Someone was in her chambers.
Ro sat up in bed, and suddenly, her head swam. A sharp intense pain immediately flared up. Ro opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Her throat and chest tightened. Her head pounded with a convulsing headache that had not been there before. She grabbed her throat as she tried to breathe. Through the pain, she tried to see in the darkness of her room and was able to make out a familiar slender figure.
"Arrghhhh!"
She clutched her chest as more pain shot through her body, making her unable to think straight.
The pain grew stronger. And then, there was nothing.
__________
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Heartbeats. Her heartbeat!
Ro's eyes flew open and she gasped. The sound was raw and desperate as she sat up, her hands reaching for her neck. She started inspecting her body, wanting to search for the source of the pain she had just felt. For the proof of what had just happened…
But she found nothing.
She sat there, drenched in sweat and her chest heaving as she breathed. She could have sworn she felt her life force being ripped out of her. Even the severe pain she had experienced. She had never been through anything like that.
The pain was gone. Completely gone.
She flung the bed covers aside and got up from the bed so quickly that the room spun. She collapsed to the floor at the sudden dizziness and remained there, trying to get rid of the disorienting feeling. Polished wooden walls and fabrics of a luxurious cabin welcomed her. A stark difference from her bed chamber.
Ro's eyes widened. Where was she? This wasn't her sleeping chamber. She remembered going to sleep in her quarters at the governor's estate.
And then... someone had been there. In her room.
The pain. The suffocating, crushing pain…
Ro's thoughts came to a stop as a disturbing realization greeted her.
She didn't know why, but the thought came with absolute certainty, and yet here she was, breathing. Ro's hands trembled as she brough them up to her face, inspecting them. Her life force flowed through her veins. But she could sense the slight tremors that made her essence quiver. It was supposed to be steady.
The pain had been too sharp to just be a dream. She really had died. But how come she was here, breathing, alive, and aware?
'I should be dead. I know I should be dead.'
A gentle sway made her stomach lurch. The room tilted slightly, and Ro grabbed onto the side of the bed for support.
There was only one place she had experienced this sensation before… A ship.
How was she on a ship?!
A knock shattered her thoughts.
"My Lady?" A voice, female and unfamiliar, came through the door.
Ro froze. Silent. That voice did not belong to any servant in the governor's estate. Most especially, no one there referred to her this way.
"My Lady?" The voice came again, more insistent.
Ro responded, her voice hoarse, "Yes?"
She forced herself to stand up and make her way to the door just as it gently swung open. Her pulse quickened at the small crowd outside her cabin. She clutched her hands to her chest.
A number of women stood before her. One of them, a young woman stood at the forefront. She was slightly taller than Ro and was dressed in a thick, but free-flowing royal blue gown identical to what the other women wore. Hers stood out with a gold band around the sleeve of her upper arm. A bundle of dark brown curls cascaded down the sides of her face, untamed.
These weren't servants from the governor's estate. Ro shuddered. She was taller than most nymphs, but the people who stood before her were not of her race. They slightly towered over, weren't so slender, and their features were sharper and stronger than any she'd seen before.
"May I help you?" she blurted out.
The woman smiled, her brown eyes gentle. "I am Ester. Welcome to Lispa." She gestured, stretching out an arm to subtly introduce the other women. "We're here to serve you."
"Oh..." Ro stepped back, shock rendering her limbs numb as the women brushed past her, entering the cabin.
This wasn't possible. She had been in Erzi, in her bed, dying. And now she was... here? On a ship bound for the very nation she had once planned on escaping to?
The hands of the servants that bathed and tended to her were warm, solid, and real. Even though it was the first time in years anyone had tended to her with such care, Ro felt every sensation with startling clarity.
She was alive.
But how?
The servants moved swiftly, nimble on their feet despite their big frames. Ro tried to make sense of what was happening. For the last time, she reached within. Her essence swirled within her slender frame. Turbulent and unstable. And a nymph's core never lied.
Even her body knew she had just woken up from something so traumatizing that her soul was still trying to recover from it.