Cariun warned her not to leave the grounds while he was gone.  Nor was she to let anyone in.

“Would anyone even visit?” she asked.

She couldn’t help but think of the impaled servant on the front fence.  Surely that wasn’t normal around here.  She desperately hoped it wasn’t.  Hopefully that would horrify everyone else and keep them away.

“They might.  Rumors will likely be spreading that I have a foreigner under my care and some of the nobility may try to find out who you are and why you matter to the king.”

“What’s the harm if they’re a little curious?”

He stared at her a moment, pausing in the middle of belting his sword around his waist.  His expression was a mixture of frustration and disbelief.  Then he shook his head, his hair falling to obscure his eyes, and focused once more on settling the sword on his hip.

“You’re a guide,” he said.  “You are incredibly valuable and people will do whatever they can to possess you.  The only way you will ever be safe again is if you go somewhere that will never discover what you are.”

Home, Olive thought.  Home was such a place.

“I’m not a possession,” Olive snapped.

“With the right leverage, anyone can be owned,” he snapped back.  

“Is that what the oath of obedience is about?”

Some of the anger bled away.  He straightened his back and stepped forward to stand just a foot away, staring down at her solemnly.  Carefully, he raised a hand and lightly pinched her earlobe between thumb and forefinger.  Feeling the holes where her earrings should go.  She didn’t feel an urge to slap away his hand this time and she wasn’t sure why.

“Yes,” he said quietly.  “Oh, it’ll sound pretty enough.  There will be a ceremony and everyone will dress elegantly and offer you gifts of congratulations.  It’s all perfume to hide the smell of rot.”

“I belong to another nation,” she whispered.  “I already gave it my pledge.”

The Pledge of Allegiance counted, she thought.  She said it plenty in school.

“It doesn’t matter.  The king considers himself a rightful conqueror.”

“Did you take the oath?”

He dropped his hand with a thin smile that contained no real humor.

“I did.  Gladly.  I thought it would make a difference.”

“You thought it would make him love you.”

The words came so quickly she didn’t have time to think about it.  She regretted them immediately.  But Cariun did not seem angered by them - it was almost like he was expecting her to say such a thing.

“It is such an obvious hope, isn’t it?” he sighed, turning his back to her and walking towards the door.  “A child’s wish.  My siblings didn’t even try to warn me.  I suppose experience is the better teacher, though.”

“I’m sorry,” she said reflexively.

“Don’t be,” he snapped.  “No one will pity you for the mistakes you make, so don’t go giving your sympathy to others for their mistakes.  It’s a waste.”

He glanced back at her, his amber eyes cold once again.

“Now stay here,” he ordered.

He stalked out the front door.  He did not lock it behind him, clearly intending to let Olive make the choice of whether she would lock up or not.  This must be a test of his, she thought, sliding the deadbolt over.  To see if she believed him enough to stay put.  Well, unfortunately, she did.  She wasn’t so naive as to believe that being a foreigner in a strange world that didn’t seem to particularly like outsiders wouldn’t go badly for her, if she went wandering about.  The ring might allow her to speak the language, but it did nothing about accents - or her general ignorance as to customs and norms.

Besides. She had a manor to explore.

It wasn’t much, after she toured the entirety.  A lot of empty rooms.  Very little furniture.  The handful of rooms that were in use were comfortable, but that was all.  She found what she assumed was Cariun’s room, as the door was locked.  There was running water, which relieved Olive greatly.  She wasn’t ready to lose the little luxuries of the modern world.  The kitchen, however, concerned her.  It was stocked with food that wouldn’t require cooking, which wasn’t much.  Likely Cariun didn’t know how to cook and without a servant, he was struggling to fend for himself.  Well, that was something she could fix, Olive thought.  She’d never cooked on a wood-burning stove, but she could figure it out.  Stick with simple things at first that didn’t require precise temperature control.

The kitchen had a set of double doors leading outside.  She unlocked and pulled these open to reveal a patio with a drain.  There were tables, hooks, and a brick stove.  An outdoor kitchen.  For use in places where people butchered their own meat.  Well, this was probably something she could figure out, if she had to.  She didn’t believe she was that squeamish.  As long as the chicken was dead before she bought it it’d be okay, she hoped.

Then she glanced at the sky.  The rings were still visible in the daylight, shining brilliant white.  It hurt her eyes and she couldn’t look for more than a few seconds.  Reflected sunlight, she thought.  That must be it.  Then she scanned the sky for the sun, curious as to what time of day it was approximately.

She couldn’t find it.  Just the rings.

“What the hell?” Olive muttered.

There was no sun.  She turned in a full circle, scanning every speck of sky she could see.  There were only the rings, glowing in the sunlight from a sun that she couldn’t find.

Unnerved, Olive went back inside.  She’d ask Cariun when he returned and this time she’d make him explain.  Perhaps it was something as simple as the rings obscured the view of the sun.  In the meantime, there was more of the manor to explore.

The only other alarming discovery was the basement.  It was fashioned to hold people.  There were barred cells.  Olive didn’t stay down there long.  She didn’t want to know.  She only thought of the servant on the fence and Cariun’s warnings and hastily retreated.  She’d have to confront the realities of this world sooner or later, she thought, but she wanted to leave that for another day.  When she had her feet a bit better under her and could handle the shock and the outrage.

Besides, there was another hard thing she had to do before Cariun returned.