My awakening was greeted with a chorus of protests form my rear. I realized that I had yet to leave this infernal chair and my butt was in major discomfort. I remember that the night before Rajaka had said something about not giving me physical torture, but I doubt he has ever had to sit in a very uncomfortable chair for as long as I have.
My eyes were so adjusted to the darkness of sleep and the room, that when the hole flickered to life in front of me I saw nothing for several seconds as my eyes adjusted to the sudden change in the surrounding light. When I regained the ability to see I saw something that made my heart beat irregular.
Keeva was standing in the doorway of her room and Rajaka was playfully gawking at her. I was too, but my gawk wasn’t meant to be playful.
I had never seen Keeva so beautiful. I had seen her after a bath before where her skin would glow with a pinkish radiance, but she always had to put back on those nasty rags. This time she was wearing an adorable blue dress that fell just above her knees. She wore snow white stockings on her legs to cover the many hideous scars that plagued her body and log sleeves covered the burns and brands on her arms. Her hair was slightly wavy and color flooded her lips though she wore nothing on them.
She gave a humorous spin to show off her new look to Rajaka, and I wished with all my heart that it was me standing there and not him.
Swiftly, he grabbed her mid-turn and pulled her close to him. I opened my mouth in shock before the rage overtook me. I shook in my chair causing the old wood to creak with the strain. Her stunning eyes were glazed over into a normal color that I knew could never be natural for her, he was bewitching her and she had no idea! She had rested her head on his shoulder and I couldn’t help but think of the time she had done that to me. Her lips parted slightly when she breathed in deeply, as if she enjoyed the smell. My rage escaped me as I retreated to a dark part of myself to wallow in self pity. I knew that what would happen next and I really didn’t think I would be able to handle it.
Abruptly, her eyes lost the glazed over look and became a violent green once more. She pushed him hard and he stumbled backward. I knew that he could have held on, but he was surprised for up till now he thought that he was just a dainty little creature of beauty, but I knew better than that.
I stopped shaking; knowing that she was still under his influence, wondering what had so suddenly pulled her out of his control. Her semi-swollen lips mouthed one word, and that word pulled me out of the pits of despair and into a field of victory. The one word was mine name…Hiram.
I let out a small yip of joy and the guards around me looked perplexed. Take that, I thought to Rajaka, she still loves me. My mood was not to be broken. I was suddenly not worried about how evil Rajaka was or how much I was starting to ache all over, but just how overjoyed I was that she was able to overcome him.
She was now taking his out-stretched hand, and walking down the hall with him, but I didn’t care. I was in high spirits and was not about to let something as small as an escort take me down. I wanted so badly to be there with her and give her a great big hug, but, of course, I couldn’t. And that sobered me up a bit.
I was now following them silently down the hallway like a stalker in the dark. She said nothing to him and I saw a twinge of defeat in his normally so confidently powerful eyes. He focused all of his power on her and she seemed to ease up slightly. I saw him flash a grin, since he knew that he had at least some control over her, and that was all he needed to be happy.
Up ahead, I saw a faint glow which meant that we were nearing those golden doors that I had one too many memories with…memories that I would rather forget. Rajaka pulled them open and pranced over to his seat and snuggled in. I noticed that Keeva was standing by the door, unsure of what to do. I mutely chuckled at Rajaka and his forgetfulness; instead of helping her, he had left Keeva all alone to deal with Cyrena.
“Come stand before me child,” I heard Cyrena say, but it sounded more like a whisper from where I stood behind the wall of glass, “now kneel.”
With those words, I was transported into one of my clearest memories.
I was standing in the same position as Keeva is in the present moment; kneeling, but I was kneeling in front of a younger Cyrena. The difference in present times and the times of my memory was hard to spot, but I had spent my years studying her for any imperfections she might have. Her eyes are now slightly duller, and her lips…not quite as full. The lines on her eyes were larger, and even though she dismisses them as laugh lines, I know that she has not smiled enough in her entire life to earn even the smallest of those kinds of lines. Her hair is not quite as gold as it used to be and she has even contemplated using coloring dye, but her pride will not allow it.
