Chapter Two
My eyes opened and then I was blinking through the darkness around me. Not true darkness, but that of in the dead of night. A night without a moon. A night without light other than from the stars in the sky.
Turning my head, I found my strength was low. Still, I shifted toward what I could just make out as a window. My arm slipping off my abdomen to lay on the bed in front of me. Even from the new position, I couldn't make out much other than vague outlines.
Tenderly, I rose to sit up on the bed. My body felt strange and I still couldn't get myself to think of anything at all. No puzzling where I was. No fear of why I was here. Just nothing...
Next thing I knew was that I was standing with the doors between the windows open showing me a small balcony. Just one big enough for two bistro chairs and a bistro table with barely leg room to sit in the chairs unless they were under the table. All I could think was to shrug off that bit of information.
My hands laid down on the metal bar that made up the top of the railing. It was icy cold and reminded me of how I felt inside. That there was no warmth to battle the cold. No desire for heat. Just a cold like in the dead of winter after it snowed.
Internally I did a sharp laugh. Snow. My father had told me many times the story behind how I was born. Snow had been everywhere because of a blizzard. They hadn't been expecting me for months so they didn't mind being snowed in.
That had been the worst mistake my father ever had done. Because they were trapped in their cozy cabin, my mother died giving birth to me. My father never blamed me for her death, but I did. I'd never know my mother because I was born.
My foot lifted and placed itself on the bottom metal bar. I lifted myself a little higher on the railing so I could swing my leg over the edge. The agony of being alive gripping m and I felt like it was choking me.
My father had been devastated by my mother's death, yet held strong to care for me. To see that I had at least one parent. But he couldn't do it alone. He needed a woman's help with me.
Because of that need to give me a mother, he searched for a new wife. It took him years to find her. I had been happy when the woman he choose sought to help him more than me. He needed so much more love to help mend his broken heart.
My other leg swung over the railing and now I stood with my feet on the edge and my hands gripping the railing ready to fall. To try again. I just wanted to leave this world of endless pain.
How could I have knew that the woman my father married would lead to his death? That I had turned a blind eye to that vile woman masked in the sweetest demeanor. I had been fooled till my father's death. The night of the funeral she revealed her true self to me.
Her voice laughing at me still rang in my ears. The words she told me as I felt my world die. How she had convinced my father to name her the next in line. I didn't care about ruling, but it was that she said I'd not live long. That I should find a small place to live the last few years of my life.
My eyes went down to the ground below. Was it even far enough to end it all? Or would I just be adding to my pain with true physical pain? It would only be fitting. I brought on the death of both my parents, why not suffer more.
But the decision was taken away from me as arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me back over the railing. A low curse slipped out of his throat as he held me to his chest. My back to his front. My head back against his shoulder as he had his face hidden on mine.
"Don't die, not yet." He whispered as if it pained him to even think about me dying.
After a few moments of him chanting "Don't die", he lifted me up in his arms and took me to the bed I had woken up on. He set me down and then turned away walking to the door. He didn't get very far before sprinting back to me as I rose and started for the balcony again. I wasn't doing it. My body was moving on its own. I just didn't care.
Another curse in his throat before he lifted me up in his arms. This time walking to the door holding me close. As if he knew that if he set me back down, I'd just try again. And again. And again till I succeeded.
He walked through what looked like a cabin, and it was very homey from what I saw, with me draped in his arms. Down the hall and to the last door on the left he took me. There he knocked.
When the door opened, an older man stood with a sleeping cap on his head and a long chemise nightgown. The man rubbed his eyes before he opened them. He jolted seeing me in the guy's arms.
"Your majesty?" The man's voice was still thick with sleep.
The guy frowned down at me. "She just tried to jump off her balcony."
The man stepped aside and the guy entered the room with me. "But she is awake now. That means we can't give her angelic positive energy, but another's."
"But she nearly jumped. She would have if I hadn't woken when I had and pulled her back over."
The sleepy man just nodded as he gestured to the couch where the guy took us and sat down. I was now sitting in his lap with his arms and hands keeping me on him. "Then it was good you started sleeping in her room." He took my hand and covered it with both of his. "She will need time and more treatments before there is a time where she won't want to die."
"Did any of our positive emotions take hold?"
A hand went from my hand to my chest. "Only a grain. I suspect that was what helped her wake. But now that one bit took hold, I can start stripping the added negative feelings that aren't hers and replace them with good emotions. Will you help supply those positive emotions?"
"You don't need to ask that. Of course. Take all mine if that is what will fix her."
The older man chuckled before he sighed. "You know that I can't do that. It's against my kind's laws. Whomever did this to her, broke many laws and will have to pay the price for such a violation. To strip someone's emotions like this is unconscionable and very dangerous to do unseen."
The guy the other called his majesty sighed deeply. "But right now we need to fix her enough so she stops wanting to jump."
The man nodded. "Thank you for informing me, though you didn't have to bring her with you."
His majesty frowned more. "She tried going back to the railing when I stepped away from her bed. I knew I couldn't leave her to just try again."
"Very good thinking Jon." The man leaned over and gave Jon a light squeeze of his hand. "Now we just have to see about getting her back to sleep for just a little longer. Just till we have a chance to get some rest ourselves."
Rising, the man went over to a wardrobe looking piece of furniture and opened it with a key. He took a small vile out with a syringe. He filled the syringe up with a small amount of liquid.
Jon's eyes turned down looking at the syringe. "What are you giving her?"
The man knelt down and gave Jon a tight smile. "Just a sedative to get her back to sleep. Not much, but just enough for a few hours more of rest." He lifted one of the long sleeves of the light cotton gown that I was wearing. When he stuck it into my arm, I didn't finch or wince. I just stayed where I was.
My eyes lids got heavy a few seconds later. The man stroked my hair which made me even more sleepy. All I could do was give into the sleep that wanted to embrace me. Who was I to say no?
~~Medea's Point of View~~
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE LIVES AND HAS BEEN TAKEN AWAY?!? IT WAS YOUR JOB TO SEE SHE DIED ON HER OWN!"
The man before me bowed his head where he knelt on the lower floor. "We had no idea new arrivals had come to town. My students tried to stop them, but I fear they were demons come to check out the school. Just that morning, I received word that someone leaked that a non-human was among the population."
I caressed my mirror gilded in gold with rubes that formed apples. "And yet you know not where they took her?"
"Correct you majesty. We didn't find any trace of where they went. It is possible they went into Dementia where we couldn't follow."
Taking a deep breathe I pondered as I walked leisurely around the room. My mirror room. One I created even before my late husband met his untimely end. An end that I made sure he met thanks to an untraceable poison only I knew existed any longer.
"Bring me my best hunter."
His head snapped up. "But your majesty, your best hunter knows no result other than the end of the life of their target. Her death would lead right back to you."
A sigh. "You are right." I smiled a him. "How loyal of you to think of that." Tapping my chin, I gazed into the mirror before me. "Then find me a hunter that has no heart and has no connection to me."
"As you wish your glorious majesty."
I smiled more to myself as I gazed at myself in my mirrors while he left. "And my mother never thought I was clever enough to be anything other than a lowly healer for the common riffraff."
~