Chapter 15: Chapter 15

Shia’s heart beat went wild when she saw the blonde and gruff-looking head of the Imperial Guards emerge from the bushes opposite of where she stood. He then charged straight to Marmie.

Shia was feeling quite stunned herself, but her quick instincts kicked in. She did not think twice as she hurled herself in front of the girl who was too wracked in fright to avoid the knight’s apparent attack.

“No!” Shia screamed on top of her lungs.

She tried to pull out her dagger from inside her boots, but it was not there! Shia bitterly remembered that she had left her precious dagger safely underneath her pillow inside his majesty’s tent. She had no choice but to come forward from the bushes unarmed. Praying hard that the sword of the blasted knight would miraculously miss her somehow, she tried to shove the girl’s body away from the attack.

The knight, Lord Bragford Fincher, saw her come in haste between him and the servant girl. Their eyes met instantly, and she knew that he remembered him based on how his eyes suddenly widened.

However, the speed of his attack did not seem to slow down. Shia enveloped the frozen servant girl’s body within her arms, aware of the pain that is about to descend upon her. She closed her eyes and awaited her fate.

As she held her breath while bracing herself for the pain of the sword, she heard a sudden clash of metals. She opened her eyes and saw a sword fending off Lord Fincher’s attack.

She looked above to the person who saved her - it was none other than the Imperial Highness himself!

“My lord!” the blonde, rough knight gasped, and all at once, he lowered his sword and backed down to a safe distance. His majesty though continued to raise his sword and spoke in a loud, heated voice that frightened Shia.

“Why on earth are you doing, Lord Fincher?!” he roared. His half-masked face looked like a monster rather than a person in the darkness of the night.

“I-I am not aiming for her, I swear,” the rough-looking knight said as he began to raise his sword tentatively. “That servant girl, she is cursed! I saw it! ”

His majesty heard his words loud and clear, but he did not seem surprised at all at what he revealed. He did not move an inch from where he stood and raised his sword again as if to attack, which surprised Lord Fincher even further.

“Your majesty,” a female voice said. Shia saw Lady Khailis emerge from the bushes followed by Chibi, who ran to Shia’s side and whined while trying to lick her hands and face. Shia had never thought that a time like this would come when she would be so overjoyed to see them all!

The lady knight turned to Lord Fincher, “For goodness sake, put down your sword, sir! You are in the presence of his highness!”

The knight looked a little bit reluctant to do just that. He gripped the handle of his sword firmly, perhaps by instinct or by fear.

At this point, Lady Khailis pulled out her own sword and aimed it at Lord Fincher. It looked as if she was about to speak, but it was his majesty’s furious voice that they heard next.

“Put that down, or I will treat this as a threat and execute you here immediately!”

In a heartbeat, the head of the Imperial Guard pulled down his defences and threw his sword while bowing down to the ground.

“My lord, I have no wish of harming you! You know that I will put my own life in the line to save you,” he bawled.

“And yet here you are about to harm my betrothed!” exclaimed the prince with seething rage and looking as if he would charge against his own knight had Lady Khailis not been there to stop him.

“Sire,” Lady Khailis said in a low voice, trying to calm him down, “please control yourself. People are watching us...”

Sure enough, the people at the campsite began to crowd around them as they heard the commotions getting more heated up.

“S-she came in out of the blue,” the knight exclaimed, “I swear I would never harm even a single strand of her hair had I seen her come beforehand, sire!”

Shia wanted to slap the man for that blatant lie, but she held herself well. She tried to lock the servant girl’s body even tighter in a protective embrace as Lord Fincher continued to speak.

“That little servant girl, she is a cursed one! I saw her trying to make the pots levitate!”

At the mere mention of the word ‘cursed one,’ the people around them began to whisper and ramble about.

Finally, the prince himself shouted. “Liar!”

“No, sire, I am not lying! I swear by the graves of my father and mother! I am telling you the truth! She is cursed! We have to kill her instantly and report this to the Capitol!”

Shia felt the servant girl’s body start to shake in terror. In an instant, she became wracked in sobs as she heard Lord Fincher’s declaration.

Despite her desire to defend the girl at that moment, Shia herself could not say anything. She knew the stigma that came with being accused as a cursed one. In the eyes of the Capitol, protecting a cursed one is synonymous to that of being one. Many people have already gotten themselves executed in this manner. Feeling weak, idiotic, and utterly useless, Shia could only embrace Marmie even tighter and rock her softly in her arms.

“We must execute her now, sire! Please allow me to do so!” the detestable Lord Fincher implored his highness.

