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Slightly taken aback that he could know that, she speaks quietly but harshly, “How did you…” she clears her throat, swallowing against the pressure he puts on her neck, “Your Queen didn’t give me much choice.”
“Your wound is small but on the side of your neck. It is on your left, opposite of your dominate hand. If another had tried to slit your throat, it would be here,” he runs his finger across the front of her throat. Mora shivers, her heart reawakened, “because someone standing behind you would pull across, not away from the body. But a wound there means that it was self inflicted. It is deep,” he stops rubbing in the medicine. His hand lingers for a moment before drawing back, but he never looks away, “which means that you had every intention of going through with it…”
Mora looks away from his prying blue eyes. She wants to sit up, to run away back home but she just lies there instead. Her body aches. She can feel her eyelids grow heavy.C0ntent © 2024 (N/ô)velDrama.Org.
“Rest,” he orders her, putting the lid back on the jar. “When you wake up, you can come downstairs,” Rick gets up and leaves the room.
Even though she doesn’t want to, Mora lets her eyes fall shut and drifts into a dreamless sleep. ***FIGHT***
Awaking in a panic she isn’t sure at first where she is. A fire flickers in front of her, she wonders if she fell asleep next to Franklin and had a horrible dream. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she begins to feel the softness of cushions under her and then she takes in the wooden floors and the huge stone fireplace. Her body feels heavy. Her hand reaches up to her throat, she feels like she is choking, the cold fingers of King Irron wrapped around her neck. When her fingers touch metal she jerks her arm away quickly, remembering the collar that keeps her tied to this land.
She must have slept deep because at some point while she was out, the tub was drained and removed, the screen put back across the room in the corner. Mora sits up. She takes several deep breaths while taping her left foot on the ground to check its sturdiness before she stands. She rises and tentatively puts pressure on her leg; while it aches a little, the majority of the pain is gone. Mora tests it out by pacing a bit around the room. She is able to walk delicately like normal, her body only feeling like Laren got the best of her during training the day before.
She quietly paces around the room, surveying everything as she contemplates escape. Rick’s large, plush, four poster bed is against a wall next to huge glass doors that open up to a balcony. Hiding herself behind the curtains, she peers out the windows. The darkness outside is only broken up by the lights from the nearby buildings. The drop is about twenty feet. While on a good day she could do it with little discomfort, she knows she won’t be able to do it with her knee.
Discounting the balcony, she turns back around to look for another option. The large room is furnished much nicer than Mora would have thought possible of a tavern owner and certainly nicer than any merchant’s house in her home town. Thick, fur rugs cover almost the entire floor except in front of the fireplace. Beautifully woven tapestries, depicting animal hunts line the walls. One in particular, above the fireplace, has a dark, huge tree on it. The tree is surrounded by a grey design that looks similar to a cave; below the tree, several people sleep peacefully with their arms crossed over their chests. She gets the odd feeling that the people are dead.
Near the foot of the bed, sunken down into the floor, is a pit perhaps six feet by six feet. It is lined with expensive, soft looking pillows in rich shades of colors that Mora didn’t know existed. It seems like an odd thing to be in a room; if it were meant for relaxing, it would make more sense to be near the fireplace. When she sees thick, iron rings bolted into the wood at each corner, she gets a chill when it dawns on her-it is meant for indentured servants… like her.
Mora keeps her eyes out for anything that could be used as a weapon. She looks hard but doesn’t move anything or open any drawers; she gets the feeling that Rick would know what she touched and didn’t touch. Despite her attentiveness, she finds nothing more than furniture and soft fabrics. She sighs. Even if she could escape, what was the point? Mora tentatively touches the cold metal collar around her neck. If she ran, she could only come within feet of freedom before she bled to death. Even if she could get across the border, she would end up with King Irron, which to her was the equivalent of dying a slow, painful death.
Even though she doesn’t want to, she walks towards the doors to the tavern. She will go crazy if she is left alone to her thoughts for the rest of the night. Pressing against them with the weight of her body, they give way. The quiet room is soon filled with the loud ruckus of laughter and the clinking of glasses on tables. Hesitantly, she steps out on to the balcony. The doors drift shut behind her as she peers over the railing to the floor below.
