Illusion and Reality

You are not safe

I stretched and rubbed my eyes without opening them, throwing my arms lazily around, I felt the soft sheets of my bed. I opened my eyes to realize I was no longer in the garden but in my bed.

Memories of last night came rushing to my head, the weird dream and the lady in the purple cloak.

I hugged the pillow and closed my eyes one more time. I was in no mood of getting out of bed, I wanted to avoid Lily and her accusing looks, I wanted to avoid Lucius and his guilty stares.

Sleep took over me one more time, when I opened my eyes it was 12 p.m. The growling of my stomach indicated that I could not stay in the bed the whole day and I needed an important necessity to stay alive….food.

With a sigh, I walked towards my bathroom. Taking a warm comfortable shower, I threw on a pink sweatshirt and wore yoga pants with it. Letting my hair dry naturally, I walked towards the kitchen.

No one was there luckily, I put everything on my plate and went back to eat in my room peacefully. 

Taking a seat near the open window, I started eating my food while looking at the bright blue sky and feeling the fresh air coming from outside.

Just thinking about how much life had changed sent a wave of sadness throughout my body, shaking my head I tried not to think about it.

I was almost finished eating my food when I heard the knock on my door, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I opened the door to reveal Astrid standing with her side bag, wearing an off-shoulder long blue dress with tiny flowers all over it.

“Lily and I are going to collect some herbs and other ingredients, will you be fine here alone?” 

“Yes, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine here.”

“We will be back soon,” she stayed there for a brief minute and then turned around to leave.

I took my empty plate and went to leave it in the kitchen.

I started walking back to my room but felt an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach like I was being watched. 

No one could enter the house without invitation, I tried to reassure myself, it was probably happening because of my overthinking.

Trying my best to ignore the feeling, I opened the door of my room. I went towards my bed to clean it when I heard something.

A small scream escaped my lips as I stared at my window. The familiar dark raven was sitting on my window.

As if it sensed my presence, it looked at me with its tilted head. I grabbed the nearest object which happened to be a pillow and threw it at the bird while maintaining eye contact with it.

The pillow did not scare the bird instead of flying away it started flapping the wings, clearly annoyed by my action.

Instead of trying to get rid of the bird myself, I turned on my heel and ran out of the room as fast as I could. I kept looking back while running to make sure I was not being followed by the bird. Suddenly I bumped into something, I closed my eyes ready to kiss the ground but strong arms held me in the place.

“Why are you running like this?” Lucius asked. I opened my eyes to stare at his worried face.

I pointed towards my room, unable to say anything as I stood there collecting my breath.

“Stay here,” he said strictly. 

He walked towards my room while I waited for him there.

After a few minutes of waiting for him, I did not hear anything which made me worried. I started walking towards my room slowly to make sure if everything was fine. Lucius was checking every corner of the room, “No one’s here,” he said when he saw me standing near the door.

I quickly went to check the window and there was no sign of the bird.

“There was a bird sitting right over here,” I pointed towards my window.

“A bird?” he raised his eyebrow, “and here I thought you were being chased by a serial killer.”

I rolled my eyes, “That bird is scary enough to give nightmares to someone.”

He chuckled softly and went to close the window, “Now the bird will not bother you anymore.”

“Thanks.”

“You do not have to thank me,” he said giving me an infectious smile, making my heart skip a beat.

A small smile formed on my lips as well, but it soon disappeared, “I think we have something to talk about.”

He hummed in response, “My intentions of helping you or Lily were never wrong, I did not have any alternative motive behind it. I saw you both and knew if the king heard about it he would take some serious actions,” he ran his fingers through his dark hair, making them slightly messy, “I know you have so many questions, but it is just a coincidence that you look like the queen.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about it sooner?”

He leaned on the wall near the window, “I did not know what to tell you. The truth is her murderer was never found and that person is still out there. I did not want to make you more worried but now you know everything, you should know that you are not safe.”

I stared out of the window, only if he knew the truth about my nightmares. I wanted to tell him about them but I was not sure if I trusted him.

“Is it true that the king has something to do with her murder?” I asked, leaving the part where we thought he might have helped him.

I turned to look at him only to find him looking at me, “We can not say anything until we have evidence against him. Hunger for power can make people do unimaginable things,” he replied thoughtfully.

I bit my lip thinking if I should ask him about the other things we found in his room hidden behind that small door.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Why did you have all those letters and the map of the palace?” I finally asked.

“I work for the royals, the attack’s information was something very important. In order to find the murderer I needed to understand everything clearly, that is why I have all the letters explaining different things about the day. And the map is something given to me in case there was another attack and I needed to get the royals out of the palace safely,” he answered, looking outside and not at me.

I knew he was not telling me the complete truth but I decided not to press on the topic, “Am I supposed to stay inside forever? Because it looks like we are never going home,” my voice came out shaky as I said those words.

I did not know if I was ready to stay in the kingdom forever.

He turned towards me and took a step closer in my direction, “I know the thought of being stuck here is scary but trust me I will stay by your side no matter what and we will figure out a way together.”

I scoffed at this, “Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, Lucius.”

He stayed silent.

“You promised to stay, you promised you were not going to leave and yet you went god knows where when we needed you. Astrid and I waited for you to come back, but you didn’t.” 

“And I can not tell you how much I regret leaving that day, especially after I heard you and Astrid went to see Olivia alone. I came here running to see if you both were back but instead, I found Valeria and Lily,” he replied with a scowl on his face.

“What happened when you went after them?”

“I was following them but they just disappeared into the thin air,” his jaw clenched.

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “Why would they run if they were using magic? Why didn’t they just leave when you got here? Why would they waste so much time and energy into running when they were injured?”

“That is what I fail to understand. Someone was helping them or they were trying to get me away from Valeria and Lily.”

“Did you see the tattoo too?” I asked.

“No, but it can not be a good thing for us.”

We both stayed silent.

“Thank you for helping Lily and Valeria that day, if you were not there I don’t know what would have happened,” I was curious about the secrets Lucius was hiding but it did not mean I could ignore what he did that day, I was truly thankful for saving Lily’s life. It meant more to me than knowing about his secrets.

“As I said before, you do not have to thank me. I promised to keep you safe and I like to keep my word,” he said with a smile, “please do not leave the house, if you want to meet Valeria I will go with you. This place is not safe right now. Take Astrid with you if I am not here.”

I gulped slightly, looking at how close he was standing, “I will not go anywhere alone, don’t worry.”

He looked into my eyes and started moving closer, I closed my eyes and felt his lips touching my forehead. 

I opened my eyes only to find myself standing alone in my room.

I sighed and sat on the bed. 

What if the woman in my dream was right? I never tried to find out about my nightmares. But it was not like I could just ask someone about them. 

The place was sacred for Valeria’s coven, maybe I could ask her about my nightmares.

But what about the other places I saw in my dreams, what if they were real as well?

I went to the living room and started going through the bookshelf in order to find the book Astrid used while searching for her grandmother’s location.

It was not there, there were just some normal books on the bookshelf and not the magical map book I was looking for.

How could I find the truth about my nightmares?