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Maybe everything was just coincidence and Maris was just a Sealian who needed a job.

Valda took a deep breath and decided that she wanted to stretch her legs and get some exercise. Maybe going outside to the garden to get some fresh air and sunlight would help with her overthinking.

“Would you mind taking me outside? I would like to get some sun in.”

Maris’s hand pulled on hers again, stopping her from rubbing them together as she did moments ago. Maris squeezed the meaty part of her palm and Valda shivered at the sweet caress.

“Sounds perfect,” Maris said, standing along side Valda and exiting the room.

7

It had been three weeks since her mother left. Despite knowing that the journey to Harmonia was long, Valda couldn’t help but feel anxious. She knew her mother was guarded, Valda trusted Kayden with her life, but always felt uneasy when she wasn’t the one taking care of her mother.

She had sent a letter to Harmonia, asking either Kayden or Leida to let her know they had made it safe and sound, but of course it would take days before she received a response. In the meantime, she would have to wait. But Valda had never been good at waiting.Even as a little girl, she detested being told to wait, to have patience. Even when the Oracle told her she would meet her mate on her twenty-fifth birthday, Valda hated the fact that she needed to wait nine years to see her…

In her mother’s absence, Arwin was in charge, which she thought was completely preposterous. Valda wasn’t able to see, but she was able to make good decisions for the wellbeing of her kingdom. Right?

Arwin always made the important decisions, but Valda has seen how hot headed he was. He would rather kill first and ask questions later.

Every time she called for him, he was never in the castle. To her surprise, he was gone, off to train or off on a mission that she knew nothing about.

For being the high commander of the army and ranking above him, she sure was unaware of her army’s movements and operation.

She didn’t like being left out, as if she was useless, no longer fit to rule. She couldn’t even do the basic things, her mother needed to appoint a nanny for her. But not just any nanny, a Sealian.

Valda wanted to believe this was her mother’s way of showing her that she didn’t hate Sealians and wished to include them in the castle. At the same time, Maris was a young Sealian who Valda met the same day the Oracle claimed she would meet her mate. Or was it the day after?

It was all a blur in Valda’s mind, and it drove her mad!

She thought that maybe in a week, she wouldn’t need Maris around, but she did, and that infuriated her. The first week she was trying to get used to her new reality. Of getting used to walking in Oberon Castle’s long stone halls with her hand touching the wall while the other held onto Maris’s shoulder. A week of hitting her knee against unknown objects. Of snarls, growls, and angered screams of frustration. Of throwing things across the room in annoyance. A week of yelling at Maris for not helping her the way she thought was the right way.

And when she screamed and yelled at Maris, she felt sorry for mistreating her right away. Though she did ask for forgiveness, and promised herself to take control of her emotions, rage ravaged through her.

Valda was growing tired of clumsily burning her hand with the coffee, of trying to get dressed without help. Of relearning, reimagining.

Of waking up in the middle of the night only to find the same darkness consuming her, day in and day out. She silently cried as non-Asclepius worshipers brought from outside the castle told her they didn’t know what happened, how they could help, or how to treat her blindness. This healing was beyond them, they repeated what she already knew. She needed an Asclepius Worshipper; a blessed one.

She felt utterly useless.

She was tired of going to bed, crying herself to sleep thinking she was alone, but Valda knew damn well she wasn’t. She knew Maris was somewhere in her room, watching her. She could only imagine the look of pity. Valda, Princess of the Sky Kingdom, crying herself to sleep.

Pathetic…

Valda had heard Maris whispering with the other one, Melvian, the one who brought them food.

She isn’t well. She is weak. She needs time. She will be fine.

Valda tried to ignore it, but she just couldn’t accept that she had fallen so low as to need around-the-clock help.

She would wake up, and Maris would be there to help her look her sharpest. She would be there to help her with her breakfast. The quiet conversations of the day would spill out of them like a river into the ocean. It felt natural, like old souls. Like they had done this before.

But before the conversation could get deeper, either Maris or Valda would cut it off, stand, move about, and get angry at her own clumsiness.

Valda never opened her eyes. What for? The ability to look into Maris’s eyes, to see if she was the mate the Oracle spoke for was taken away from her.

All of this felt like a curse.

The second day after the accident, Valda tried to find some resemblance of a vision within her. But all she heard within the darkness were surprised and terrified gasps followed by whispers of disgust from people inside the castle.