Layla
Page 28
Chapter 15
When I woke up, LaShebah was fussing over my bandages. On both shoulders. Then I saw a familiar setting: my old room! I smiled and fell back onto my pillow. Was that a sign that I was free? Really free?
"Yes, Layla." LaShebah read my mind. "Get your hopes as high as you want. Everything has changed." She smiled, and I could tell she was happy.
I got dressed and went downstairs. Brye's parents were here.
"Look at you!" His mother crushed me in a hug. "And sporting white ribbons!" She thumped my bandages. I winced. I always thought she was odd.
I embraced his father less stiffly. He reminded me of Brye. After I greeted them, everybody rushed into the dining hall. I had really slept till supper?
Brye pulled me out a seat. I stood there, lost in thought. Poor Wade. Poor Adda. Poor Sweenlah. Poor Jedni. What a year this had been!
"Come on!" Brye brought me back to reality. I sat down.
Then without thinking, I stood again. I held my goblet high above my head. "A toast!" Everybody else followed. "To, Wade and Sweenlah." Nobody knew who they were, but they drank anyway. "For whom I am going to build memorial statues!" Father looked at me puzzled. I nodded at him.
"I need to talk to you after supper." Brye leaned over and whispered. I nodded once more.
There was no dancing after we ate. Everyone understood, because I was sore. And Brye was dragging me up the stairs.
"Hurry up!" He laughed.
"I am!" I puffed.
We went in my room. Brye shut the door. We both plopped onto my feather-bed.
"Now, listen. Your father is planning on locking you in again. This time in your own room."
I shut my eyes and threw my head back. Why couldn't I see these things coming? "So, what's the plan this time?"
He shook his head. "There is no plan. There's nothing you can do."
I was confused. Brye- Brye!- was telling me we couldn't do anything, just to let it go! Usually he would have had a plan, completely worked out! This wasn't like him. He wasn't a quitter. "W-what do you mean?" I stuttered.
He just shrugged.
"You can get me out!" I studied his face. "Can't you?"
"No." Every expression was wiped from his face. He was totally blank.
He just looked at me, stared at me. "But, I've got an idea."
That was a relief. I knew I could count on him. "So?" I wanted to hear it. "Your idea?" I hinted again. He seemed lost elsewhere.
"Well," He came back. "If you married me, you would be, well, free. And we could rule. Just think Layla! Your own army. No more boundaries." He took my hand. I pulled back. His hurried words startled me, took me by surprise.
"No," I blurted out. I sounded disgusted, but not on purpose. I was just surprised. The look on his face scared me, pierced me. Did I mean no? That was what I had just said. So yes, I meant it. Something felt forever changed. I was perplexed. I had just helped defeat an army that had our country besieged, lost a dear friend, and had a good meal. I thought everything was going to be perfect. Why did Brye have to ask me that question?
I looked up at him, his face a confused and puzzled mess. I knew he had expected me to agree. But what kind of life would that be, married to my best friend, my only friend still alive. I just hoped that I hadn't hurt him so much he would shun me and turn from us and our court. After all, this wasn't his country. He could leave and never return if he wanted to! But somehow I could feel that things had just changed, and that the change would be eternal. The road in our lives had just forked. But I couldn't marry him! Could I?
"What were you thinking?" I let my tongue slip. I bit it, wishing with all my soul that I could take back those words. A tear slipped down my cheek. Something inside me burned, but I couldn't place it where it needed to be. I let my head fall, and retrieved my hands from my lap. I stared at my dress. I had to avoid his eyes.
But I looked up, and saw something I had never seen before. Brye looked like a burning ball of anger and hurt. His jaw was set firm. A glassy, aching look was spread with a knife of torture across his face. How I wished to butter it over with a kind, forgiving word, but I was speechless. So quickly had it happened, that I was still in shock.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, my voice cracking.
Brye said nothing, just standing up with a strong, prideful air. But I knew that he was hurt. He nodded at me, and made an effort to speak.
"We should go back downstairs. They will be wondering where we are." He sounded like he was talking to a stranger.
When we descended from the spiral staircase, the whole court stood waiting at our feet. Brye avoided my eyes and headed off into the crowd. Was I going to be able to live like this? I had to beg for mercy, grovel at his feet for forgiveness. My heart urged me forward. I ran through the crowd, weaving in and out of gasping people.
Finally I caught Brye by the arm, and he spun around. My tongue decided to tie itself in a knot, but I forced it to untwine.
"Please," I struggled not to cry. "You know me!" I begged.
"Yes." He stared beyond me. "I knew you." And then he was gone.
I ran after him, up the smaller stairs and onto the balcony. "Please listen to me!" I ran up beside him and placed my hands on the rail alongside his.
Then a horrifying scream pierced the air.
