The Cold Light Fades - Book 1 of the Crystal Chronicles

Chapter Three - The Kings Discretion (And Secrets)

The blackness of unconsciousness was starting to lift, and the darkness gave way to lighter shades of grey and white swirls. The spinning patterns behind Alesson's eyes reminded him of a powdery snowstorm or a thick gloomy fog. Fog! He had been training in the misty training grounds when he had hit his head. Was he still there? The whirls of grey and white dissipated and Alesson fully opened his eyes to see that he was in his father's chambers.

He tried to sit up in the grand four-poster bed, but as he did so, his head began to spin. He felt very sick, so he sank back down into the bed and lay still to try to stop his head spinning. As soon as he started to move, a painful throbbing exploded on the left side of his head. Alesson raised his hand out from under the soft ruffled bedcovers and inspected his cranium. He had a bandage round his head and as he touched it, he discovered it was very sore to touch.

"Oww" he croaked, his throat was dry, and he coughed, which set his head spinning again.

Alesson tried to concentrate on his surroundings in the room, to forget about his pain. The bed he was lying on was huge; it could quite easily fit four people in it, with room to spare. The bed covers were royal blue with a busy flowery pattern that made Alesson's head hurt even more, so he risked turning his head to the right to look towards the window. The curtains were closed and there was very little light coming through the gaps, which made Alesson think it was late. How long had he been here?

Slowly he managed to lever himself up into a sitting position against the ornate headboard. The painful spinning behind Alesson's eyes was slowing down and he found that he could move his head better. Other than the blow to his skull, Alesson seemed to be ok, his right shoulder hurt a bit, but it was in no way as painful as his head.

He recalled the last few moments of the test. Alesson had got away from the spiders webbing only to run headlong into the heavy sandbag, that was spinning on a short chain around the outside of the ring. Ironically, he wondered if that had counted as hitting the target and not the other way round. On the plus side, at least he was not covered in the sticky webbing anymore.

As Alesson remembered about the webbing, a cold fear grabbed him, as he thought about Frostbite. He had left the wolf behind, covered in Aramack's sticky strands to go after the target. Alesson formed the image in is mind of Frostbite covered in webbing and pushed the picture out towards his friend. At first, there was no reply and Alesson began to panic, then he heard it, Frostbite was howling. In his mind, Frostbite sent him a message that he was ok and down in the kennels in the royal courtyard. This image was quickly replaced with an enquiring vision as to Alesson's condition. He responded with a picture of himself holding his bandaged head but smiling to show he was feeling better.

"Ahh, so you're awake?" said a deep voice. The door to his left had opened and in had come his father, King Trengar Scorch. The king was a shadow of his former self. All the paintings of him around the castle depicted him as a strong man, with well-kept short hair and a neatly trimmed beard, while his eyes were sharp and his smile broad. There was a time when the real-life king seemed to be greater and more powerful than his portrayals. Yet ever since the death of his wife some eight years ago, he had lost his vigour. Now his shoulders were always slumped, his hair and beard were unruly, he avoided the public as much as possible and spent most of his time moping in his study.

This did not mean that he did not have time for his children though, in fact quite the opposite. Trengar would spend as much time with the twins as possible. Sometimes however, his attention was stifling, it seemed like he thought they were all he had left of his wife, and he needed every minute of their company to ease his pain.

Just recently, Alesson had been doing some research into fighting tactics after a particularly interesting lecture from Deltain and was reading a book on ancient battles that had been fought in far away places. Trengar had come into the living quarters and asked him what he was reading. So Alesson had told his father about a section of the book that really fascinated him about hiding soldiers inside a giant wooden horse. Trengar had seemed impressed by his son's knowledge and quizzed him on his learning, but eventually the conversation ran its course. Yet, the king seemed to find the following silence uncomfortable and proceeded to ask his son more irrelevant questions, in what appeared to be a lonely man's attempt to get as much father-son time as possible. In the end, Alesson got fed up with his father's constant chatter and escaped to his room to read his book in peace.