Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 140

Chapter 140: Notes
“It’s stupid. This is stupid, I shouldn’t expect anything,” Anaisa finished the meal with the group so as not to arouse undue suspicion, but as soon as she was done, she stood and wound her way up the stairs.

She paused, at the alcove, trying to talk herself out of getting her hopes up. ‘You’ll find a way to get a message to me somehow,’ she’d told Trace. He’d nodded, but she’d thought nothing else of it until Vinny’s discourse on leaving notes for a lover.

The hallway was dim, with no direct light in this spot. That was why she had originally pulled Trace into it to talk to him, where they would be out of sight.

“Where was it?” She mumbled to herself, running her fingers along the mortar between stones. Finally, they came to a small gap. Biting her lip in nervousness, Anaisa carefully pressed her fingertips into it.

And felt paper.

Eagerly, she slid it out of its hiding place and opened the pages. It was too dim to read, and she mentally screamed with impatience. Hiding it in the folds of her skirt, she fled upward. Her first instinct was to go back to the princess’s chambers, but the audiences might not be over yet.

And so, she had to do her best to find a place with enough light, yet out of the way enough that she wouldn’t be happened upon.

Next to an out of the way window somewhere near Sanders’ office, she finally opened the letter.

It wasn’t addressed, nor signed, yet it was so clearly for her that her heart ached.

“I cannot tell you anything. Oakdown has magical powers to compel obedience, and he has used them to forbid me from attempting to thwart or reveal his plans. I must continue to plant manipulative dreams in the king’s and the princess’s minds as he directs. I write this letter for my own peace of mind, knowing you will never find it. Isn’t that strange? The only way I’m able to write this to you at all is with the understanding that you have no reason to ever come looking for it. A loophole in the command.

“I’m sorry. If I’d been up front with you all along, maybe you would trust me more and be able to figure this out, despite my silence on the matter. My lack of forthrightness seems in character to you, and I’m ashamed of that.

“My time isn’t eternal, and I must be quick. Oakdown has not always had these magical powers of compulsion; he acquired them from the bejeweled fruit of a magic tree. He compelled the former Count, his own cousin, to tell the lies that got him executed for treason. He makes Sanders report to him, though the man isn’t loyal to Oakdown. I believe the Count wants to take the kingdom via the Princess so that he can have dominion over the cave where the tree grows.

“I do not know what he plans to do from that point onward, whether to make a magical army or some other scheme, but I know he does not mean to do good. I am sorry I can do nothing to stop this, or even try to stop it.

“If I could just leave, get far enough away, the command would break, but I do not know if it would just reactivate when I came back, and trying would endanger so many people. I wish I had more hope to offer. I will guard you and the princess as best I can. I hope the king does not reassign me. That is all I can promise, and I think you must know the rest by now.”

The letter ended rather abruptly. Anaisa shuddered. The tree from Trace’s dream. Barnabas’s presence there… the pieces fell into place. She’d had parts of the truth, but to have them all fit together so clearly–

She gulped. She had to tell the king. With this letter, in Trace’s handwriting, even unsigned, she had actual evidence against Barnabas. Surely it was enough to have the king investigate the existence of the cave, at the very least?

Clutching the letter tightly, she couldn’t delay. Would the king still be in his chambers, or in the meeting room?

She tiptoed up the stairs. There were muted voices in the hallway around the princess’s chambers, and she peeked around the corner. Aside from two guards who stood vigil, in the hallway stood two older nobles and one younger, and a very smug-looking Denholm was just coming out of the Princess’s chambers.

Anaisa ducked away before any of them saw her, heart beating rapidly. Would Denholm recognize her?

How could she get through to see the king? She reached up to tuck her hair under her head covering and lowered her face, moving forward in a hurried way.

She made it past the little grouping with nary a look from anyone, and nearly sighed with relief. Most people ignored servants. Two more guards stood before a door that must be the meeting room the king was in.

And, judging from his absence in the hallway, Barnabas was with him. She swallowed. She needed to get this message to the king, get him away from the man before the traitor figured out that the queen’s mental protection might not be in place!

She came to a stop before the guards, who barred the way. She looked down at the letter in her hands.

“I have an urgent letter for His Majesty,” She chanced a look at them. “It concerns Her Majesty, The Queen.”

The guards exchanged a worried glance. They must have received some instruction on the matter, for one knocked firmly at the door and announced the arrival of the message.

The king himself threw open the door, and seeing Anaisa, grew confused. She pushed the letter into King Harold’s hands and stepped away before she could catch sight of Barnabas, and he of her.

The monarch turned, beginning to open the letter as he closed the door behind him, and Anaisa gulped. She didn’t want to stay here awkwardly in sight if she wouldn’t be believed. If things should go horribly wrong.

A door opened further down the hallway, and Sapphira came out of her room, Trace on her heels. They both glanced murderously at Denholm, whose smile only grew as they passed in a hurry.

Anaisa turned her face away so that the princess wouldn’t call out her name and draw attention to her, but the young woman was so focused on getting to the king’s meeting room door that she ignored all others.

“Father, Father come out here right now!” Her voice bordered on hysteria as the guards awkwardly blocked her way, not sure whether their orders encompassed keeping her out.

The door slowly opened.