Chapter 18: Chapter 18

Concealed behind a thick collection of leaves and bushes, Shia stealthily and silently awaited as Lady Khailis set up the materials she needed to build Marmie’s supposed funeral pyre. She had been sitting in hiding for at least half an hour now. The new encampment was a hundred miles away, but thankfully, the overgrowth of trees along the way had helped Shia get to her destination faster. The hanging bridge that the trees had made for her combined with her fast feet helped her to get back to the old camp in just a matter of minutes.

Earlier on, Shia had seen Lady Khailis put on the wood and the fuel and proceeded to light up the funeral altar. However, just as Shia had suspected, no physical body was ever placed in its core. Only the woods crackled softly as the bonfire continued to blaze.

Shia spotted a thick blanket rolled up on one side where Lady Khailis kept her horse and some of her other belongings. She would only need to get a little bit closer to it to confirm her hunch that inside that thick bundle of blankets was the sleeping, breathing, healthy body of the servant girl, Marmie.

After making sure that the coast was clear, Shia poised herself to get closer to the blankets when she spotted Khailis becoming a little busy with tending the fire in a distance. Before she could act out her plan, however, a pair of swift, sturdy, muscular arms wrapped itself around her. She began to scream, but they were successfully muffled by the hands that kept her as a prisoner.

Shia would have bitten the hands as violently as she could had she not recognized the familiar and enticing scent of honey and baby’s breath. She looked back to see the wisp of jet-black hair enveloping the comely face and ocean blue right eye of his majesty himself, Prince Langrion.

“How did you -,” Shia began to say as he loosened his grip on her mouth.

“I should be asking you the same thing. Why did you sneak out here by yourself? Did you think I wouldn’t discover the leaves that you put right next to me?”

Shia sighed. She knew that he would come here at the fake funeral himself; for no one else could have masterminded such an elaborate plan like this if not him. Nonetheless, she did not expect that he would find out about the leafy decoy she had put on the bed so early on and that he would so easily discover her concealed like this amongst the bushes.

“I knew you’d be here. I wanted to watch what the two of you will do with Marmie,” she replied.

“How did you know, or rather, when did you find out about our plan?” he inquired. He continued to restrict Shia in a protective embrace. It was a little stifling and awkward at the same time, but looking at how serious his eyes seemed to be at that moment, Shia dismissed the idea of knocking him down and fleeing. She decided to just answer his questions honestly.

“This morning when Lady Khailis escorted us back to the tent, did you not hand her a box containing the slumber extract?”

“How do you know about the slumber extract?” the prince said in exasperation. “It was a trade secret amongst mercenaries and assassins!”

“I had been harnessing the power of plants since I was five. How wouldn’t I know about it?” she reasoned out as his face beamed with utmost surprise.

Indeed, as a young girl, experimenting and mixing medicinal powders and plant extracts were Shia’s most common and favourite pastimes. She tasted numerous poisonous extracts herself and had been weakly poisoned so many times than she could count. Her father would sternly reprimand her every time she would make herself sick to the core due to poison. However, seeing how her curiosity had brought her where she was now, she proudly believed that all of those times had actually been worthwhile sacrifices.

“I know only this much: that mixing bitter root and sugar is a deadly combination, but adding citrus extract to it lessens the effect. Almost odourless and tasteless, the resulting mixture is a potent sleeper. It weakens the heartbeat itself so that even up to this day, many skilled doctors have a hard time distinguishing a poisoned victim from the actual dead.”

She continued further, “When I went to see Marmie’s body this morning, I was able to smell the ingredients at the tent where they had kept her. Seeing how you reacted so coolly after my return made me think this was all part of your plan, am I not right, your highness?”

The prince looked at her dumbfounded as she told her all of what she had so far discovered. Then, his eyes began to wear a worried look, “So you knew it all along. Why didn’t you tell me anything?”

“Why didn’t you tell me anything?” she inquired back. “I was waiting for you to give me even the slightest hint all day, but you did not say anything at all. Did you not trust me enough with this plan? You knew how devastated I was about Marmie. You should have at least told me that you had it all planned out...”