I looked away from Brye and his cold stare. Then a shriek leapt from my own throat. "Noooo!" A man, dressed in a brown cloak was behind Father. In my eyes, once again the horrid slow motion took place. Father was laughing, eyes glazed with excitement, his glass raised in toast. But before his goblet reached his mouth, a knifed grazed through his neck and knocked the goblet from his hands. But it wasn't like he was going to be able to drink to his daughter, not when his head lay on the table in front of his body.
Anger like no one else had known welled up inside me. I screamed, shrieked and yelled everything I could think of as I leapt from the balcony.
I fell, mouth open in shouts of revenge. I was falling, for what seemed like minutes, for life was still in slow motion. Pictures of how Brye used to grin and hang on every word I said drifted through my mind, as well as pictures of Father, shooing me away, and showing me my room. But then I landed. To my surprise, I was still alive. But then I realized I had fallen into a cake. Thank you, Aola, for making such a huge cake. Even if it was pink.
I was zapped back into reality as I stood up, and wiped pink frosting off my face. She knew I hated pink. But none of that mattered to me as the murderer zoomed by me, leaving gasping court ladies in his trail.
Without a thought I raced after him. I knew I was unarmed, and so did he. Of course he wasn't worried about a silly little princess following him. I knew that swords were kept up high. I began hoping I had grown an inch or two over the last year.
He ran out the door. I jumped as I left, managing to grasp one of the swords over the doorway. I hung there, using my body weight to pull the sword down.
I ran after him with all my might. I ran, and ran and ran. Finally I caught up with him. He had slowed down to mount his horse. I kicked the dust and dirt up around us, and screamed. It spooked his horse, just as I had hoped. The man jumped off the horse and rolled in the dirt. Then he realized I was there, and jumped to his feet like a flash of lightning. I noticed he was unusually short. Maybe I had an advantage over him. Literally over him. He looked up at me, and comprehended that I was a bit larger.
I raised my sword above my head as I charged. I was ready for my sweet revenge against my father's assassinator. The man took off running, so I followed. A shriek of anger still gurgled deep in my throat. He slid in the leaves, and I leapt on top of him and thrusted my sword into the heart of him. I started crying. Now I was the murderer.
I couldn't figure out what hurt worse, father dying, Brye shunning me, or what I found under the murderer's hood. "Sweenlah!" I screamed. Tears fell from my guilty eyes. "What? why, how did you?" I couldn't find any words for the second time today, as I hel
plessly brushed my hand over her face. But then I remembered she had killed father. "Why did you do it?" I found my voice.
"I was? jealous." Her glazed eyes scared me as she stared into my own.
"You are so brave, so beautiful." She ran her shaking hands through my hair.
"I'm sorry. I never thought it would end like this." A shaky smile crept across her lips. "Please forgive me, and?"
"Yes?" I cried uncontrollably, squeezing her hand in mine. Her voice just tittered, then her life tottered. And she was gone. Rain started to fall upon our faces, washing her blood away and washing my tears away. But my tears were gone only momentarily.
"Why me!?" I screamed. "What have I done to deserve this!?" I Shook with anger. I was angry at everyone: Father, Brye, Sweenlah, myself, and even God. The water falling from the sky should have been soothing, but instead it boiled on my skin. I felt like killing myself. Suddenly Brye appeared.
"You!" I pointed at him. He was to blame for one-third of my misery. I charged after him.
I chased him to the old terrace that had half-crumbled away. The walls were mere rubble that exposed the three-hundred-foot-high cliff we were standing on. I drew my sword and started fencing with him in a split second. Rage pushed with each of my vigorous blows. Although I was good, I knew that Brye was better. My theory was proved as I was knocked down, head hanging off the edge of the crumbling wall. I heard stones trickle through the air. I tried to remember why I was fighting him, but my cloudy mind was frantic. Brye pointed the sword at my neck, and I held my breath.
But then he started laughing, his old smile returning to his face. "You look good in pink," he said.
I couldn't help but grin. The rain had washed a lot of the frosting away, but my face was still coated. I gazed at his once-again-familiar face. My mind at ease, I came to my senses. I knew I hadn't gone insane. And? I knew I loved him. I did, I knew I did. Maybe I just didn't want to see it before, so it had taken a frenzied skirmish to make me realize it. I bit my lip, trying to think of someway to accept his proposal.
"You know," I said, pushing his sword out of my face. "They are going to need somebody to rule. A King and a Queen."
Brye threw his sword behind him and started to grin. Quickly he helped me up, and drew me close. It was then that I understood what had caused his stoniness earlier.
Our noses touched, getting stubborn frosting on Brye's face. I thought that something like this, between two good friends would seem awkward, but it wasn't. A sense of passion entered my world, like a pink cloud. Then we kissed. I melted into him as the rain washed over us. It washed over us as it had been sent from heaven to bring us back to our senses. And to rinse the frosting from our faces.
As we walked back to the castle, hand in hand, I could sense the beginning of something new. The sun was shining through the rain. My whole world seemed brightened? except for one very dark thing that left a dent in it.
"Brye, is there any way to lift the curse on the Forest of Despondency?"
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