Chapter Fourteen
"I don't understand why you can't tell me-"
"You know perfectly well why I can't, William."
"No, I don't. That's the entire point!" William cried exasperatedly at Abey, running his hand through his hair.
They had been spent the previous day travelling through the forest, trying to get as far away from the village as possible, and then spent the night camping amongst the trees. It was then that the nightmares had come back with a force.
Over the weeks since Abey had returned, William had often woken in the night, hearing her fearful cries and feeling in her jerk and twitch in her sleep, her face screwed up in either pain or fear, or both.
Though quite bad at first, over time they had started to fade, and soon the nightmares seemed to be completely gone - only the occasional muttering escaping Abey's lips. But during the past few nights, they had returned with a vengeance, and William had had to physically shake Abey awake the previous night, her cries were so violent.
He knew without doubt that the route of her demons lay in the five long weeks she had been separated from him, and he also knew that the only way he could help her was if he knew exactly what had happened to her, what she had been through.
"William, we've been going over this for hours. Can't you just leave it alone?" Abey pleaded, turning to look at him, obviously exhausted.
"No, I can't." William replied seriously, taking a step towards her and rubbing her shoulders. "I want to help you, that's all. But to do that I need to understand-"
"But I'm fine!" She interrupted defiantly, her tone making William think she was anything but fine. "And if you did know then you'd understand why I can't go through it again. And I can't tell you of all people." She turned back around and started to walk on.
"For God's sake, Abey, I'm your husband! Do you not trust me?" He shouted after her, making her stop and turn to face him again.
"Do you not trust me?" She retaliated. "Can't you just realise and accept that I'm not going to-"
"No, I can't accept that-"
Their voices grew louder as they began to overlap each other, the argument becoming more heated as they went.
"William, you can't expect me-"
"You're not the one who has to hold you every night as you scream at invisible demons I don't even understand-"
"And maybe you shouldn't understand-"
"How can you-"
"How can you-"
Both William and Abey fell silent and turned to look through the trees to their right, the sounds of rough laughter and quick footsteps coming their way. William grabbed Abey around the waist and flung her behind a tree, pressing himself flat against her and peering around the thick trunk, just as two men - both in scruffy clothing and black cloaks, swords hanging from their belts - walked into the spot the couple had been just seconds before.
"Yeah, apparently some Angrokorian fellow. Said 'e thought they were someone else, so of course 'e then found 'imself with a knife to 'is throat and all 'is possessions taken." The first man explained, his voice deep and gravelly. "Nice of 'em to let us have them."
"Well you know what they say, one man's treasure is also my treasure." The second man laughed, holding up an expensive looking bag, obviously full of some poor traveller's possessions, having recently been robbed.
"So how far did they say to go? Just to the..." The first man began, the rest of the conversation lost as they made their way through the trees and out of sight.
William peered around the tree again, making sure the coast was clear. He sighed in relief and ran his hand through his hair.
"That was close." He breathed, walking back onto the path.
"Who were they?" Abey asked, following him, a slight edge to her voice - she hadn't forgotten their argument just yet.
"Bandits." William replied, staring after the place they had gone to. "Tracorian too."
"But we've not crossed the border yet, what are they doing here?" She frowned.
"They don't really bother with that whole thing." He explained, now staring at where the Bandits had come from. "But they don't come in very far. That means we must be close." A grin breaking onto his face as he spotted something in the distance, "Very close." He added quietly, before breaking into a sprint through the trees, Abey running after him, no clue what he was doing.
"William, where are you..." She trailed off as she reached William's side, staring in disbelief at what lay in front of her, William still grinning beside her.
A ten foot wall grew upwards in front of them. The entire thing made out of twisted vines and bark. It stretched out to either side, seeming to go on forever with no end in sight.
"How..." Abey began, unable to think of the questions she wanted to ask.
"No idea. It's just always been here. It's possibly hundreds of years old. No-one how it came to be." William said brightly, "But this is the border. This is it. On the other side of this is where we can finally stop running." He sighed happily.
Abey didn't answer, but threw her arms around William's neck and kissed him in delight, their earlier argument gone from her mind, her only thoughts now on the future that lay ahead of them.
