Oubliette (Cloud Prophet Trilogy) (7 page)

I nodded, falling into his arms and resting my face on his strong chest. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst through my chest. I wondered if he could feel it against his chest too.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered into my hair. We embraced in silence until Mark slowly pulled away. “But I have to go back.”

“Back? Back where? Why won’t you stay here?” I grasped his arm with both hands. I didn’t want him to leave, not so soon. “There’s plenty of room in the palace. You’d be surprised how many empty rooms there are.”

“I can’t, Reychel. I have to go back to my men. What would it say to them if I left them camping on the ground while I lived in luxury in the palace? It wouldn’t be right.”

I wanted to argue, but I knew he was right. I wanted him to stay here with me. I could be myself with him. I didn’t have to worry about him fawning over me or expecting anything from me. He didn’t care if I knew how to use my gift or not. He liked me for me and sometimes I thought he might be the only one.

“Stay. Just today. You can go back this afternoon.” I felt all the needy parts of me bubble up. The selfish parts I so often suppressed. The pieces I didn’t like to admit existed inside me.

“I can’t. Ace —”

“Ace needs you.” I interrupted, taking my hands from his arm. “Of course Ace needs you. He needed you after the wedding and he needs you now. You should go back to him.”

I spun around on my heel, so my back was to him. The pressure was getting to me. Everyone expected me to perform for them. I needed to be the great Prophet. I needed to learn how to use my gift. I needed to save our people. I didn’t want any of those things at the moment. What did I want? I wanted Mark to stay. To remind me I was human. Normal. Worthy.

“Don’t act like such a childish brat,” Mark said. “I have responsibilities. Has staying in this palace with servants for just a couple weeks spoiled you so much that you can’t see that anymore?”

“Spoiled brat?” I spat, whirling around and facing him. “Is that how you see me? Then maybe you should go.” I pointed to the door.

“Are you going to call your guards to have me escorted out?” Mark retorted.

“Maybe I should,” I said.

“There’s no need for that,” he said. “I can find my own way out.”

“And then forget how you got here,” I said, regretting the words as I said them but unable to stop myself. “I don’t want to see you again.”

Mark’s face grew red from the neck up.

“If that’s how you want it, great Prophet,” he said, bowing. I had the strangest urge to kick him. What was wrong with me?

“Get out!” I screamed.

“Leaving,” he insisted. Mark turned around for the door. As he stepped into the doorway, he stopped. I held my breath wondering which insult he wanted to leave with me.

To my surprise, he turned again, strode across the room, and took me in his arms. His mouth met mine with a strong kiss. I melted into his embrace, feeling the softness of his lips combined with strong insistence.

As quickly as it began, it ended. His arms disentangled from mine, he turned around, and walked out of the door.

A stupid smile spread across my face.

Chapter Nine

Zelor’s Journals: Book Two

I woke up this morning refreshed for the first time in three days. The headaches kept me in my bed, away from the light, away from people. Nothing but lying in the silent darkness could cure my aches.

The visions keep coming. The useless pieces of drivel that I can’t block. But there was something new a week ago. A girl. A bald slave girl. I continue to see her. I’ve seen her in the back of a kitchen wiping dishes. I’ve seen her serving her master. I’ve seen her laughing with another slave as they lie awake at night talking when they probably should be sleeping. I’ve seen her read the clouds, just like me. I’ve seen her lead her people.

I see this girl, all the time. Every day for a week she haunted my visions until the headaches came and forced me to lie down.

People are beginning to laugh at me. I hear them outside my house, laughing, joking. I know they are pointing at my house asking each other, “What is wrong with that crazy man?”

I wish I knew what was wrong with me too. Why do my visions continue to disturb my life? They used to offer peace, solace, and friendship. Now they do little more than vex me.

I must do something to change this. But what? What could I possibly do?

Chapter Ten

The next morning I woke up determined to do something to change this situation. My vision showed people dying in the streets below, but so far none of my visions had been totally accurate. Maybe it was possible that nothing in them was etched in stone. If I had the power to change things, then I needed to know how to use it. I had to find out what I was missing from Zelor’s journals.