The tavern isn’t set up like she would have expected. While the worn, rough looking wooden tables and chairs that line the walls opposite the balcony could sit almost a hundred, the majority of the room is filled by a large, raised, wooden stage that is directly below her. The walls are dark, long seasoned by the smoke from the torches that are placed every few feet to light the room, while the center of the tavern is lit by several huge candle chandeliers.
Against the wall that lies directly under Rick’s bedroom is a long, empty bar. Behind it, the wall is adorned with hundreds of different looking bottles, the largest collection Mora has ever seen. Dervens drink but they don’t usually vary much from ale, mead and wine. The Barman, Eric’s friend, sits on a stool with his head buried in an old looking book. He looks like a smaller, normal sized version of Eric but without the scars. His back is leaned against the wall, his feet on the counter in a very comfortable, informal looking way.
Mora scans the tables below. While almost half are empty, the floor still looks full. Several contain rough looking customers who sit quietly, drinking their beers. Her eyes land on a table with three men and two women. The three men sit arrogantly in their chairs but the women sit on the floor. When she squints, she realizes that they are indentured like her but unlike her their chains are still on. Each woman has a set that clasps to a man’s belt, like a dog. She feels her face twist in disgust before she forces herself to wipe it clean. Her eyes continue to wander until she finds out where the majority of the noise in the tavern originates from: one table in particular and when she spots it, her eyes fall on Rick. He is watching her.
With the smallest movement of his hand, he motions for her to come down the stairs to join him. This time the heat that burns inside of her is anger. She doesn’t like the idea of anyone being a slave, least of all herself. At least he didn’t whistle for her to come like an animal. She clenches her jaw tight, trying to keep her face blank.
He sits at the largest table, his back to the wall. Around him are four other figures, laughing and drinking. Her eyes trace the path from him to the bottom of the stairs before she returns her eyes to the balcony. The soft boots make her steps silent amongst the ruckus and with her light frame she barely presses a creak out of the wooden stairs, however when the noise stops, she realizes that all eyes have turned to her. Despite her attempts at trying to change her stance and her pace, Mora is unable to walk like anything other than the nobility that she is.
She makes her way across the room to Rick, everyone following her movements. When she reaches his table, she keeps walking until she is at his side. She intentionally summons up all of her grace, as if to put everyone to shame for the treatment of the other women. Mora tips forward to her knees before fluttering back onto her heels, sinking down to the floor next to Rick like a swan. After she folds her hands perfectly in her lap, she drops her chin, forcing herself to look at the leg of the table so no one can see the profuse amount of irritation in her face.
The sudden scrape of Rick’s chair moving backwards doesn’t faze her; she is locked securely behind her placid exterior. When his warm hand appears under her chin, she lets him tip her head up and locks her eyes on to his. The anger in his face slowly fades when he finally sees the true Mora for the first time. She lets the pressure of his fingers pull her up like a puppet until she is standing in front of him unable to look away.
When his hand leaves her face she follows him, as he walks backwards, to the opposite side of the table, their stare never breaking.
“Sit,” he commands. She feels her eyes narrow, anger lashing out at being ordered like a slave when he wouldn’t let her sit on the floor. She stands defiantly, continuing to watch him while he walks back to his chair and slumps over in it, his leg thrown casually over the arm.
She can feel a smile cross her lips but she knows that it isn’t coming off as genuine when she answer him, “Yes, Master Rickan.”
Before she can pull the chair out, the Barman pulls it out for her, motioning for her to sit down much like one of the attendants in her castle would. Her anger quickly dies down from the courteous gesture; she breaks her stare with Rickan to look at the Barman, this time the smile on her face is legitimately grateful. As she perches herself delicately on the edge, back stiff, legs crossed at the ankles below her she begins to regret her outburst. The treatment of the other women isn’t Rick’s fault; he himself told her that he was different from the other Masters and he proved so by having her sit at the table as an equal with him and his friends. She keeps her chin up but looks down her nose, lest Rick see the regret in her eyes.