"Come on, let's go." He grinned at her, pulling away and holding her face in his hands. She nodded and they both turned to face the huge wall in front of them.
"How are we going to get over it?" Abey asked with a frown, realising that there wasn't any kind of entrance or passage through, only more thick vines blocking their way.
"We'll have to climb over it." William said matter-of-factly, taking a few steps back to do a run up, before jumping onto the huge bush and grabbing hold, starting to pull himself up. "Well, come on then!" He called to Abey with a mock sigh of exasperation.
Abey laughed before doing her own run up, landing slightly lower than William and only just managing to cling on. She gasped and gripped tighter, before grinning up at William to show she was alright. Confident that they were both secure, they slowly made their way up and over the top of the wall, both of them jumping lightly down on the other side.
They paused for a second to get their breath back, grinning at each other and laughing before throwing themselves into each other's arms again, knowing that now they were truly free.
They broke apart and glanced around at their surroundings. They were still in a forest, in fact the same forest as before; only here the leaves seemed greener, and the air fresher, though they couldn't decide if this was real or just the way they saw this fresh new land.
They were broken from their reverie by the sound of raucous laughter, and what sounded like metal on metal, as if two swords were being clashed together.
"Bandits?" Abey asked, William nodding in reply. "Let's move then. Find somewhere in the forest for tonight then try and find a town or a village or something in the morning."
"Good idea." William said, putting his arm around her shoulders and kissing the side of her head. "Tomorrow we can finally start the rest of our lives."
"A fresh start?"
"A fresh start."
It wasn't long before they managed to find a small, secure clearing in the forest, the lazy afternoon rays painting the trees gold. It also wasn't long until their previous argument resurfaced, William refusing to let it go and Abey refusing to open herself up.
"What happened to a clean slate? Starting again and forgetting the past?" Abey sighed.
"There's a difference between forgetting the past and letting it go. We can't look to the future until you've gotten over what happened and the only way to do that is to talk about it-"
"But I've told you I'm fine!"
"No, you're not!"
"Don't tell me how I'm feeling!"
"Then you tell me how you're feeling!"
It was the first real argument they had ever had, and they found themselves going round in circles, each getting angrier and more frustrated as it went on.
"For crying out loud, William, will you just listen to me?!" Abey cried, jumping to her feet.
"What do you think I'm trying to do? Only you won't tell me anything!" William retaliated, standing as well.
"Yes, I am! You're just wanting to hear things you know I can't say! Just to make yourself feel better!"
"No! To make you feel better! Are you so blind that you can't see that I'm doing this because I care about you?!" He ran his hand roughly through his hair as he watched Abey pacing in front of him, rubbing her temples with her fingers.
"Oh yes, I can really see that." She replied sarcastically, still pacing.
"You think I don't care about you?" William said in disbelief. "Remember who went after you when you went missing. Who spent days sleeping in the snow trying to track you down? And then when you came back to me, nursing you back to health, helping you recover? The least you can do is at least tell me where you escaped from last, is that so much to ask?!"
"Just, leave me alone, William." Abey spat, walking past him to make her way through trees.
"Where are you going?" He asked, unable to stop the edge in his voice seeping through.
"For a walk." She replied bluntly, not turning to look at him.
"Fine. Go." He said, throwing his arms in the air and turning his back to her, walking over to the small fire they had made and staring into it. "Maybe you'll start to see some sense." He called, still staring into the fire.
There was no reply. The only sounds were that of the fire crackling, and William's heavy breathing. He frowned, surely if she had gone stomping into the woods he would have heard her departing through the undergrowth, but there was nothing.
"William." Her voice was tiny, barely a whisper, coming from the edge of the trees.
"I'm not going to let this go, Abey, you know that." He said quietly, crossing his arms and staring ever more intently into the fire. He wanted Abey to realise he was serious, that he wasn't going to give up that easily.
"William." She said more forcibly, but still only slightly more than whisper. Only this time he could hear the fear and urgency in her voice as it caught in her throat.
He turned around and froze. A man stood facing him at the edge of the clearing, one arm held tight around Abey's waist, so she couldn't move, the other holding the edge of a sword to her neck. A man he definitely recognised this time.
"Your Highness. A pleasure, as always." Sir Jameson said silkily, a smirk on his face.