Crow's Kiss

14 - Kaiden

The sun made its appearance as I paced in the princess' room. I was beginning to get worried. There was no way I'd ever regret what I did during that ordeal, but in hindsight I'm starting to realise there could've been a... better way to handle the situation.

We hadn't heard from the King since yesterday.

Levina's sheets rustled as she woke from her sleep. She stretched, arms extending as she arched her back. All at once she fell back flat, bouncing on her mattress.

She turned her head to the right, and saw me standing there. "You're still awake?" she muttered, her voice low. I've come to warm towards her morning voice in the three years we'd known each other, so she never really found it surprising when she awoke and I was in the room.

To be frank, I found it very attractive.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" She asked. I shook my head slowly, pushing my hair back. I hadn't really had a chance to brush it in the past few hours, so it was all tousled, like a very messy bird's nest.

"I was too worried about the prince."

"Are you regretting what you did?" Levina said, sitting up abruptly with a look of confusion on my face. "Why?"

"Pfft, no." I rolled my eyes. "I'm not regretting what I did to that scumbag. I'm regretting not sewing his mouth shut so he couldn't go squealing to his father." Levina snorted, grinning. I halted my gaze for a fraction of a second.

Not far deep down, maybe just below the surface, I definitely knew I wouldn't have broken Skylar's nose if I wasn't in love with the princess. That was all jealousy. And jealousy could make me very, very dangerous.

"Come on." I smirked, "You don't have anything to do today, right? Let's go out somewhere. It'll be a lot less quieter than the palace."

♕︎𑁍♕︎

I caught Levina as she descended the other side of the castle's fence. At our backs was solid stone, and in front, as far as the eye could see, lots and lots of brown trunks and green hats, knitted together in a complicated pattern of what made the east of Yestrewood.

"Why are we in Yestrewood?"

"I told you, it's a lot quieter than the palace."

I gripped Levina's wrist as we walked, weaving our way through the undergrowth. She maneuvered her wrist, lacing her fingers between mine.

"You want to talk about what happened yesterday? How are you feeling?" I asked her as we continued. She held my hand tighter.

"...I don't know." She sighed. I lifted up a low-hanging branch as she passed under and I followed suit.

"I don't like that he didn't ask. But...that's really the only thing, and I'm almost beating myself up that it's the only thing."

"What do you mean?" I raised an eyebrow, and she promptly stopped moving. She looked up at me.

"I mean I should hate him. But I don't. And I don't know why. Maybe I'm just...disappointed that this wasn't my happy fairy tale story," We kept going through the trees as I inhaled the smell of soil. "...you know, the princess meets the chivalrous prince, they fall in love, they get married, everything's all swell."

If I recalled correctly, I would normally be smelling dandelions by now. There was this huge dandelion field that stretched on for a long time just a few footsteps ahead. I couldn't catch that scent. Weird.

"But, he wasn't like that. Or, maybe I'm just trying to make my father happy. I don't want to be a burden, not after what happened with mother-"

I pulled back a branch that shielded a clearing, and my eyes widened.

"What the..."

For miles and miles, all there were, were dead dandelions. All with broken stems and wilted petals.

"What in the Gods happened here?"