Infinite Jump

Run, I

I - Iliana

She woke up, her head pounding.

Her body felt born anew. She lifted my hands to look at them. What had those hands done? They were covered in dry blood. If it even was blood.

“She’s awake,” she heard someone whisper. A cluster of women walked into the room, hissing things amongst themselves.

“My lady, are you well?” one asked, kneeling down beside her. Her graying hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and her eyes were drooping and worn, but she still omitted an aura of quick efficiency.

“Who are you?” she countered, edging to the other side of the bed.

“My name is Anthe. And you still have not answered my question, my lady.”

“I am. Is there a mirror?”

Anthe walked back to her cluster and after much throwing of hands in the air and deliberation, produced a simple hand mirror framed in silver.

“Here,” she said, handing her the mirror. She eagerly snatched it from her hands and gazed at herself. Two steely gray eyes stared back at her with a cold determination from somewhere she could barely place, highlighted by dark circles beneath them, contrasting with unhealthily pale skin. Jet black hair fanned out onto the pillow and sallow, colorless lips completed the deathly illusion.

“Do I always look like this?”

“I presume you’ll look healthier as time goes on, my lady. You’ve been unconscious for days on end. But in the meantime, you can marry your betrothed, and soon you will remember your old love for each other.” she answered, scooping the mirror out of her hands.

She sat up in alarm, black bangs flying into her face. “What?”

“Lord Thyrik of the Eastern Woods is to be your husband. Come, we should get you ready to see him again.”

Her mind begged defiance, but she saw no other choice in the matter than to sit up and let the maids lace an overdress the color of midnight over her white nightgown, twist her hair into an elaborate bun and fasten silver trinkets around her neck and wrists. They cleaned her hands in an ivory bowl, tinting the clear water red.

“Come along now,” Anthe cooed, pulling out a chair at a wooden vanity and motioning for her to sit down. She compled, only realizing her mistake after they began strategically painting her face in all of the right areas to hide her undernourishment. Within a moment, her cheeks were pink and her mouth nearly crimson red with rouge. She smiled at herself in the mirror, and although it barely felt real, it lessened the clownish image in front of her.

A barely audible knock was heard at the door, along with a gruff “May I come in?”

“One moment!” Anthe shrieked, running to straighten the bed. The other maids shoved the bottles of paints and perfumes into the vanity drawer to further elude this lord into thinking she looked more a wife than she did in reality. She sat in the seat idly, playing with the long ultramarine sleeves of the overdress, trying to calm herself in the midst of the calamity that broke her ears.

“You may enter, my lord,” Anthe invited, smoothing down her teal skirt and opening the heavy wooden door.

The maids ceased their incessant scurrying, greeting her ears with sweet, blessed silence in respect of the man at the door.

He was tall and tanned, with thin, deep-set eyes like two flecks of black marble. His auburn hair was neatly combed back to avoid clashing with the dark orange tunic bearing a rearing teal stallion he sported. She thought he would be quite handsome were his mouth not constantly in an expressionlessly straight line.

“I have been waiting a long time for our next meeting, Lady Iliana,” he said, his voice at least an octave deeper than she expected it to be.

Iliana stood up, her temper near losing all prettiness and manners. “I’m sorry, but who and where exactly am I? And who are you?”

The man looked taken aback. “Anthe? How did this happen?” Anthe looked at the livid girl, then him before responding.

“We think she has lost her memory, my lord. If you do recall, she was found unconscious with a head wound in the woods.”

He stepped towards her and took her hand in his, pressing an unknown object into it. “I offer my condolences for your loss of memory. Your spirit remains the same, however, for which I am ever grateful.” His face barely changed to mirror any emotion in the small monologue.

“My question still stands.”

“I am Lord Thyrik of the Eastern Woods, where you now are. We found you with a bloody head in the forest, presumably out for a walk. You were holding this.”

He let go of her hand, leaving Iliana to examine the bauble he had placed in her hand; a crude black thread with a silver charm strung on it. The charm was the size of a very large coin, with Do Not Forget inscribed on one side.

Wonderful, she thought.

Thyrik signalled for the maids to leave. “Welcome to Stallionwood, Lady Iliana,” he said, closing the door behind him with a deep thud.

Iliana sat back down at the vanity and rummaged through the drawer to find something to clean off the paint on her face. Eventually, her search produced a crystal vial of water and a yellow-gray rag. She wet the entire rag and plastered her face into it without second thought, removing it once or twice to wipe off any remaining smudges. After removing all other extraneous ornamentation, she collapsed onto the bed and nearly drifted away until she heard a loud clash coming from a closet to her right.

She wondered if she should call for Anthe. Did she trust these people, with their claims of who she was? Of course not. 

Iliana wandered over to the closet, a particularly large one with the same heavy wooden doors as my entryway and opened it, only to find it was a balcony, not a closet.

“Is anyone there?” she called, surveying the area to see if she could find the source of the noise. There was nothing but foggy woods around her, with a thick moat surrounding the stone castle; no vagrants to be seen.

She nearly turned to leave when she noticed a scrap of parchment rolled up on the railing. Iliana scooped it up and read the contents.