"Princess, are you alright," Lifar asked with her face full of worry.
"I'm alright," Larisa assured her.
Lifar pushed her stool closer to the bed and leaned in as she started complaining, "Princess you have no idea how scared I was when I was informed that you were hurt, I wanted to attend to you but female servants are not allowed close to the prince's tent, I could only come here after you summoned me, princess please don't scare me like that again," said Lifar in a pitiful manner as if she has been bullied.
"I won't scare you again, now tell me what happened when I was asleep," Larisa urged.
Lifar shrugged, "What else could happen, the Prince was very angry, I heard he has locked up the Misses from the Wormwood family as the main instigators to your accident, they will appear before the king tomorrow to receive punishment," She leaned in closer to whisper, "I heard the king was extremely furious, people say they would be lucky to walk away arrive tomorrow."
Larisa fell silent, she may be quite most of the time and rarely talks to people, but that doesn't mean she is stupid and can't read emotions. She has lived her whole life being feared and hated but the masses. She has seen every face a person could make, whether it is the pure indifference of Consort Ari, the hatred in the eyes of the family members of her dead study partners, the fear of the palace maids every movement when she is around, she liked to believe that she has seen it all.
When she was riding her horse with Selah and her sisters she could clearly feel that the atmosphere between them wasn't right. Selah had moved forward just before her hose had gone crazy, it seems that the relationship between Selah and her sisters isn't good. Selah was probably their target.
Lifar had told her before that, children born from concubines are not very well liked by their family members, she had always just taken it as baseless rumours, after all, how can someone hate their own siblings? Selah must not have ridden a horse too often in her life, what if it was her horse that had went crazy?
Larisa didn't let her thoughts wander too much, but one thing was for certain. She wouldn't let Selah suffer for a crime she didn't commit, friends are supposed to protect each other in times of trouble, right?
Lifar had started talking about other irrelevant gossip when Larisa cut her off, "Lifar, help he back to my tent,"
"Princess, you are still injured." Lifar objected.
"Where will brother stay then if I take over his tent?"
"You can't be moved too much with your leg Princess, the prince can stay at your tent-----"
Larisa sharply cut her off, "Nonsense! How can such a thing be done." Larisa scolded her.
"Why not princess, it's not like your tent in dirty, it's very clean," Lifar still urged despite being reprimanded by Larisa.
Larisa could only sigh, Lifar wasn't a specially trained palace maid so she could understand her ignorance concerning some things that where common knowledge to those in the upper echelons. She met Lifar two years ago when she went to visit her mother's mausoleum. She was being chased by some nasty people, her guards saved her but she said she had nowhere to go, Maynard suggested taking her back to be her maid, so it's only been two years? I was like she had known Lifar for way longer than that but it's only been two years?
Larisa could only explain further to her, "Brother is the only heir to the throne so he is always very well protected, wherever he stays should have well organized security, that's why he in not allowed to just move around as he pleases."
Lifar nodded her head in understanding before asking, "Then can't his guards just follow him there,"
"They can but, moving the guards from one post to another takes effort and time. In that period of time the guards are not very alert since they are getting used to a new environment and defence is very weak which can leave loop holes that the enemy can take advantage of to attack."
"Princess is so knowledgeable," Lifar said as she looked at Larisa with shining eyes.
Larisa just laughed, she has been studying for years now. She grew up with no one her age to play around with, Maynard would escort her to the library every morning but that's it, he was the prince's study partner so he was equally as busy as the prince himself. Her teacher would only teach her for a few hours in the morning and then he would leave too.
For the rest of the day, it would be her and her alone. So she has spent years after years of just reading each every book she could get her hands on, if she was one thing then it would be knowledgeable. She can even declare that she has read one thirds of the books in the royal library and that's saying something, since the library could be compared to two palaces fused together.
Larisa urged again, "Come on now, we need to leave," she said as she tried to get off the bed.
Lifar panicked and got up from the embroidered stool and lightly pushed her back down on the bed. "Princess, I know you don't like it but it's too dark outside, please let me go and get a sedan for you to take you back." Lifar offered.
"Quickly go and get it then,"
Larisa let out a sigh of relief at finally being back into her own comfort zone, laid down after taking a bath with Lifar's help and kept on staring at the top of the canopy on her bed, she had slept for so long that she thought she wouldn't sleep for a while. But drowsiness soon overtook her and her eyes fluttered closed as she entered into a dream scape.
Larisa was surrounded by complete darkness, she slowly walked around the darkness.
"Hello, is anyone there," she called out into the dark as she moved around.
"Hello, is someone there," someone creepily mimicked her,
Larisa turned around, looking for the source of the voice. She calls out again and the voice mimicked her again, the voice was similar to her own but sounded a bit evil. She kept on walking despite the fear she felt, she came across a figure of a woman. She was sitting on the floor with her back facing Larisa.
The woman was dressed in a royal blue and purple dress, her black hair was flowing in waves behind her back, she had a very weird looking weapon in her hand stained in blood. She was wiping the blood with a handkerchief while she kept mattering incoherent speech under her breath.
"Hello," Larisa called out to her hesitantly, the voice that kept on mimicking her was heard again from the woman but her lips never stop muttering.
Larisa looked down at the woman in-front of her, she didn't look up at her and just kept wiping the weapon. She recognized the weapon from a text she had read. The Urumi, sword whips with great flexibility that could be placed around the waist as a belt. It was a weapon that was only used in the infamous Red Glabella kingdom.
Red Glabella's people were rumoured to have strange powers, every power had an accompanying weapon and the Urumi was a weapon for people with the chaos power.
A person born with the chaos power is prone to violence and is short tempered, if they can't properly control their power, they could go mad and go crazy with blood lust. So while it was the strongest power to be born with, it was also the most dangerous since it was near demonic.
Larisa looked at this the woman who kept her head lowered and kept on mumbling, she slowly squatted down so as not to startle the woman, she lowered her head to look at the face when the woman suddenly looked up directly into her eyes.
Madness, Larisa felt out of breath and utterly confused. The eyes that stared into hers where like a dark abyss enveloped in madness, but it was undeniable that the eyes belonged to her and so did the face. Yes, the strange woman was Larisa herself.
Larisa fell on her butt as she tried to move away from the strange sight but found that her feet seemed to be glued to the ground. The woman threw the Urimi away as she moved on all fours towards her, Larisa tried to move away but to no avail.
"You are me and I am you," recited the woman who was Larisa herself as she moved slowly closer. She reached in-front of her and touched her cheeks so their similar red eyes met, the woman's eyes shone a bright red making Larisa unable to tear away her gaze or close her eyes.
"You are me and I am you," again the woman said.
"You are me and I am you," Larisa found herself subconsciously ricing the strange chant.
The woman gave a creepy smile and gently hugged Larisa and kept repeating the chant to which Larisa mimicked, something kept on trying to start flowing inside her, like a once dry river wanting to receive rain and fill itself again.