Her own way

Chapter 21

Kate was exhausted. Each night she tossed and turned in her sleep as nightmarish faces plagued her mind, their voices haunting her causing her to cry out in her sleep and wake believing there were others but the room with her. More often than not she would wake several times in the night and curl up in the corner of her room only to be put back in the bed when she fell back asleep. It escaped her notice that after each time she woke back in the bed there was a slumbering figure in the chair by the fire. The coldness of the room never bothered her whenever she climbed out of bed, it was comforting to her when she could feel the air nipping at her skin, and the cold hardness of the stone floor underneath her feet. The warmth of the bed, while it felt nice and soft, was not something she could relate to for a long time, and the people she was with seemed to have no purpose other than to cause her frustration or curiosity. They told her their names were Joshua but he liked to be called Josh, and the other was Lucas. Nice names she thought but refused to tell them that. Most of the time it was Josh that stayed with her, just talking about this and that and sometimes she allowed him be stay with her as she fell as sleep. When he was with her the nightmares stayed away but as soon as he left, they returned with a vengeance. During their talks, Josh told her about the kingdom she was in, and she told him about her family and her life back home. When he dared to ask about what happened to her before he found her, Kate would clam up and refuse to speak. It unnerved Josh so much that several times he found himself apologising and begging her to talk to him. She had been with him for about a week before she tried to get up and do something, anything. The first few times Josh had caught her before she had managed to leave the room but the last time she had managed to get all the way down a spiral staircase before she could go no further - a locked door at the bottom of the stairs halted her progress. Huffing in annoyance, she leaned against the door and listened out for the sounds of movement. Quite some time passed before she could hear anything, and what she did hear was not what was expected. Instead of footsteps, she heard shouting. It was not clear what was being said but it was getting louder and closer to the door. Kate frowned as she recognised Josh 's voice, it was not like him to be shouting at anyone or at least the Josh she knew wouldn't be doing that. The other voice was not one she knew but it sent chills down her spine, it was a deep male voice and from the way he was speaking, he was trying to order Josh around for one reason or another.

Fearing discovery, Kate fled back up the stairs as quickly as she could and reached the room before who ever was coming would find her. Just as she jumped on the bed, she heard the heavy sound of boots on the stone stairs moving quickly. The door opened and was slammed shut with a bang. Kate watched with wide eyes as Josh moved into the room and began pacing in front of the fire place. He didn't seem to notice her sitting there watching him as he moved, talking to himself as he went. It was not very clear what he was muttering but certain words stood out like 'father', 'King', 'Prince' and 'can't make me'. None of that made any sense to Kate so she decided to stay where she was and let Josh get it out of his system.

It was a good ten minutes before Josh calmed Dow enough to realise that Kate was in the room with him, and she was watching him. He blushed feeling embarrassed that she had just witnessed the result of rollicking to his father. It was clear that he would have some explaining to do about why he had been acting like he had, but in order to do that he needed to go further and come clean about who he really was. It had been easy enough to give her his name and tell her about the kingdom without actually saying just how he knew everything.

"I suppose you want t to know what happened?" he asked Kate, not quite managing to look her in the eye.
"You don't have to, I mean... you can keep it to yourself if it's easier." Kate stumbled a bit, not quite sure of how to react to Josh. She had not been expecting him to offer to explain anything, since she refused to say what had happened since she was kidnapped from home she had no expectations on Josh to tell her anything about pretty much anything really. Studying Josh 's face, Kate reached for his hand and gave it a little squeeze before speaking again. "Only if you want to."