Warrior's Heart (Book 1 of The Warrior Chronicles)

Chapter 56

"Lady Alessa!?"

Leyla stirred as voices filled her mind, growing ever louder.

"General Alec!?"

She blinked, trying to shake the grogginess from her mind. The dark silhouette of leaves against a starry sky came into focus. Was she on her back?

As her mind sharpened, so did her senses. The bitter-sour scent of iron hit her at the same time as the sticky warmth across her hand. She turned her head to find a body lying beside her, a knife sticking out of it. It was Alec's body, and the knife was buried in his abdomen!

A scream stuck in her throat, as she raised her hands to eye level and stared at the blood with disbelief.

"Lady Alessa!" She recognised the Green King's voice before she saw him step into the clearing, a large group of people following behind him. The King spotted her first, looking from her bloodied hands to Alec's body, a hint of a smile curling his lip. "Lady Alessa, what have you done?"

"I..." her voice was lost along with her memories.

Raphael stepped through the crowd then, his expression carefully blank as he moved towards her. Kneeling between her and Alec's body, he felt for the Warrior's pulse. Leyla tried to think. She tried to move, but her body would not cooperate and she began to shake.

"Alec!?" It was Finn's voice this time. He rushed forward in panic, but froze when Raphael raised a hand to keep him away.

"The General is dead." The Prorex said as he stood. While the gathering gasped at the proclamation, he grabbed Leyla with both hands and raised her to her feet.

She didn't resist. Dead. Alec was dead? Alec was dead!

Raphael spun her shaking body so that her back was to his front, his arm wrapped around her neck. They were facing the shocked crowd. Leyla had a vague impression of Finn, though her eyesight hadn't returned enough for her to tell if he was crying or furious. Raphael brushed his hand over her face, pushing something small and hard in her mouth. She had no time to wonder what it was before it slipped down her throat.

Alec is dead. Dead.

A tingle started in her fingers, spreading quickly up her arms and neck. Once again she felt as though she as going to pass out, but this time she didn't struggle. Her legs were starting to give out. Raphael held her up, saying nothing. No, she wouldn't fight. She didn't want to be awake. Alec was dead.

"What are you doing, Prorex?" The Green King asked, anger shaking his voice. "You can't protect her! She killed a General of the Warrior Kingdom."

"In the Land of Light, there are no grand exhibitions and no exceptions." Raphael announced. Then he wrapped both hands around Leyla's head, pushing against pressure points in her neck as he did so. Her eyes shut against her will. Her arms went limp. She had no control over her body anymore and the voices around her came from far away. Raphael made a jerking movement with his hands, her head twisted, then let go of her.

Leyla felt herself falling, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. Her body crumpled to the hard floor. The scent of thick grass and blood was overwhelming. Then someone was leaning over her and pressing fingers to her neck.

"You killed her!" Finn's voice came from behind a thick wall.

"Is she really dead!?" There was disbelief in the Green King's voice.

"Death for death." Raphael's words echoed in the thick haze of her mind. "Load the bodies onto a wagon. Green King, I must explain this to the Warriors. Will you accompany me as a witness?"

Leyla couldn't hear the response. She could no longer feel the earth under her hands, nor could she smell the grass. Everything disappeared beneath a thick cloud and she was grateful for it...

When she came to, Leyla couldn't tell how much time had passed. Feeling was starting to return to her body and her limbs felt as though they were on fire. She blinked and her lashes scraped against something coarse. There something covering her head.

Leyla took a deep breath, trying to orient herself. She was lying on her back on a hard surface and her body kept shifting, swinging left and right, left and right, then suddenly up and down. As her hearing sharpened, she began to make sense of the movement. There was the rolling of wheels on gravel, the hoofs of horses. What had Raphael said? Load the bodies onto a wagon. She was on a wagon and there was a sheet covering her body.

Her hand would not listen to her command to rise, but her fingers twitched, managing to pull the material enough for a sliver of light to appear. She looked through the small gap, and saw that another body was lying beside her. It too was covered in a sheet.

Alec.

Her mind kicked into full gear, all of her senses coming alive at the same time and the pain was unbearable. Breath streamed in and out of her lungs as her hand inched towards Alec.

"Calm down!" came a hiss. It was a familiar voice. Leyla's eyes rounded on the motionless figure beside her. "Slow your breathing and don't make a sound."

Alec! It was Alec's voice. Was she losing her mind?

The sheet beside her shifted the slightest bit to reveal Alec's piercing gaze. His look was urgent at first, then pleading.

"Don't do that. Don't cry."

Crying? Only after he said it, did she notice the tears that were streaming down her face. "I thought you were dead." She kept her voice as low as she could, but it still broke on the last word.

"Not now, Leyla. You need to stay calm. The Prorex gave us something to convince them we are both dead. He managed to get us out of the Greenlands without a fight. All we have to do is lie still till we get to Warrior Castle. It should only take a few more hours."

"Raphael...?" Leyla remembered the show the Prorex had put on at the drop of a hat. How had he figured everything out so quickly? But Alec's wound... "Did he give you medicine?"

"He poured something on my wound after they moved us onto the wagon; it's completely healed. It must be medicine from the Land of Light, I've never seen anything work so fast."

Leyla remembered some of the medicines on Asch. Small pills for ailments, powders made by the Ghost Kings that could make you feel better in mere moments...Did the Land of Light have things like that? Thinking back, Michael had never seemed unduly impressed by the wondrous healing methods they encountered, fascinated but not surprised.

"Leyla?"

Alec's voice pulled her out of her memories. Her mind still groggy, she looked towards him. The lights had shifted around them, casting a shadow on Alec's face. It didn't matter that she couldn't make out his expression; he was alive.

"What is the plan?" She whispered back, listening for the sounds of the soldiers around them. The waggon rocked as they hit another pothole.

Alec hesitated, "There is a large troupe of Green soldiers accompanying their King. Finn and the rest of my men are following from a distance. We can take them easily, but the Prorex said to lay low and that he will get us into the Warrior Kingdom without problems. Considering his actions so far, I'm willing to trust him. We will hang tight till we are carried into the Keep, then we can end this charade."

Leyla was going to ask more questions, but the Green guards wondered close by, their torches warming the cold sheet that covered her. Playing dead was not something Leyla had ever done before, but she closed her eyes now, and remembered Raphael's words. Let your mind rest. That was exactly what she would do. Her disappointment over her father, her worries about the future, her feelings for Alec, everything would wait. She was a trained officer of the Warrior Kingdom and as such, she knew how to prioritise.

Right now she needed to give her drugged brain time to recuperate.