A Stain on the Royal Tapestry

Chapter 13: A Past Revealed

 Serephina was unable to fall asleep, thinking about the day's events and how it would be to possibly one day have her own child. Since Liam had left her she was sure she would never find love again, and running her own farm often intimidated most men away from her. Though having children to help on the farm would have been nice, Serephina never could picture being able to be a mother and run her large family farm. Never did she think she would be possibly planning to have a child with a prince. Though guilt flooded through her as she new their relationship was entirely too early to remotely dream about the possibility, she could not help but to meditate on how drastically her life had changed in the past two weeks. Her trance was broken when she felt Varick start to violently stir beside her.

"No...NO!" He screamed in his sleep, suddenly thrashing. Serephina stared wide-eyed at him, unsure if she should wake him or not. When her sister slept walked or talked she was always told to watch her but not wake her up, but in this case, Varick was quite disturbed. "NO!" Varick screamed louder.

"Varick..." Serephina began to shake him, "Varick, wake up...please, wake up." Serephina continued to shake his arm, stroking his hair lovingly. He gasped for air, sitting straight up as he woke up. "It is alright, it is just a nightmare." Serephina assured, watching as Varick caught his breath. He turned to look at her, eyes filled with panic.

"I need some air." He whispered, throwing the blankets off of him and standing to leave the room.

"Hold on, let me get my wrap. I will go with you." Serephina replied, gently coughing as she rose off the bed quickly.

"No...stay here. Rest." Varick ordered, putting his hand up to stop her.

"But..." Serephina stared at Varick, tearing up that he was blocking her out. Varick sighed, heart dropping upon realizing that he had hurt her.

"I just need some time by myself to calm down. If I am not back in an hour you can come fetch me, does that work for you?" Varick prayed that it would work, as his heart was racing faster by the second. He needed to escape. Serephina nodded, slowly sitting back down on the bed, gaze falling on the dusty grandfather clock across from the bed. Varick had exactly an hour to compose himself.

Varick walked down the hall, to the library of the house. The room was dark and cold, the only light coming in was from the full moon. Varick sat down in one of the velvet chairs, and placed his head into his hands, tears streaming down his face before he even realized he needed to cry.

"I take it you finally had the nightmare you were dreading." Though Leah had whispered, Varick jumped frightened that someone had joined him.

"Do you just stalk the hall at night waiting for me to break down so that you can offer more expert advice you got from a book?" Varick bitterly questioned, ashamed that Leah walked in on him crying.

"If Amber had not needed feeding it would have been your screaming that woke us all up." Leah replied, sitting in the chair across from Varick. "I take it was about Serephina, because otherwise you would be talking about it with her." Varick's lack of response told Leah that his nightmare did in fact center around Serephina. "It killed you, didn't it?"

"Of course it killed me to see her home on fire and her unconscious..."

"No, not that Varick, leaving her. It killed you to walk away without her, knowing you would likely never return to her."

"How do you know...?" Varick grumbled, running his hands through his hair.

"There is only one nightmare you could never discuss with Serephina. Losing her because she found out you were planning to break your promise and not go back for her." Leah commented. Varick let out a sigh but did not deny Leah's explanation. "You know what you need to do to get the nightmares to stop..."