The prince did not say anything. He simply looked at Lord Fincher who was still on the ground.

“Sire?!...” Lord Fincher pressed on, and the crowd’s voice, fuelled by fears, began to escalate.

“Silence!” the prince said, and everyone held there tongue. “There will be no bloodshed here. Put her under arrest. You may take her into the Capitol with you when the morning comes, so she can receive her judgement.”

“But, my lord, that is far too dangerous –“

“Not another word from you, Fincher! You shall take the girl, or I will take your life right here!” the prince roared over his knight.

“As you desire, my lord,” he said. He pulled himself upright from the ground and gave the instructions to execute his highnesses’ orders. “Get that girl!”

Lady Khailis, despite Shia’s resistance, pulled her arms away from Marmie’s trembling body as two other knights began to carry the girl, all with swords at hand. Marmie wailed even louder, extending her arms towards Shia, pleading earnestly for help.

“Please, let her go,” Shia sobbed. She did not even realize that tears had begun streaming down her own face.

Lady Khailis held her tighter as she tried to resist and pull away from her grasp. At that moment, Shia watched helplessly as the pair of guards drag Marmie farther and farther away from her and from the rambling crowd.

“There, there,” Khailis said in a low, sympathetic voice. She wrapped a blanket around Shia’s body as she started to shudder uncontrollably from her sobs.

Feeling cold, alone, and scared for Marmie’s sake and well aware of her own loneliness and fears, Shia began to cry even more until it became harder to distinguish whether the whimpers were coming from her or from Chibi who seems to share Shia’s sentiments.

By now, the crowd had disappeared. When Shia’s nerves were a little settled, Khailis asked her softly, “Do you think you can walk back to the tent?”

Shia nodded, and with Lady Khailis’ assistance, she began to trudge back from where she came from. After taking a few steps, she faltered a little.

Suddenly, Shia felt a sturdy pair of hands scoop her up from behind and carried her up. It was Prince Langrion himself.

Shia allowed herself to lean back against his broad shoulders and warm chest. She did not attempt to fight him back or to protest. It was as if she had lost all her willpower to argue at that moment.

Up close like this, she can only hear the sound of his heartbeat and his steps against the soft, wet earth. He said nothing too as they walked back to the tent where they were resting a while ago.

When they reached the tent, Prince Langrion gently put Shia down on the bed. He then turned to Lady Khailis who trailed behind and followed them inside.

“Find out where they have taken her. Make sure everything is secured and that no one is in danger,” he remarked to his body guard.

Shia looked silently as the prince opened a chest from the night stand and pulled a piece of parchment, a pen, and a small wooden box.

Almost immediately, Shia could make out the faint scent of citrus and sugar mixed with the sharp tinge of bitter root from the box. The smell felt quite familiar, but Shia’s mind was in no condition to think about what it was or from where it was exactly.

The prince wrote something furiously at the small piece of paper. Once finished, he handled it back to Lady Khailis.

“Make sure everything will be taken care of,” he said to her.

They glanced intensely at each other for a brief moment as if telepathically communicating something of importance. Then, Lady Khailis, after a small, reassuring nod to his highness and a bow to her, went outside to execute his commands.

While the two were busy, Chibi faithfully kept Shia comfortable and all settled on the bed. After the prince had put her down there earlier, Chibi began to whimper and lick her hands softly. In an instant, Shia had begun feeling warm and calm. Soon, her tears had started to dry up.

As soon as Lady Khailis walked out of the tent, the prince turned to Shia and walked over to her. He patted the humongous mowngry on the head who was overcrowding one side of the bed.

“He must really like you a lot,” Prince Langrion said, “I had never seen Chibi become friendly with any other person aside from Khailis...”

He started stroking the golden mowngry’s mane. Mowngries had become extinct creatures ever since Teotroly, the land of the gods, was wiped away from the face of the earth. At that moment, Langrion was glad that there was one such left to keep him and Shia company during their times of sorrow.

However, Chibi’s presence was not enough to contain Shia’s bursting feelings.

“How can you?...” Shia began to say. She had recovered her strength by now as well as most of her raging spirit. “How can you send a little girl to her death like that?...”

Langrion let out a heavy sigh. “It was not easy for me too,” he said, “I just did what I could for her sake. It was a final act of mercy.”

“How can dying be for anyone’s sake?...” Shia began to say. She did not know that tears had started welling up in her eyes once more until a few of them had dropped down to her cheek. “Is killing people that easy for you? Is that how you decide who lives or dies?” She continued rather painstakingly, “Is that how you decided to kill my family and spare me? Was that also an act of your mercy, my prince?...”