Dreams (exchange 5)
Poor girl. The tavern maids probably receive better treatment than her. Jaelin glared at the fat little man while he was looking into his goblet of wine.
"No, that will be all, maid. Next time, I expect you to be in a closer proximity when I call you. Is that understood?" Jaelin struggled not to crack his knuckles as his fists clenched behind his back. Whatever his origins were, disrespecting women, even hired ones, was something he had always held in low regard. He turned to look at the girl. Something in her eyes sparked his full attention. Those eyes. Had he... seen them before?
"Forgive me for being so forward, miss, but do we know each other?" The baron laughed merrily, as though it were a joke.
"It is very unlikely. The girl rarely leaves the manor for the streets unless by my command. She is nothing without me." A fire erupted in his eyes. His fists ached with the pressure he was applying. Blasphemous fool! Devil take you for a blinded heretic! But he held his temper in check as he turned back to her.
"Even so, I feel as if we have met before...."
"Of course, Sir. I won't be so careless again."
Amara nodded respectfully to her master. He might call her maid, but the truth was rather different. Maids were paid and could quit... simply tell their employers exactly where to shove it, and walk. Amara was stuck there, watching maids come and go as they please. It left her bitter sometimes, but mostly she was used to it and gave it no second thought.
"I'm sorry?" She asked quietly, turning her attention to the guest. Her eyes widened slightly as she looked at him, trying to think of where she might have seen him before. She knew almost instantly where they'd met before. It made her sick to her stomach. Never, in all her life of wandering into other people's dreams had she ever met one of them in real life. She felt embarrassed. In dreams she had an assumed rank similar to the dreamer. Here, she was nothing.
"I don't seem to recall," she lied with a small curtsy. "But it's a pleasure to meet you now."
Her master cleared his throat, and she knew it meant that she should leave or risk being beaten later. Her eyes met the guest's again, and her expression was, for that instant, identical to that of the dream. But then she smiled a little, curtsied again, and backed out of the room as her master tried to regain his guest's attention.
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