She gazed vacantly out the window from where she lay on her bed, she hadn't moved in hours. The Bandages around her torso needed to be re-done but she didn't have the energy to get up. From this spot she could see a line of grey on the horizon, a mere suggestion of the wall of mountains that had caged her for so long. She missed her view of the mountains that she had at the Keep, she missed her pillows and cushions and her silver strings. She missed the cold oblivion of the shadows, the kindless steel that ran through her veins and sucked away any trace of who she was and what she felt. She missed the feeling of becoming death and forgetting her own name. She missed yielding all she was to the death and void and being empty and full of air and steel. She missed being nothing and no one but shadow and mist.
Distantly she heard a door open and close and her maid speaking quietly with someone. Her maid's hurried steps soon tracked for the door to the hall and then the door opened and shut again. Her bedroom door opened but she didn't bother to look up at the stranger as they strode towards the bed. A snarl, the stranger snarled at her. She looked up and to her shock she found, strong and fit standing before her, a fae warrior. He was indeed snarling at her. The thought came to her that he might recognize her, scent her, but what did it matter. She slumped again and the Warrior who now stood at the foot of her bed growled. She slid a glare towards him and found him glaring in return. She took a small throwing knife out of her belt and threw it at him. The throw was undisciplined, but she wouldn't be killing a fae warrior with a throwing dagger anyway. And indeed he caught it and threw it right back, it nicked her cheek and a bit of hot blood rose.
"Your King says I am to train you, girl." The condescension in the tone makes her stiffin.
"Who are you to command the King's beast?" A daring thing to say to a fae warrior, even when all fae or magic wielders had Iron tattooed and branded on their backs to keep their magic repressed. A daring thing to say to anyone with so many muscles, but she was the king's beast, and she could say whatever she wanted, as long as she did what the king said. The warrior stilled his nostrils flaring, it looked like he was smelling something.
"I am Aspen Omnolvo, Bound Warrior to Queen Aine of Dianais, my Queen has sent me here to speak with the King." She stiffened, He was one of Queen Aine's warriors, fae warriors, with no iron brands or marks. "But I didn't expect that I would find Anatia Nalcothy." And he knew who she was.