On my first day here, Jada mentioned The Book of Secrets, supposedly hidden in his cottage. Unfortunately I was as much a prisoner here as I was at my old home, not allowed outside where anyone would notice me. If gossip was as rampant here as Reese claimed, an unaccompanied noblewoman would be noticed. Too bad I didn’t have one of those cloaks I’d used back home that left me invisible.

A soft knock interrupted my thoughts. It was probably for the best. I wasn’t getting anywhere by thinking; I needed to come up with a plan.

“Breakfast, mistress,” Alia called through the door. Alia! My mind spun with possibilities. She could be the key to everything I needed.

I pulled on my slippers and ran over to the door. I opened it and peeked to see who else was in the hallway. No one else was there. I grabbed Alia’s arm and pulled her in. The dishes on the tray rattled, but she steadied herself. A wide grin spread across my face and she looked at me like I’d just offered her a plate of live slugs for breakfast.

“Do you truly believe I’m the Prophet?” I asked her, taking the tray of food from her hands. I turned around to place it on my table and when I turned back Alia was kneeling on the floor, her forehead on the ground, and her hands held upward.

“I take it that’s a yes,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Please get up, Alia. It isn’t necessary for you to be on the floor.”

I placed my hand under her elbow and helped Alia stand up again. “I need you to shave my head,” I told her. My plan was brilliant. I needed to be invisible and Alia was the only one who could, or would, help me.

“Shave your head? But you’re no longer a slave,” she stammered.

“I know,” I said. “But I need to go out into the town and I can’t do it with the wig. People might question who I am. I can’t do it with the small amount of hair I’ve grown either. If my head was bald then I could move around unnoticed. You know just as well as I do that no one notices a slave.”

Alia nodded her head.

“But I don’t have any of the tools needed to shave my head,” I said. “Can you get them for me? And a change of clothes?”

She was a bit shorter than I was, but our builds were similar. Fitting into her clothes shouldn’t be an issue.
Alia stood still, staring at me.

“Please?” I asked.

“When I was growing up,” Alia said, “I heard the stories about you. We were told that one day you would come to us, shining in glory with golden hair. You would appear over the mountains in a ray of light and lead us away from the Malborn. Some people believed your simple presence would render the Malborn helpless and they would collapse to the ground, dead, never to hurt us again.”

My eyes grew wider. I hope she didn’t expect that of me. Great Eloh, how could I ever live up to that?

“I always believed that was silly,” Alia continued. “If you were a mere Serenian, like me, then why would you arrive that way? Why would you if you were one of us? I always hoped our Prophet would be just like the rest of us. I’m beginning to believe you are. Plus your hair is black, not blonde like the stories told.”

I smiled and impulsively hugged Alia. She understood. Finally someone understood how I felt.

“Will you help me?” I asked, pulling back and looking into her eyes. “And, I mean this in the nicest way, please stop treating me like the Prophet and just treat me like another slave. That’s who I was most of my life. That’s who I still feel I am.”
“I’m glad,” Alia said. “Now you really are the Prophet I’d always longed for. I’ll go find everything and be back quickly.”

Alia rushed out of the room and I sat down to my breakfast. The warm bread and porridge coated my insides. With my stomach filled, I pulled off my wig and looked at my hair in the mirror. My black curls, not the golden ones Alia had always visualized, hung just past my chin. Not long enough yet to wear out in public. No free woman would ever allow her hair to be cut so short. It was a status issue, one that divided free Serenians from their brothers and sisters in slavery.

I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling them for the last time. I’d grown used to the hair but I had to get out of the palace and the only way was to become invisible.

Alia reentered my room. She quietly slipped through the doorway, closing it softly behind her. Her arms held a bundle of clothes.

I turned around as she laid the bundle on my bed, unwrapping it to reveal the shaving kit hidden inside. I ruffled my hair one more time before sitting down in a chair with my back to Alia.

She wrapped a towel around my shoulders, took out a dull blade and sawed off my precious curls. I grabbed one as it slipped down my shoulders. I fingered its silkiness between my thumb and forefinger.

