Sound Your Name (Oh, My Darling)

12. Transparent Armor

The woman's eyes widened before she stood her shadows rising behind her for the first time in years, "Out!"

The hut's door slammed behind them and Alina sighed looking at it rolling her bottom lip between her bottom lip.

She glanced out of the corner of her eye to find her soulmate gazing at her with a raw mixture of emotions.

"I'm sorry..." She bowed her head, "I should have asked permission first, I just thought..." Alina swallowed, "What if I couldn't do it? Then..." She looked back at the hut, a sigh escaped her and she nearly jumped when two long arms wrapped themselves around her middle and a chin rested on her head.

"My mother is..." Aleksander at last spoke, "she's a complicated woman. Sometimes I think she'd rather be miserable than ever try to be happy again."

An old friend visited her that night as she slept.

Large glowing antlers lit up the night and wide ice blue eyes glowed in the dreamscape.

The stag's voice sounded, 'You must tell them soon.'

Alina stood in the snow before him, 'It's not time.'

Ivory antlers shook and a layer of light snow fell from them, 'Things are not always as they seem.'

'He was going to make you into a collar for the Sun Summoner. I just need to know...' Alina paused, her heart aching and she knew she must be tossing and turning in real time outside of her dreamscape.

'Speak, before time runs out.'

Alina jolted awake with the knocking on her door signalling a new day had begun.

Aleksander was waiting at the back of the Little Palace after breakfast with two horses, both dark as night. One completely ebony not one white sock and the other with one white star like mark on its forehead, Alina couldn't help the smile that flitted across her lips as she saw it.

Her heart still was perturbed after her dream and she felt distracted, but as she mounted her horse and looked over at her soulmate that gave her one of his rare little smiles she thought perhaps the day would get better.

They rode through the Little Palace's estate lands that reached further than Alina had originally believed.

"Up on top of that hill over there is where the Materialki, mostly Alkemi, test out their more dangerous experiments." Aleksander pointed out a barren hill quite a distance away; there were no trees upon it and it was made up of mostly dirt.

"How often do they use it?"

He gave a light shrug, "Whenever there is a need, it often depends."

Alina wrinkled her nose at the answer but they continued the tour of the grounds before he led her to a private little forest. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Aleksander straightened in his saddle no longer glancing her way, his eyes straight ahead. It didn't sit well with her.

"What's ahead?"

He didn't even glance her way, "Somewhere I've often come to think."

Alina withheld her little sigh just barely as she realized what was about to happen. She was coming upon another one of his little tests. However, she knew it wasn't really she who was going to fail.

As they came upon a small copse of trees that framed a little walled in 'secret garden' she glanced his way resolving to be patient. It would still hurt when he lied, but she had to keep reminding herself that it was his defense mechanism. It was part of his armor that had been successfully protecting him for hundreds of years, just because she was suddenly in his life didn't mean it would immediately come off.