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CHAPTER NINE
Visla
When I woke up, I was exactly where I was when I first started. I could’ve screamed. It was like déjà vu. Or as if my escape from Khol’s hut never happened.
Surprisingly, my wrists weren’t bound…at all.
I was groggy and my tongue felt like sandpaper in my mouth. Recalling what happened in Mandia, I lifted myself to a seated position on the bed. I thought I saw a dark shadow lingering near the bed, but the side effects of the drug injected by the guards still rendered me confused. I wiped my eyes and blinked until my vision cleared.
Khol was seated in a chair placed directly in the front of the bed. His head was down, focusing on the leather strips that he was twirling around a sharp machete.
I gasped and sat upright, only to realize that one of my ankles were tied to the bedpost. I swallowed.
“Why did you bring me back here to Dretis?” I demanded.
“I didn’t. My guards did,” he spoke without looking up. “You were labeled a fugitive and arrested and put in a cell until my brother Ghid recognized you.”
“You should’ve left me in the cell.”
He looked up this time. His majestic dark blue glare almost took my breath away.
“You don’t belong in a prison cell,” he said, softly and then went back to wrapping the handle of his machete. The blade was clean and freshly sharpened. I wondered how many grown men, aliens, and beasts he’d actually slaughtered with that thing.
“Will you cut me?” I asked.
“Where were you going?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“I don’t know. Away from here. It’s not like I have a home anymore.”
“Where did you live before?”
“In the castle.”
His eyebrow perked up and he straightened in the chair. “The castle? With Magdul?”
I shook my head. “No. Not with Magdul. I had a room there. Like all the other servants. Now that you’re the new king and you put us out, I suspect many of us don’t have homes. I was doing what any sane person would do. I have to find a new place to stay and a new job.”
“Why not return to the castle where you stayed?”
“There’s nothing there for me anymore,” I said. “I never liked working for Magdul anyway.”
“Your family? Do they not live here in Dretis?”
“I have no family.”
He stopped fiddling with the machete. “Everyone has family.”
“Not me. My mother is no longer living. I never met my father. Why are you asking me this? Do you still think I had something to do with Zarras’s death?”
“I don’t think you are capable of such a thing, no.”
“Then why am I still chained to your bed?”
“You are a danger to yourself.”
“How is that?”
“You shouldn’t be roaming about by yourself. It seems that your jewels aren’t the only thing wanted most,” he said.
