Thanks to all those who reviewed!

So yeah… things I wasn't sure of (i.e. layout of the Palace, climate, etc.) I just guessed and/or made it up. Call it artistic license.

The next day, after waking and dressing in the same plain black dress, Lilah attempted to open her door, only to find it locked. After jiggling the handle for a few seconds, she realized that it was futile and stopped. Obviously, Lord Rahl knew when he wanted her to leave her room, and that time had not yet come. Lilah simply lay back down on her bed, staring at the ceiling, imagining that she was back at home.

She pictured what Hannah looked like that day. Prettier than usual, Lilah decided, which would be very pretty indeed, as Hannah was widely regarded as a great beauty. Her honey-blonde hair would be in a long braid, but wisps would escape to frame her tan, freckled face. Her blue eyes would be sparkling, and she would be wearing her green dress, which Lilah liked best of all of Hannah's dresses. Hannah would have woken earlier than Lilah, of course, because Hannah always did. She would bounce into their room when it was time for Lilah to wake, and cheerily kiss Lilah on her cheek.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," she would cajole, and Lilah would slap at her, eyes still closed. Hannah would laugh, and then Freya would call for Lilah to rise and do her chores.

Lilah shut her eyes tightly and tried to make her vision a reality. Tears leaked from her eyes as she tried to picture the most minute details of her home, so that maybe they would materialize when she looked again. She was so close that she could almost smell the bread baking…

…when Ani entered the room and said softly,

"Miss Lilah?"

Lilah almost cried out with grief. Instead, she took a deep, shuddering breath, and sat up. She squeezed her eyes closed for one more moment, before opening them.

"Yes, Ani?" she asked, feeling so very, very tired. Ani held a tray in her hands. On it sat a mug of water, a piece of bread, and a piece of cheese.

"Lord Rahl commanded that you are to have breakfast and then report to him in his study immediately." Lilah sighed tiredly.

"Of course he did," she said, taking the tray from the smaller girl's hands. She set it down next to her on her bed and ate quickly. Brushing the crumbs from her dress and draining the mug of water, Lilah stood.

"Well then," she said, and Ani led the way out of the room. Lilah's guard escorted (dragged) her down the hall to Rahl's study. Lilah asked the guard when she would be allowed to see her father. He said nothing, did nothing, did not even indicate that he had heard her. She managed to keep her balance as she was pushed into the room and resisted the urge to hold her arm where the guard had gripped her. There was a bruise there already. Lilah had noted it as she had gotten dressed that morning. She had a feeling that over time, it would only get worse.

She stood at the entrance to Rahl's study. He was inside, pacing around the pedestal where one box of Orden sat. He was staring at it intently, walking in circles. He said nothing to Lilah, made no show of noticing her arrival. Merely paced.

Lilah considered making a sound. Clearing her throat, stomping her foot, coughing. But she remembered the day before.

His silence, she thought, was very likely easier to deal with than his bizarre commands.

So she let him pace. She stood stock still where she had stumbled in, not moving, not speaking, barely even breathing. And she let the visions of home take her once more as Rahl's footsteps beat out a hypnotic rhythm.

Her mother's gentle chastising. Her sister humming as she did her chores. Her father's deep belly laugh when she told a joke at the supper table. The sound of metal on metal in the smithy. The heat, like a blanket around her.

She remembered going to the market with Hannah, laughing and gossiping and doing what young girls do. She remembered kissing her parents goodnight. She remembered the bed she and her sister shared, staying up late into the night whispering secrets to each other. She remembered her friends. She remembered meeting them in the village square with Hannah. Laughing, talking, causing such a ruckus that the adults around them didn't know whether to frown in disapproval or smile in remembrance of their own youths.

She didn't feel the cold stone beneath her feet anymore. She didn't feel her bruised arm, or the weight of her own tired body. She didn't hear Rahl's steps. She didn't feel his presence, or hear him breathing. She was gone.

And when, finally, hours later, she crumpled into the floor in a dead faint, she didn't feel that either. She just passed from one soft dream into the next.

When next she woke, Lilah did not know where she was. For a moment, she thought her daydreaming had been real, and that she was at home in Riverswood once more. However, as she slowly gained awareness, she felt the chill of being enclosed by stone walls in the unforgiving D'Haran autumn. She felt the coarse fabric of her dress, and the aching in every part of her body.

Lilah tapped strength she didn't know she had possessed to open her eyes in spite of the wave of disappointment that threatened to drown her right then and there. She saw the stone ceiling first. Then, she saw Ani's face. A window, off to her right. She could see nothing but clouds through it. She tried to sit up to see more, but Ani pushed her down.

"You are still weak," she informed Lilah. "Wait a moment, then sit up slowly." Lilah did as she had been ordered. When she had sat up (slowly), she saw something that she had not expected.

Rahl, in the corner of the room, leaning up against the wall. She stared at him for a moment, and he stared back, an inscrutable look on his face.

