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I sit there for ten minutes then look at the pile of books that lay on my desk begging for my attention. As to abide, I rise from the feather cushions and glide across the floor to the small desk. The desk shines cherry beneath all my notes and books. I make a mental note to clean up the assortment of papers. In reality I know I will not do it until I leave this room and return back to my original room. I place a gentle hand against the matching chair before glancing around the room. It is apparent now that I have not just covered the table but I shrouded the room in piles of half open books and papers that vaguely remind me of the Healer’s own room.

I shudder and notice a book, Poisons and Antidote Anthology on my pillow. 

It is a lovely book my father insisted I learn. In reality I know it is his roundabout way of trying to protect me. He wants me to be able to differentiate poisons and find antidotes. I have already taken classes with Healer Sapt many years ago, due to these classes by the time I was fifteen I built a great immunity to many poisons and a majority of snake venoms.

I rush across the room until I stand by my bedside, my eyebrows furrowing as I reach for the open pages. I pick up the book with a roughness I never showed to anyone except for myself. I flip through the pages with ferocity as my eyes scan the beautiful plants and luminescent shades they came in before I slam the book shut and throw it into my bed. I had enough of cyanide, nightshade, and hemlock. The facts we’re already in my head dancing like daydreams and possibilities how people could so easily kill me. Maybe I was splitting into two, or maybe it was my head that was too full of ideas.

I sigh stumbling back to the window where I slowly sit on the sill this time laying my head back against the stone wall.

My uncertainty of who my guard would be was slowly eating away at me, making me doubt Jonathan’s abilities. One by one the possibilities of tomorrow trickle into my head helping me to deduce just who could last until the final round. These dozens of ideas keep me from paranoia that someone wants me dead but I still hate the feeling that remains. 

I hate this. I hate feeling so tense and helpless in my own home, in my own kingdom which I was meant to control. 

I take a slow breath and close my eyes. Everything is calm, quiet, and serene as I listen to my own breathing, and the steadying of my erratic heart.

“Calm,” I breath to myself. “Xlkn” I whisper in the language of the Mountains.

There is only darkness now as I sit with my eyes close and the gentle wave of sleep washing over me. Peaceful calm and even if my world is just darkness I know it isn’t scary, it is intriguing, enthralling. I slowly drift to sleep, the sound of voices reaching my ears even though I know no one is truly with me. 

‘He’s going to get stronger,’  a woman’s voice says in a gentle whisper. 

‘Now that the children are together.’ A man finishes with warmth.

‘Will the warrior teach him?’ A young girl giggles. 

‘I taught you.’ A boy with bravado retorts.

I inhale deeply reaching out into the darkness. “Who are you?”

‘Gods?" a little girl says but she sounds unsure of the word. 

‘Deities.' An old man adds. 

A woman laughs, her voice smooth, gentle and familiar. ‘We are none of these.’ She giggles.

I feel tears well up in my eyes as I run toward the voice. “Mom!” I reach out into the void but no one is there to recieve my hand. 

‘Oh child,’ She says with sympathy, ‘I can no longer help you,’ She truly sounds in pain. ‘But the Dire will help you.’ She says gently, ‘The Dire will show you.’

“Mom,” I scream, reaching farther. “Don’t leave me!”

A bright fire ignites in front of me, wrapping me in it’s warm luminescent light. A hue of orange and red cover my skin but this is still not enough to show me just where the voices are coming from. 

‘I will never leave you.’ My mother reassures me in a voice that is pained by the very thought of leaving. ‘You are the fire of our souls, and through you we live on for millenniums.’ She pauses her voice in my ear. ‘One day you will too.’

I jerk awake gasping as warm tears run down my cheeks. I gasp again finding I can't breathe at all as I turn to the overcast sky. I take a slow breath trying to steady my breathing with sheer will. It isn’t working.

“I'm okay,” I gasp. “We’re okay, I’m okay.” I take slower, deeper breaths relieved when air finally finds its way into the depths of my lungs.

“Just a dream,” I reassure myself. “You can breathe.”

I take in a steady stream of air as I look out the window. I notice a gentle breeze that matched my own breaths. Slow and steady now.

I take one more breath, looking down to the ready merchants who are scurrying from one tent to another kicking up grass and dirt as they drag their carts across the plains.

I rub my eyes looking at the curious spectators that stroll by the newly formed rings where grass was raked away. They were most likely trying to decide which warriors to bet on based on their speed and agility in such a small space.

I take another breath, finally able to breathe comfortably as I watch everything from above.

I was told there are two hundred contestants who are more than sure they will win. There are a total of four rings all having only a diameter of about thirty feet, because of this there was planned to be a total of a hundred fights, the top one hundred warriors remaining for the next day. 

I can't help but glance at the gray tent that still stood untouched. I desperately wanted to know how good this boy was and if he would even make it past the first round. I secretly hoped he would even if that meant he had to fight Jonathan

Will the warrior teach him? The voice said. Who was the warrior and just what did it mean?   

My eyes trail from the tent to a small group of girls who are speaking to two tall warriors. A girl gestures an arm to the tent while the others seem to burst into laughter. 

I steadily reach for the spyglass that is by my foot and lift it to my eye.

The girls wave their hands in exaggerated motions toward the tent before straightening their dresses or making sure their braided hair was still in place. I wonder what they were even talking about that could possibly be so funny, so funny that they could in fact mock the warrior within the peaceful violet tent. 

His tent is nothing compared to the other tents which had busy warriors running in and out, their arms full of shining weapons, crisp clothes and splintering firewood. The boy’s tent did not even have gray smoke drifting out of the top like every other tent. I wonder if the boy even has a fire pit.

I gradually close my spyglass as I release a frustrated sigh. 

I tilt my head to the side inspecting the small tents that line the outside of the castle’s tall dove gray walls. I am truly surprised my father was able to gather so many participants and spectators in such a short amount of time. Many had come to claim they were the strongest, while others wanted the reward that came with participating, then there were a few who came just to test out their strength to see if it was on par with other participants. 

I watch them all wondering if the one who wanted me dead is also participating. Then I wonder, what is this boy fighting for?

My mother’s voice returns to me in a whisper.  The Dire will show you

Who was the Dire?