“You should keep that,” Alia suggested. “Just to remind yourself what it’s like to have hair. I know I would if I were allowed to grow mine out.”

“Hopefully you will soon,” I said. “If it’s my destiny to get rid of the Malborn then I feel slavery will disappear too. You’ll be free to do whatever you want with your hair.”

Alia rubbed her head with one hand. “I can’t even imagine what it would be like.”

“I couldn’t either until it happened to me. You’ll get used to it soon enough. And,” I continued, “you won’t have to wear an itchy wig in the meantime.”

Alia laughed. “I tried yours on once while you were in the bathtub washing up. It was awful.”

“The real thing is much better,” I said. “Though that itches too while its first growing in.”

Alia continued to saw off my hair, slicing it away bit by bit to get it short enough so she could shave the rest off.

“What would you like to do when you’re no longer a slave?” I asked.

“I’ve never really thought about it, until yesterday. I barely slept last night wondering what it would be like to be free. I’ve seen the lives of the people outside the palace and in some ways I see my life in here as better. I’m clean every day. I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is coming from.”

Alia ran her fingers along the stubble on my head as tiny bits of hair jumped to the floor. She wet a bar of soap in my washing basin and rubbed it on my head. I’d forgotten the feeling of the cool soap spreading across my scalp. I shuddered, from the memory and the slippery wetness.

She dunked the razor in water and dragged it across my scalp. I froze, remembering quickly how one tiny movement could result in a cut. My scalp would be extra tender and that the skin had probably softened up over the year. I fully expected to have multiple nicks.

I sat still, letting Alia destroy the only tangible piece of freedom I’d had over the last year.

“There.” Alia wiped off my scalp with a towel.

My fingers trembled as I reached up to touch my head. The smooth scalp and hairless feeling under my fingertips. Tears sprung to my eyes, a reaction I didn’t expect. I wiped them away with the back of my hand.

“Want to see?” she asked. I nodded, stood up, and walked over to the mirror on the opposite wall.

“Now that’s a girl I recognize,” I said. My pink scalp matched my blushing cheeks. I may have put on a little weight in my cheeks and my lips were fuller, but the face in the mirror was the same girl I knew who was getting ready to turn fifteen nearly a year ago. “Hi,” I said to myself with a little wiggle of my fingers.

Alia smile in the reflection as she cleaned the razor.

“How’s it feel?” she asked.

“A bit like home,” I said. “Now where are those clothes?”

Alia laid down the razor and tossed me the gray linen robe. It was lighter than the robe I wore at Kandek’s, but the climate in the Southern Kingdom was so different than my old home. My old woolen dress would have caused all the slaves here to faint from the heat.

Behind the dressing screen, I pulled the silk gown off over my head and replaced it with the rough linen. I squirmed a bit, trying to get used to the feel. I’d been clothed in fine dresses for only two weeks and already my skin was rejecting common garb. Well, it would just have to get used to it again soon. I didn’t plan to live in a palace my whole life.

Someday I wanted to move into a small cottage, get married, and have children. Mark’s lips flashed in my mind. I pushed the image away. I hadn’t heard from him since the kiss yesterday. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

“Ready?” Alia asked.

“Ready,” I said, stepping out from behind the screen. She held out her hand.

“You’ll need a guide. You’ve never been out of the palace, have you?”
I shook my head. I’d wanted to ask her to take me but I didn’t want to impose on her any more than I already had.

“You aren’t afraid you’ll be punished if we’re discovered?” I asked.

“I’ve been assigned to you. I do your bidding. That is the way of a slave.” Alia shrugged her shoulders.

“I know,” I said. “But if you don’t want to help me you’re allowed to say so. I’ll dismiss you and find my own way.”

“Are you kidding? Of course I want to go. It’s not often I’m allowed to get outside the palace. Occasionally I can visit my mum and pop too.”

“Both of our parents are still alive and you are a slave?” I was stunned. Everyone I had known was an orphan or sold into slavery by a single parent. I’d never heard of someone becoming a slave while both parents were still alive and together.