Araman

by R.M.S

  The winter wind was bitter cold so high up in the castle. It cut into Raliena’s fingers where she clung to the wall. Her heart sank when she heard the window close behind her. She had hoped to re-enter the castle once Dergen had gone, but then she was not so sure she would last that long on the small ledge that ran round the edge of the walls of the castle.

  Panic threatened to overcome her, each time the wind blew and tugged at her dress, inviting her to die. She would surely be dead before she could heal herself if she fell from this height.

  Calm yourself. She breathed as her fingernails dug into the stone either side of her.

  Raliena started looking around for somewhere back into the castle. An open window, a rope, a high tree, anything!

  There were no windows on this side of the castle, bar the one she came out from. The only ones she could see were where the balconies stuck out from the wall directly in front of her, but it meant she would have to navigate round the U shape structure of the castle to get to it.

  It was her only option; not knowing what was round the other corner further into Dergen’s lair.

  Carefully, she began to slide herself along the wall, with horrible images of the ledge falling out from under her. She wasn't scared of heights but the wind made her feel unsteady; as well as the unnerving conversation she had just heard and her sickening encounter with Dergen.

  Raliena was surprised she was still standing at all, but she could not think on it now. Not while her life was clinging to a wall on a ledge barely one foot in width.

  It seemed like hours before Raliena reached the corner of the U shaped wall. She was sheltered from the wind by the two walls next to her, so she took a moment to catch her breath before pushing herself onwards.

  At a much faster pace she rounded the second corner and soon found herself at the edge of the last one; the hardest one.

  She felt with her fingers around it and could feel the wind strong and biting. Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep breath and prepared herself before sliding her body around it.

  The wind battered her and swept her hair to one side as if in protest of her being there, but she could see the balcony now, only a short distance from her. Raliena neither knew nor cared whose room it belonged to, so long as it was solid ground.

  A little more eagerly now she started to move and was soon at the edge to find the window was open. The balcony wall was short and easy to get a leg onto. Raliena turned her body round so she was facing the wall. Tentatively, she put one leg out to the side and held on to the balcony edge. Once she felt secure enough, in one motion, she placed all her weight on her first leg and moved to the centre of the balcony. Now she was stood securely and only needed to roll herself safely over the edge and onto solid ground again.

  “Good afternoon.”

  Raliena almost let go from hearing Kassen's arrogant voice. She lifted her head up to see him lounging in a chair in the doorway to the balcony, his feet up and an apple in his hand. He was strategically placed so that she could not get across without going through him.

  “Better view from there, is it?” He asked casually, taking a bite from his apple. If Raliena wasn’t holding on for her life at that moment, she could have quite easily punched him.

  “Better than some, I can assure you!” She snapped and for a moment he looked almost hurt, but his pride was not long wounded.

  “I could let you onto my balcony. I wouldn't want my partner for the ball broken.” Kassen took another bite from his apple and grinned.

  “You are using me clinging precariously for my life to ask me to go to some ball with you?” Raliena was appalled.

  Kassen grinned at her. “It was either that or ask you what you are doing here in the first place.”

  “Why can you not ask me a question like a normal man?!”

  He considered this for a moment. “I have found that questions do not usually go down well with you and I am not used to being refused.”

  “Oh, what hardships you must face.”

  “I am glad you see it that way.”

  Raliena resisted the urge to grab the General’s ankle and see if what she did to Dergen’s chest was an accident but bit her tongue and ignored him.

  If he wasn’t going to move she would just have to push passed him.

  Charily she started to shift herself to a better position. Once she was secure again, she brought her knee up, very unladylike, and positioned it ready to push herself up and step onto the balcony.

  “Could you heal yourself? If you fell?” Kassen asked, he had stood and moved closer to her now, out of the way so she could get over the edge. His expression had suddenly changed, etched with concern. And it seemed so genuine, like in the forest when he said he would not tell anyone about her and Raliena had felt she could trust him.

  “It does not work like...” Raliena didn’t finish her sentence. Her knee slipped from beneath her on the fabric of her dress as she put her weight on it and tried to get over.

  A lump caught in her throat, preventing her from screaming as she came to a jolting stop midair.

  Kassen had caught one of her arms with both of his and lent over the edge holding her. Raliena’s other arm dangled by her side and she kicked her legs in panic, trying to find solid ground in the air. In the corner of her eye she saw the apple Kassen had been eating, fall past her and watched it land in the trees beneath her, lost.

  “Look at me... LOOK AT ME RALIENA!” Kassen growled above her with such authority, she did without hesitation.

  “I will not let you fall.” He said with force. “You have my word.”

  Kassen’s blue eyes were just as scared as hers but held a deep determination that settled her.

  Raliena felt herself calm slightly and her eyes didn’t leave his. She pulled her other arm up and grabbed his and then he pulled her up in one strong movement and grabbed her waist as she fell onto the balcony. They both stumbled away from it and collapsed onto the floor of Kassen’s room, panting.

  Both sat in a heap on the floor, quietly comforted in each other’s arms. Raliena listened to Kassen’s heart gradually slow down with hers and didn’t feel the need to move from his protective grasp, inappropriate as it was. She could not remember the last time she was held like this, especially by a man.

  “So, I guess we can call that even then?” Kassen asked quietly after a while.

  Raliena smiled and assumed he was referring once again to how she had saved his life.

  “This still does not mean I will go to the ball with you.”

  “I know,” Kassen laughed. “But perhaps you will let me ask you next time.”