"You bled on my floor," he commented. Lilah resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"I'll try not to do it again," she assured him, trying her very hardest not to sound sarcastic.

"That will be all for today, Lilah. The healer wants to watch you, to make sure your head hasn't been damaged," he informed her, and swept out.

"Lucky we already know yours is damaged, or you'd have to stay too," she muttered at the door after he left.

"Careful what you say, miss," Ani said briskly. "You never know who is listening." Lilah almost sighed aloud.

"No, I suppose not," she agreed. She laid back down, and turned to face the window. She stared at the gray, cloudy sky, and tried not to think of anything.

It didn't work.

And this time, when the painful memories of home took her, there was no timely interruption from Ani with breakfast. No fainting spell. Just the agony of missing her mother and sister, and of not knowing where her father was, or how he was doing, to keep her company as she wept, as the sky turned from gray to black.

When the sun rose, Lilah had run out of tears. She was in the exact same position she had been in all night, only now silent as she stared out the window, willing it to open wider and wider until it encompassed everything in grey clouds, rendering this stupid castle and its wretched inhabitants, but most of all, its cursed ruler, nothing.

Lilah heard soft, quick footsteps entered the room and assumed they were Ani's. She was proven correct when Ani spoke.

"Can you sit up?" she asked Lilah's back. Lilah turned over slowly and sat up.

"I feel fine," she said.

"Good," Ani remarked. "Then you can eat something quickly before you go-"

"-To Rahl's study," Lilah cut her off. "I know." Ani looked at her closely, then nodded.

"I'll be back with a tray," she said, and bustled out of the room. When she returned, the tray held a thick piece of bread, a mug of what appeared to be tea, and a chunk of cheese. Lilah ate with tiny bites, trying to make it last as long as possible. Ani watched, frowning.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Fine," Lilah assured her, taking another crumb of cheese into her mouth. She paused, counted to three, then took a miniscule sip of tea. "Just enjoying it."

"Enjoy it a little less," Lilah's least favorite voice in the world drawled from the doorway. "You're keeping me waiting. I don't like to wait," Rahl informed her. "If you aren't in my study in five minutes, there will be consequences." He walked away before she could answer.

"There will be consequences," Lilah mocked quietly, taking one last bite of bread and draining her tea. "I'll be off, then," she told Ani.

"Take it easy," Ani said. "Sit if you feel faint." Lilah made a noncommittal humming sound and walked out the door to find her familiar, surly guard awaiting her.

"Have you been standing there for two days?" she asked him before she could stop herself. He didn't respond, only grabbed her roughly by the arm, and "escorted" her to Rahl's study. Upon her entrance, he looked up from his writing desk.

"How nice of you to take time out of your busy eating schedule to come see me," he said sarcastically.

"How nice of you to allow someone to feed me so I don't bleed all over your nice floor again," Lilah retorted. Rahl frowned.

"Do we need to have a little chat about respect again, Lilah? Or maybe I can just have one of my guards talk about it with your father," he said threateningly. At the mention of Brom, Lilah nearly jumped.

"How is he?" she asked desperately. "When can I see him?" Rahl smiled slowly, then chuckled.

"Isn't that touching?" he remarked. "I should have known the way to get to your father would be the same way to get to you." Lilah blanched, then tried to control her expressions.

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly. Despite her best efforts, her voice trembled.

"Well that's a silly question," Rahl said softly, rising from his desk. He began to pace around Lilah. "You know why we brought you here, Lilah. As an… incentive, for your father to do good work. It seems only logical that it works both ways." He stopped walking when he was behind her. She resisted the urge to turn around. He moved closer; she could sense it, until finally, she could feel his body heat, nearly pressing up against her back. He leaned his face in over her right shoulder. She kept her gaze forwards. Rahl slowly released a breath, making Lilah's hair move.

She clenched her jaw in anger and fear.

"Let's make a deal, Lilah," Rahl murmured. He turned his face towards her. His nose brushed her ear. She tried not to flinch. "You be a good little girl for the next week," he said coaxingly, "and I'll let you visit your father for a day." Lilah's breath caught at the mere thought. To see her father's face after three days of not even knowing if he were alive? To know for certain that they would see each other again, at least one more time? She would be a "good little girl" for a month, had he asked it of her.

"Do we have a deal?" Rahl whispered, startling Lilah.

"Yes," she replied out without pause. Rahl pulled back a little. She assumed she had shocked him with her easy acquiescence.

"Eager to agree, are we?" he asked, a gloating smile in his voice.

"When does the week start?" Lilah muttered.

"What?" Rahl asked, moving away from Lilah.

"The week," Lilah bit out, still staring straight ahead. "Does it start today or tomorrow?" Rahl circled around to face her again.

"Oh, this will be fun, won't it?" he said, almost to himself. He turned and went back to his writing desk. "It starts tomorrow," he tossed over his shoulder. He began to write, ignoring Lilah. After a time, he looked up again.

"Do try not to fall over," he said.