Page 13 of If The Crown Fits
I turned the dagger in my hand, eyeing it suspiciously as we rode. We’d finally found my horse grazing nearby, his previousfright forgotten. I was strangely unsurprised when we came to the pool the woman had spoken of.
The pond lay nestled in a small clearing. We stopped, letting the horses rest and drink water. I was busy taking off my boots when Alastor spoke up. “You’re going swimming?”
“It’s hot. Cooling down would be nice.”
“As long as that is the reason and not because you believe a word out of that woman’s mouth.”
I pulled off my shirt. “Don’t be ridiculous. She had been travelling in the heat all morning. She was just telling stories,” I lied, not wanting to admit that her words still rang inside my head. I placed the dagger she had given me inside my satchel.
“Mmhhh,” Jack responded, not quite believing me. “So why did we go right instead of left?”
“Well, we’re not in a rush, are we? It would be nice to see some of the countryside before we meet the wicked siblings.”
Jack let out a chuckle. “Is that what you’re calling them now?”
“Well, I suppose we hope at least one of them isn’t wicked.” I glanced at him. “I hardly know anything about Princess Eloisa. Surely your spies must have some information?”
“As far as I know, she keeps to the castle grounds. Visits the harbour town at their summer home often, though. She keeps the company of her ladies’ maids mostly, which I suppose could be a little odd. Other than that she doesn’t engage with other aristocratic women or society.”
“So you presume she’s the quiet, shy sort?” Shy was better than scandalously wild.
Jack grinned. “Could be. Maybe she’s just mean and nobody wants to be friends with her.”
I shoved his shoulder as we walked to the pond’s edge.
“I haven’t heard anything scandalous,” he said. “Then again, I don’t hear everything.” He spotted my bleeding arm. “You’re hurt?”
“It’s just a scratch,” I said. “It will heal quickly.”
The pool was the perfect place to stop for the night and the water felt refreshing after a whole day of travelling through the woods. I didn’t know whether or not to believe what the old woman had said, but I was curious. I emerged through the surface and wiped the hair out of my face, taking a deep breath. Brutus had started a fire in order to prepare our next meal while Conner was setting up camp. Jack plopped down on the grass with an apple in his mouth, with Alastor next to him, sharpening his sword.
I noticed the movement of a fish in the water below and looked down only to see it wasn’t a fish at all. It was like a painting, flowing with the ripples of the water. I blinked in confusion at the silhouette of the unfamiliar young woman. Maybe the old woman wasn’t a liar, or I was hallucinating from a whole day of riding through the woods.
The image faded into that of a bow and arrow, and I rubbed my eyes to make sure what I was seeing was real, but as quickly as it appeared, the rippling image was gone. I looked around to the others but none of them had noticed anything.
My eyes scanned the rippling water.I am starting to imagine things.All our joking about the magical forest had gone to my head. I dipped my head beneath the water once more before making my way out of the pond. Jack tossed me an apple as I walked past him.
“Thanks,” I muttered, on my way to get my clothes. When I was dressed, I took a seat next to them on the grass, not saying a word about the fact that the scar on my arm had mysteriously healed.
* * *
I was in a field. The sky was grey and I shivered from a cold breeze that owned the surrounding air. The field was long and wide and I was surrounded by soldiers in battle uniform. All at once, the silence around me shattered like glass and all I heard was the combination of screams and the wind. I tried to step forwards, but my feet were stuck in the sucking mud that pulled me down the more I tried to move.
Air escaped my lungs quicker than it would return.
I was on the battlefield and I needed to fight or I would die. I grabbed for my sword, but it slipped out of my grasp and I found my hands soaked in blood. They were shaking and I couldn’t stop them. Was it my blood?
I heard metal clashing and looked behind me to an Argonian guard driving his sword through the torso of one of my youngest soldiers. I screamed in protest, but no sound came out. I turned and ran for the soldier, fighting the burning in my legs, fighting against the mud. But before I could reach him, I lost my balance and toppled to the ground. I fell over a dead body, his lifeless eyes staring into my own.
I awoke with a start, my breathing ragged and my body covered in sweat.
I tried to shake away the familiar image in my head, but like all the times before, it was no use. A peaceful night’s sleep was something I rarely experienced. But it would do me no good to run the images through my mind over and over again. I had to think about something else, anything else.
Perhaps about the fact that in a few weeks I was going to marry a woman I’d never met before. It wasn’t that the idea scared me. Forming alliances for the good of my kingdom was my duty as heir to the throne. It was only my intuition that kept telling me that something about the whole arrangement didn’t seem right. Perhaps I was simply paranoid. Either way, I was going to find out sooner or later.
Chapter 5
Prince Lance’s Chambers
