It had been five days since Neriah had met with Lyle and a decision she believed was not supposed to be a hard one seemed too disturbing to make. Like he had said he would, he had sent her another letter.
He seemed to know the perfect time to send it to her. In the new letter, he had written the place where they could meet again. Telling her that he would be waiting, and whenever she was ready she would find him there.
Her studying with Eliza was going smoothly too. The lady still seemed to have some resentment toward Neriah, but was wise enough to not show it. And as long as she was in no way disrespectful, Neriah did not care for her resentful heart.
Although she preferred to keep her distance, Neriah had somewhat become closer to little prince Barni who had turned it into a habit to visit her everyday. He claimed he just liked the atmosphere in the Kadan-Rana palace, but Neriah could tell that the actual reason for his frequent visits was because he was searching for Riri.
For this, Neriah felt a tiny tug of guilt in her chest anytime she saw the young prince silently looking around while pretending to read his book.
After her string of lies to Aria and Riri, the little fairy had kept her distance from the entire residents of the castle. Except for herself and Aria, Riri no longer talked to anyone else. She never even showed face if there was someone else around, she just remained in the room that she shared with Aria. This was the reason why Barni never got to meet her.
The twins on the other hand had visited her two days again, and it took her a long time to realize that they were trying to show her that they were learning her language and were getting better at it so they could communicate with her better... At least they believed they were getting better. Their words were still gibberish to Neriah.
The day her husband had silently gifted her with flowers for the very first time, he had not returned to her that night and she felt the cold even more that night. It was the night of the next day that he returned and she laid in bed silently, pretending to be asleep as she always did.
And unintentionally, she waited...
Waited for his hand to pull her closer to his warmth, but it didn’t come. And it only made the cold reach deeper into her bones. But then sometime around midnight, she still had not found sleep, that was when she felt his hand encircle her waist and pulled her frame closer to his and like finally having a warm bowl of soup after being being out in the snow for too long, Neriah felt the calming warmth creep up and spread to every part of her body and she curled herself and at last found sleep.
He held her to sleep like that in the nights that followed. It seemed their relationship only existed at night, for everytime sheep awoke, he was gone from her side and she would only feel his warmth next to her when the night had come again.
It seemed he was doing exactly as she had told him to. He was leaving her alone.
""I am crown princess Neriah, it is nice to meet you."" Neriah said the words and stared at the little man with hopes in her eyes. Eliza had come and gone and left her with an assignment. To study and memorize the different ways of greetings in different situations and occasions.
A task Neriah really did not fancy. She could not believe she was receiving assignments at her age!
""Nice to meet you too princess, I am prince Barni."" The little man said with a bright smile, revealing dimples that resembled that of his eldest brother, causing Neriah’s mind to wander for a second but she quickly shook her head and wiped his thoughts out.
They had wandered together, with her repeating the words she had learned and him correcting her in places she was wrong. They had wandered without direction and ended up at the training ground. It was empty, she had heard earlier that Barak had gone out with the knights. Maybe that was why there was no one on the training ground that evening.
She and Barni decided to rest there. So they sat on a wooden bench and continued practicing.
"Does that mean I got it?!" She asked and Barni nodded, even gingin her a thumbs up and Neriah felt so fulfilled by receiving his kind gesture.
"Sister, you are very smart. You will learn tragish completely in no time." He encouraged her and she blushed for he called her smart.
"It is just that I did not wish to learn it previously. I would have learnt it and spoken it so fluently you would not know I am not an indigene of Trago." She boasted and Barni just nodded as he listened attentively.
"I tell you, in a few weeks, I will be able to speak and understand every word." She continued but then a sudden laughter erupted from somewhere, disturbing the peace of the field. It was a very annoying laughter to Neriah because she was in the process of telling Barni about all the many other languages she could speak.
She turned and saw Rakima and a maid; her personal maid, maybe. It was Rakima laughing like a hyena.
Neriah heard her saying some things in tragish to her maid, laughing even louder the more she spoke. It was clear she was talking about her, she did not hide that fact, but what pissed Neriah was the fact that she could not understand fully what they were saying but she could bet ten lifetimes that Rakima just called her dumb! She was sure of it, she was really sure the lady just called her dumb!