A Court of Horizon and Shadows

11.

A year and a half later...

Auriella sat by the couch in front of her window, watching the sunrise from beyond the horizon.

She desperately wanted to feel a sense of warmth or comfort from it, waiting every morning for the feeling. But it would never come. She reminisces the times she watched the sunrises with her father, remembering the excitement coursing through her veins.

But after everything, she couldn't feel anything. There was no excitement, no happiness. There wasn't anything but nothing in her mind.

After Under the Mountain, Auriella believed her life would be normal again. She thought that once she stepped back into the Dawn Court, she could wash away everything that happened to her, forget what Amarantha did. And she tried.

Auriella spoke to her brother, Damian, about everything. She told him about what happened to her, about every ordeal she faced with Amarantha, and he listened. He stared at his sister with the utmost sympathy, not knowing how she survived all those years.

Auriella believed that if she told Damian everything, she would finally be able to move on. But that was far from what it did.

Instead, it brought her into depression.

She replayed every memory. The whippings, the torture, her cell, the humiliation, Clare, Marcellus, Poppy, and the unbearable pain she faced. Every memory that she told was like being Under the Mountain again, experiencing everything as if it were the first time.

And it would never stop.

Auriella would walk through the palace, jumping at every noise she heard. She would tremble at times, unable to control it. Her dreams would become nightmares. Amarantha's voice would haunt her, torture her, and never fade. Auriella would awake from them, screaming, making her attendants come into her room to comfort her.

More than a year later, nothing had changed. Auriella was distant from her family, still not able to look at her fathers' eyes. She was not able to sit at her piano for more than a minute, feeling unworthy enough to play such a beautiful instrument. She did not walk through the streets of her court, fearing that she would be judged by every eye that laid upon her.

Instead, she simply stayed in her room, alone.

Occasionally, she would let Lara and Valeria in, letting them keep her company while she withered away into nothing. She let the peacefulness of the moments overtake her, even though she was never at peace herself.

At times, her fathers' would try to go into Auriella's room to speak with her, but she would refuse to let them in. She panicked whenever she heard their voices. She would hide in her closet or her bathroom and let her attendants wave them away.

One day, her father, Thesan, barged into her room. Auriella quickly burst into tears, running into her closet and slamming the door closed while her father was calling her name. She pleaded with him to leave, but he would beg to see her. He would plead with tears, unable to bear his daughter ignoring him for so long.

As much as he tried, Zephyr had to pry Thesan from his daughter's room. Auriella's attendants were worried for her, seeing as she stayed in there for hours. She had her knees clutched to her chest, trembling in her own fear. She didn't know how she would ever look into her father's eyes again.

But as the months passed, Auriella finally gained the courage to try to mend herself, taking small steps. She let herself become reacquainted with her two attendants, keeping them close and telling them everything. She also met with Dawn Court representatives, allowing herself to become available and approachable.