Anja

I gasped and opened my eyes, the dreams returning to the darker parts of my thoughts. I muttered under my breath in the early morning mist as the canopy of trees above me whispered with me.

It was just a dream, it was seven years ago. You're safe now. No one is going to hurt you. I tell myself this until the sun has risen enough to awaken the boy lying beside me.

I shut my eyes and bit my lip to refrain from looking down at Aleksei. My saviour. My friend probably didn't return the feelings I felt towards him. He was only three years older than me. I had the right not to tell him because I was afraid that if I did, he would say no because of my position in politics. My royal bloodline.

I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. "Hey, wake up sleepy." Aleksei yawned and I watched breathlessly as his lips pulled apart and then came together again. The top lip is the tiniest bit more swollen than his lower.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked, grabbing my chin and adjusting my face so he could inspect my features in the early morning sunlight. My pulse fluttered in my veins as I tried not to think too much of his touch.

"I just had a nightmare," I said softly, trying not to make a big deal out of it. His face darkened as we both recollected what happened. The day we met.

I'd been tied up in a corner, I was gagged and alone. The floor was cold and there was an icy wind that was slowly crawling under my nightgown.

I'd heard voices as the kidnappers and murderers neared the small cottage. I froze and tried to pretend to sleep. But I didn't manage it in time. They walked in and saw a small seven-year-old girl sitting in a room, tied up, having a small fit of terror.

My breathing hitched and scraped uselessly up and down my throat as they advanced, images of them killing an innocent family that raised me for two years rushed through my head.

I began to cry. They laughed at that sound; the distraught, wailing noises that escaped my mouth. Making it harder to breathe properly. One of them picked me up by my hair, yanking it so hard I screamed.

I managed not to scream when they beat me. One of them even managed to strip me down to my underclothes, biting down on my legs so hard they bled.

I didn't scream when Aleksei slit the first one's throat. I was too exhausted by then. I watched blankly as he killed them mercilessly, cutting their throats and stabbing them in the heart. Slashing their wrists so that only the especially cruel ones who beat me, bit me and cut me died screaming. The ones who watched died soundlessly.

When Aleksei finally managed to get to my side, all I could do was sleep. The peaceful expressions on the dead men's faces before me were gratifying in a way that no seven-year-old should experience.

I blinked away the tears in my eyes and cast away the shell of memories of a tormented seven-year-old girl. A shell I no longer wanted or needed.

Aleksei grabbed my hand and we ventured down the other side of the hill we trudged up yesterday. Our goal was still the same as six years ago when I told Aleksei and his uncle, who cared for him, who I was. When Aleksei promised to get me home to the palace.

Six years ago and Aleksei still hasn't made a sign of wavering from his intent to get to the destination we made as children.

"We have to walk at least thirty miles before sundown." I watched him as he walked ahead. Jumping over a fallen tree trunk and whistling a tune his uncle taught us.

He turned back and held his hand out to me, his auburn hair highlighted in sunlight. "You coming?" He said.

We had barely a day till I was 'home'.