IRON AND FLAME : The Thorn Crown book 1

CHAPTER 18

Aalina woke to a scream. She jerked up right sitting on the soft bed and resting her back against the head board. Her eyes scanned the dark and cold chamber illuminated by the pale silver moonlight that filtered into the chamber through the large window to her left. The cold night air drifted in, it's soft invisible fingers playing with the curtain that covered the windows. Her heart throbbed in her chest, her pulse rung at the back of her making thinking almost impossible.

Sweat clung to her skin tightly as babe suckling on its mother's breasts. She was panting, she had another nightmare. Blood, bodies. Fire. Arrows. Screams. Shouts. All too vivid for comfort. It almost seemed as if it was all happening all over again. It was as if she was back in the Throne Hall, back to being that little frightened girl clinging to her father's neck and he limped towards the door. Aalina sighed pressing a hand over her heart.

The drumming did not lessen. It continued in its similar but not musical thud. Over and over and over again like torture. Aalina closed her eyes and kept telling herself that it was just a nightmare. That the scream probably wasn't real–

Another scream, ear piercing and  womanly.

Aalina jumped from the bed, stepping on the cold stone floor. She bent down and thrust her hand beneath the bed reaching for the sword Britius had given her. Her hands found purchase of the leather scabbard of the sword, she pulled it towards her and then gripped the hilt firmly once it was out; sliding the blade out of the scabbard the made her way cautiously towards the doors on the other side of the chamber.

She bent low in a crouch as he made her way towards the doors. More screams came, Aalina's heart leaped beating faster again making her chest head and her head hurt. Was it another again? She asked herself gripping the sword tightly and cautious of how silent everything was. Even the blowing wind, caressed the curtains in silence. Crickets did not creak and added to the strange silence then only to be broken by a scream only to fall into silence again. It was like a dreadful melody of disgraced singer trying to impress an audience only it was a scream. A spine chilling scream that made a feeling of dread settle in her belly like sugar settling at the bottom of a glass.

Aalina reached the doors and paused, taking a deep breath and  an uneasy look around her chambers before opening one door and slipping out into the colder hallway.

Her guards were propped against the walls of the hallway, snoring fast asleep. Aalina rolled her eyes as she went trying to follow the scream which had dropped to nothing but low sobs and moans. Like a lover crying at the urgency of love making; yet this sounded... different. Somehow it sounded like whoever was moaning and sobbing were in pain instead of enjoying the pleasures at hand.

Aalina was thankful for the brightly burning torches on the walls. Their flickering flames stretched and causing the shadows to jumped from wall to wall painting it in grotesque shapes like monsters from children's nightmares. The hallway was cold and silent; save from the snores of the guards. It seemed to stretch on forever in the night than it did in the day. At the curve, Aalina went right, to where the sobbing was the loudest.

That corridor would lead her to three places, the kitchen, the eastern tower and the great library. Aalina took her time, noticing everything. The silence, the sound of her feet slapping on the floor, the feel of her oversized nightgown grazing her angles. The feel of the leather hilt in her head. Through the entire way, she met no one wandering the halls at night.

What time was it? She didn't know nor did she care.

At another curve the turned left. There was and archway the led to the dungeon's ahead. On her right were numerous pillars that held up the ceiling showing the guards who still marched up and down the battlements. Though there were much of them at night, she could see three or four shapes holding a torch up high as they went through their shift at guarding the castle walls. Aalina turned her gaze up ahead where stairs that led to the dungeon began.