Awoken (Ilea, Book I) (COMPLETED)

Chapter 9

I must have drifted off to sleep, as a small sharp knocking on the door of my room roused me from a slumber that felt as if it had only lasted for a few minutes. I released my eyes and swung the door open with my mind without looking up. I sat up and looked at the guard that entered the room; it was the one that I had first met.

“Morning Miss, I heard you had quite an eventful night,”

“Pardon?” I asked him sharply

“Well, not many prisoners get lost to their captures by climbing onto the roof and then coming back again a few hours later.” He laughed at me smiling “Well at least I know for certain that you will not break you word so easily.”

I smiled at him and said nothing, I could see from his thoughts that he thought of me as a child under his care and I thought it sweet of him as he tried to cheer me up without prying into why I was upset in the first place.

“I’ve fetched you something to eat” he lay a plate of food down onto the table near my bed. It was mainly fruit and bread but there was also a little scrap of meat and a cup of water. It looked quite fresh but not exactly what I fancied, I ate it anyway so not to appear rude. In addition to that I did not know when my next meal would be.

I lay down on the bed again once I had eaten and closed my eyes, trying to block out the thoughts of every man in the castle except for the one that I really wanted to know. I eventually managed to hear Rowan go about his normal day, acting like he usually would but unable to ignore the feelings of those around him. They aggravated him, he had his own problems to think about without knowing that at least three of the kitchen girls felt like they wanted to throw their arms around his neck and kiss him passionately. I cursed myself hearing how, although he was thinking about the tasks he had to perform, thoughts of me kept slipping into my mind, he was trying to work out whether he should come and see me and what I would do if he showed up. In a perfect world I would have thrown my arms around his neck and kissed him, much like the way of the kitchen girls, and he knew it, but he also knew that I was more likely to send him away.

I lay there, just listening to his thoughts rage around in his head, knowing that I could do nothing to help him, I could not go to see him, for fear that my self control would not hold up and that I would kiss him anyway, even though I knew that I shouldn’t. It was safer if I stayed away. I kept my mind linked with his and fell into a type of sleep.

I woke up and the first thing that I thought was, ‘I wish that I had something nicer to eat than this.’ I lay there confused for a minute and then understood that my mind was still linked to Rowan’s. I looked outside at the sun and realised that it would soon be time to go to meet Orion. I got up and ruffled my hair with one hand, trying to tease out the tangles that had formed at the back of it, knowing that I would have bed hair.

I walked to the door and knocked on it firmly, “It is time to go.” I told the guard, noticing that it had changed again. He was unsure what to do, he didn’t know whether to unlock and open the door for me, or whether to keep it closed and locked. He stood there for a moment trying to decide, I heard as his thoughts slowly turned towards trying to keep me locked up and spoke to him again.

“I am asking to be polite, it would be easy for me to walk out of this room, whether you wanted me to or not, so keeping the door locked would not really deter me much.” He stayed still wondering how I knew, thinking that I had just made some sort of lucky guess.

I was growing impatient and did not want to be late, if I had to walk with a guard then we must go at once, if I was to go on my own then I still had a while to spare. I stood listening to his thoughts and realising that he would not be coming to a conclusion about what to do very easily; he was the type who was a good soldier due to the fact that he followed orders well, he didn’t like to have to make difficult decisions for himself, and I was presenting him with a difficult decision that he hadn’t been given orders for.