Soul of Magic (Soul of Magic Book 1)

EIGHTEEN

Richard took in a deep breath as his eyes flung wide open. He was disoriented; his eyes or mind unable to focus on anything even as he looked around. But he eventually got himself righted after a while and realized then was that he was laying on a bed, a real bed with posts and all.

"What the hell!" he groaned as he got to his feet and got another surprise. He was in his room back at Cyrian. It was raining and the dark clouds outside casted a big shadow in the room. But there was no doubt about it, the prince was really back home.

Just then, Aegan walked into the room, two servants holding a candelabrum each coming in behind him. "Thank God you're finally awake, Richard," said the old lord with obvious relief in his eyes when he saw the prince on his feet. "You gave the whole kingdom quite a scare, you know."

To say that the prince was confused would be an understatement, he was utterly perplexed. The last thing he remembered was being in a fight with a very strange boy in the forest when his head was suddenly invaded by a swarm of voices before he suddenly fell to the ground and blacked out. But now he was back in Cyrian and that made no sense at all to him. "What happened?" he asked, unable to keep the confusion out of his voice.

"You've been unconscious for almost a day, your Highness," replied Aegan and deepening Richard's confusion the more. "Your men went down into the forest when you didn't return back to camp at the expected time and found you lying unconscious next to a deer you had killed with your dagger. We still don't know what knocked you out. They tried to rouse you but all their efforts were to no avail. They brought you back to Cyrian where we've been doing everything in our capacity to rouse you, the people even held a vigil for your sake. I can say it is only by the grace of the Creator and the intervention of his angels that you've returned to us."

Everything still wasn't making any sense to Richard. For one, he remembered that the deer had gotten away from him. Second, his dagger had broken during his fight so there was no way it should have ended up in the belly of a deer; or anything else’s for that matter.

However, what made him most unsettled was that Aegan hadn't even made any indication as to the presence of any of the duo that he’d met in the forest. "What about the witch?" he asked in an attempt to steer the conversation to that area. Perhaps the old lord had forgotten to mention her in his excitement of seeing him awake, he thought.

"What witch?" was what Aegan returned, looking at Richard as if he'd just asked if the Creator had come in person to visit at his bedside.

"There was a witch in the forest, Aegan," the prince reaffirmed, trying very hard not to give in to the frustration building up inside him at not understanding, "She’s young, dark-haired, and she was with a blonde-haired boy about my age."

"Your men found evidence of no one in that vicinity," the old lord replied, quickly soothing Richard as he saw him about to burst out in anger. "Look Richard, you've been out for a while. It's only normal for you to have a little illusion problem, confusing the dreams you had with reality. Don't worry, just relax and I'll go tell the physician to come check you up. You'll be right as rain again, your Highness, I promise."

But the prince knew without a doubt that he wasn't confusing reality. The witch really was in the forest and she had done something to him. And that was when it hit him, he did have an evidence to convince Aegan that he hadn't imagined the scenario in the forest; the wound he sustained during the fight.

However, as he lifted up his palm to show Aegan his wound, he realised that it wasn't there anymore; and not that it was healed or anything like that. It was as if the injury had never happened, there was not even a scar to show and Richard began to question his own lucidity. Perhaps he really had imagined the whole ordeal, he considered.

But thing is, he could still remember the event vividly. He could see every portion of the witch's face, remember every detail of her eyes even as they widened in either surprise or fear when she saw him, the way the ivy seemed to creep round the pentagram on her chain, the look of utter hatred the blonde-haired boy had shot him as they battled. There was no way all that could have been a figment of his imagination.

Unfortunately, Richard had no way to convince even himself that he was right and that frustrated him more than anything. Asking Aegan and the servants to vacate the room, he turned and looked out of his window to the land before him. If there was something he was convinced of, it was that he would not be able to rest easy until he had cleared up all his confusion. The big question though was how.