The room is a bit shinier than it is now, because she ordered it to be dulled so it would match her hair, for she has always prided herself with thoughts that she matched the brilliance of the grand room she rules over.
I was being granted the position of her left-hand man. I had not wanted it. I had seen and witnessed through people’s minds, the horror and pain that the rulers in that room created.
“Kneel before me,” she had commanded me just as she is Keeva now. I stood standing. “Kneel before me,” she tried again in a louder voice. I stood standing, straight-faced. “Kneel before me,” her voice went an octave higher, and had taken a pleading tone. She didn’t want people to think that she could be disobeyed. I stood standing.
With one, almost invisible, nod of her head, three guards advanced behind me. I easily side-stepped the first one and managed to knock out the other two with quick upper cuts before the first one came at me again. He lunged…I side-stepped. He was on the ground and I snapped his wrist, breaking it. Howling in agony, he backed up, no longer scarred of what would happen to him if he disobeyed Cyrena. I faced Cyrena.
“I will not.”
That was the last thing I was able to say before my mouth froze. My whole body froze. I was not able to move anything. My eyes were the only that was able to move so I swiveled my eyes looking for my captor, but he or she was behind me, out of my line of vision.
“Thank you Jarvis,” Cyrena said, “now bring him forward.”
I was being grabbed by ruthless and unforgiving hands. They pushed me down on my knees in front of Cyrena.
“As God as my witness, I, Cyrena Acantha Herculeno, hear by pronounce you an official high member of my court. Your word is to be obeyed by all, and the only ones above you are Rajaka and I. You may take your seat now,” she said, completing the ceremony.
The paralyzing power was gone, but a new and more pleasant power was pulling me toward the chair. As I sat down, the chair glowed and I with it. Cyrena was glowering at me.
“Of course it would pick you,” she sneered. What is that supposed to mean, I thought.
‘It means that she is jealous of you.’
I jumped in surprise. I glanced around to see if anyone else had heard that low, silky voice, but no one seemed to even notice. What, I thought.
‘I am a powerful chair. I can tell you anything you could ever want to know. She is jealous because I will only help you if I like you, and it took her a very long time to win over my brother.’ It chuckled at some inside joke, and the sound was like an angel’s music. ‘I like you, because you don’t want to hurt people, like everyone else who have ever sat on me.’
I plummeted back into the real world to see Keeva glowing and it took me a second to realize that it was the chair…the same chair that had picked me too. Cyrena seemed delighted this time, (unlike when the chair picked me), that Keeva was chosen by one of the chairs of Gwydyr.
She continued to explain about the chairs and their power and then said something that made me livid.
“You must be very special, it took four hundred years for this one to like me and none of them have ever shown any preference besides that.”
What!!!!!!! Had she been so embarrassed by me that she had forgotten all about me?
I sat there quietly for a minute, reflecting on her statement. It was true that I had caused her a lot of humiliation and agony, but I never wished for her to hate me so much that she had practically erased me from history.
Keeva was also lost in a memory and when she returned, all of the fire had left her eyes. She was sad, I noticed. She had that same look when she was telling me her background about her father and mother.
Cyrena didn’t notice, for the only change in Keeva’s expression was her eyes, which I had grown accustomed to reading, but Rajaka noticed, with his ability to sense her sudden change in her mood.
Rajaka was helping her to escape from my mother’s on-going interrogation by introducing Keeva to the garden. Cyrena was ecstatic; because there is nothing more she would want than her favorite son to be with the most powerful female vampire she has ever seen, and one that the chairs like at that!
The garden was typically a place that you take your lover to for a little privacy. It was even nicknamed the “Garden of Secrets,” because no one really knows everything that goes on in there. I had a bad feeling about this.