” Another voice shouted with much little care of volume. “And you are not given permission to speak, so go back to where you belong!”

“Please don’t, Your Highness. I’m going to be flogged if you –”

The door was swung open violently, smacked the wall loudly and swung back, hitting the maidservant behind right on the face. With a soft yelp she collapsed on the ground, covering her face with both hands. The intruder entered Trenton’s bedroom as if it was her own.

The figure on the bed was aroused by the commotion. He sat up on the mattress gracefully, throwing on a coat and slid to the bed’s edge, motioning her to sit next to him. “What’s your matter now, Tathy?”

Relief flashed on Tathiette’s face as she heard the familiar nickname. “So it is your intention to enroll both of us into the mortal school from today?”

“Yes,” Trenton answered, his face obscured by the darkness. The curtains covering the only two windows in his room were half let down, flooding the wooden floor of his chamber with silver moonlight. “Roxanne is your protector now, and you’ll have to be close to her. You won’t go unless I do, so we will both go. Satisfied?”

“No.” Tathiette pouted. “I’m not sitting in the same car as Roxanne Taylor on our way to school.”

“Is this all you have a problem with?” Trenton ran a hand through his dark brown hair tiredly. “Is that all you want to speak to me about when you’re waking me up before dawn? The answer is no. She’s your protector. How is she meant to protect you otherwise?”

“I don’t want her as a protector,” Tathiette whined, “I don’t need protection. Plus, if I do, isn’t you enough?”

Of course you need protection; of course I’m not enough. Trenton thought, a part of him remembering the bloodbath at the night of the attack, the emotionless face of the Queen as if her soul had been taken away; the concern of the King’s face when he told him that he had been jinxed for three days – more of all, his own fear of what had happened to him. After that day, he never felt the same. Another part of him laughed at Tathiette’s naiveté, tempted to tell her that she would be the next target, become a living corpse like Queen Isathiana. At the end, all he said was “If sitting close to her is the problem, there’s always a way to solve that”.

Tathiette stared at him expectantly.

He summoned a black mobile phone, and dialed a few numbers. After a minute he hung up, casually tossing the phone away, and raised his eyebrows.

“No more problem.” Tathiette’s gaze moved away from him, fixing on the phone that he tossed away. “Black?” She muttered to herself. Suddenly she lost interest, stood up from the bed’s edge and made her way to the door. “By the way, Trent, I think your hair looks darker than when you were in Elrtiv. More like black than brown now.”

“The lack of light’s playing tricks on your eyes.” Trenton responded indifferently, already closing his eyes.

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Roxanne appeared absolutely calm when a Lincoln Stretch Limousine 10-Seater pulled up in front of her. It was a luxurious black car, the surface was so highly polished that she suspected it was new. The window panes were the kind that allowed a clear view from the inside but revealed for the eyes on the outside, but it was no doubt how astoundingly lavish it would be inside.