Shia stopped, too stunned even upon herself after hearing the pang of pain and hurt in her voice. She had momentarily forgotten that he was, first and foremost, the prince of Gascone, and she was just a mere nobody who was playing the part of his fake betrothed. It somehow sounded to her ears like she was making herself more important than what she really was...

The prince began to open his mouth to say something, and Shia braced herself to hear words such as “what makes you think you have the authority against me,” or something similar to that, but he spoke in such a meek and apologetic manner that stunned Shia beyond words.

“You’re right; I should have told you. I was so worried that you’d get into trouble if I tell you, but here you are getting into more trouble since I concealed this matter away from you.”

He began to stroke the top of her head like a little child and leaned even closer to her so that she could feel his breath in her face as he spoke softly. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad...”

Shia’s open mouth was just beginning to drop to the floor when, all of the sudden, Lady Khailis began shouting in their direction amongst the bushes.

“Hey, lovebirds! Haven’t you had enough alone time in the tent already? Will you stop being all lovey-dovey in the bushes there and try to do something more productive, like maybe help me out?!”

Grateful for the sudden distraction Lady Khailis had just provided, Shia cleared her throat and immediately stood up and stepped away from his highness’ arms. She tried to recollect herself from the rising heat in her face and the escalating beats of her heart.

“So what is the plan now?” Shia asked after checking up on the soundly sleeping Marmie and making sure that the flame of the funeral pyre is well kept. They were now sitting at the edge of the fire with his highness on her right side and Khailis sitting on her left.

“You will soon find out,” his highness told him.

Sure enough, Shia was able to hear some approaching footsteps from beyond the bushes across the other side of the funeral pyre. All at once, Lady Khailis began speaking words that sounded ridiculous to Shia’s ears.

“When the rivers descend to the far side of the earth,” Lady Khailis began.

“And the sunset fades and night time comes,” Prince Langrion said next.

“When the east wind meets the cold western frost,” a man’s voice spoke from behind the bushes.

“Shall my love for you begin to end and the end will start its beginning,” they all chimed in.

Shia would have laughed out loud and even rolled in the bushes had she not been facing such a serious and perilous task at that very moment. The whole ordeal of the sudden spoken poetry seemed so silly to her, and yet she understood that these lines must have been the code that will enable them to identify whether the person approaching was a friend or a foe.

The man from the other side walked closer to the fire, and Shia could make out the visage of a tall, muscular man in his late thirties or perhaps early forties. His actual facial features were concealed behind a shabby beard, and in his right ears were loops of different-sized earrings. His long, chestnut hair was kept in place by several golden knots that seemed to match a pirate’s features. He wore dark clothes, except for his humongous upper arms that were exposed for everyone to see.

The man beamed when he saw Lady Khailis and Prince Langrion, proving that the three of them had probably been long acquaintances. He patted them both in the back as they approached, and they did the same. They began chatting excitedly as long time friends do when they haven’t seen each other for quite some time.

“My, my, Khailis, I must say you still look as fine as ever. Of course, Langrey, how have you been, old comrade? Still the same old kid, I see,” he grinned. It was like a breath of fresh air for Shia to see someone speaking so casually to these people. The elaborate uses of titles for just one day at the encampment had made her feel so constricted that she welcomed this apparent atmosphere of genuine closeness and friendship that she was presently witnessing.

After a while, the man noticed Shia, and he turned his attention to her. “If I am not mistaken, you are the one they call ‘Marmie’ right? They forgot to tell me that you have quite a bedazzling face!”

The man moved in closer to Shia, and she gasped when he heard him say his name. “Allow me to introduce myself, my lady. I am Commander Rus Misfah.”

At that instant, Shia discovered that she was face to face with the leader of the Red-Headed Knuckles, an underground movement whose one and only aim was to overthrow the king of the Imperial Palace and destroy the vile decree set against cursed ones.