Read tales of the latter kingdom 08 - moon dance for Free Online Page A

still didn’t change the fact that several men guarded every door which led to the outdoors. Even if they had been challenged, the noise would have been enough to wake up everyone who slept within the building.
    Frowning, I went over to Adalynn’s bed and stared down at it. The bedclothes had been folded back neatly. There was certainly no sign that anyone had taken her forcibly. In fact, as I looked around, I realized that the embroidered slippers she had worn earlier that day, and which she usually took off and kept at the foot of the bed, were missing, as was her chamber robe of deep blue Keshiaari silk.
    This discovery led me back to Carella and Theranne’s room. Now I realized that their slippers were missing as well, along with their dressing gowns. And I had no doubt that if I went back to the chamber I shared with Janessa, I would find her slippers and robe gone, too.
    Sleepwalking? Such a thing had always seemed to me an invention of storytellers, and not something that happened to people in actuality. Certainly I had never walked in my sleep. And I had shared a chamber with Janessa for more than a year now. If she had a predilection for rising from her bed and wandering the castle in the middle of the night, I would have encountered it before now. At any rate, even if one of my missing companions actually did sleepwalk, it would strain the bounds of credulity for me to believe all four of them suffered from the same affliction.
    I knew I should not waste any more time in speculation. I must go downstairs and wake my uncle and aunt, and tell them that their daughters were missing, along with the ward whose person they had sworn to protect. Enough time had already been wasted.
    But as I turned toward the door of Adalynn’s chamber, a strange lassitude came over me. Although I had been alert — even nervous — but a moment before, now it seemed as if I could barely keep my eyes open. Nothing was so terribly wrong, after all. I only needed to return to my bed, and all this would be as if something from a dream.
    Without consciously realizing what I was doing, I moved down the hallway and went into my room. I did not glance at Janessa's empty bed, but only climbed into my own and pulled the covers up nearly to my chin. Within the next instant, I was fast asleep.
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    An ear-cracking yawn woke me. I blinked, and realized the yawn had come from Janessa, who was sitting up in her bed and rubbing at her eyes. Her rich brown hair tumbled over her shoulders, rather than being confined to its usual nighttime plait, and I frowned. I could have sworn I had seen her braiding it right before bed, just as she always did.
    She must have caught me staring, because she mumbled, “Good morning.”
    “Good morning,” I replied. Something about this felt dreadfully wrong, as if there was something I knew I should be remembering but which appeared to have eluded me for the moment. All I could recall was lying down and putting my head on my pillow, just as I did every night, and yet it seemed as if I had forgotten something of vital importance
    Another yawn, and Janessa stretched, then grimaced. “I cannot think what I did yesterday to make me so weary! It feels as if every muscle in my body aches.”
    Truly, I could not think of what ailed her, either, for, as far as I knew, she had spent the day sedately within the confines of the castle, and hadn’t even taken a walk down to the stream, as I had. Again, I experienced that nagging sensation, as though a lost memory tickled at the back of my mind but wouldn’t quite surface.
    Oh, well, if it was truly that important, then it would reappear at some point. I said, “Well, I am sure that a warm bath will cure most of those aches, whatever it is that caused them.”
    “I suppose you are right,” she replied. “But it is most curious.”
    I could not argue with that. Nor did I have time to, for soon thereafter the maids appeared with the hot water for our baths, and the greater