Scales and Swords ✓

23: Rule #1

"So how did you and Phil meet?" Asked KB who rode beside me as we followed closely after the king's carriage during the route through the forest.

"We met through a mutual friend. I needed help and he had the help I needed."

"Who fell first?"

"We both fell—wait what kind of fall are we talking about?"

I'd like to think that she was blushing under her armor. If not than she was brazen and that frightened me. "You know what I mean," she whispered, "who fell in love first?"

Her words knocked the winds out of me. Laughter bubbled up my throat. "Philip and I don't have that sort of relationship. Why do so many people assume that?"

"Philip's a flirt, everyone knows that. He's flirted with at least all the woman in the castle, but with you it's different."

"Oh he has flirted with me, but I threatened to end our friendship and that's where we are. We're just friends."

"Well that's a shame because I think you're good for him. His insufferable even when he isn't flirting, but you tolerate him. Plus I think you'd make a handsome couple." I could practically hear the pout in her tone.

I shook my head to myself as I considered the thought. Philip and I together, was bizarre in the least. There was no doubt in my mind that he'd prefer flirting with other woman to spending the rest of his life with me. We'd bicker nonstop till one of us killed the other.

My train of thoughts came to a halt just as the carriage did. I glanced at KB, who had grown suspiciously still. Then without warning she sneezed, releasing strange orange fumes. Before I knew it my eyelids grew heavy, and my mind became blurry. My body became limp and soon I was nodding off to dreamland.

~~~

"Mo, Mo, Mo!"

At the last shout of my name I jolted awake. My body lurched forward as I searched for he who called me. He who called me happened to be Hugh. He stood beside Sigerith, staring up at me.

"Hugh," I mumbled. I looked to the other side of me to find a sleeping KB. "What happened?"

"We were attacked," Hugh explained.

That knocked reality back into my mind. I climbed off Sigerith, but just as my luck would have it I managed to trip myself in the process. Hugh helped me down.

"Thank you," I muttered. I walked over to KB and lightly shook her awake. She woke suddenly and fell off her horse. I could have caught her but she fell the other way. Before I could help her up, she was already on her feet, staring back and forth, fist at the ready to swing.

"What in the bloody hell just happened?!" She demanded, when her eyes fell on me. "We were just talking about how you and Philip would be so good together and then I became drowsy and then"—she halted at the sight of Hugh.

Hugh cleared his throat. "We were attacked by a Florial. He released fumes that induced sleep. But thank goodness for Berenice, the fumes had no effect on her. She pretended to be asleep and took him from behind just as he was about to harm the king."

Upfront, the coachmen were still asleep, Ingram stumbled forward from his horse and Berenice stood nonchalantly before the carriage.

"How is the king?" I asked Hugh.

"He's still asleep," Hugh replied.

"Well where is the fool who thought he could outsmart us?" KB demanded.

Berenice turned round to reveal someone stuck in her hair. Trapped, to be exact. As I inched closer to get a better look at the assailant, I found the face of a young man. A boy. He could have been as old as Hirai. I stopped myself, before I could tear him from his confines.

"Could there be more?" KB asked.

"There's only one way to find out. Wake him," Hugh instructed.

A tendril grew from the vine that stretched across his throat and tickled his nostrils. The boy woke, sneezing. When his eyes fell on us and he realized he was ensnared he writhed uncontrollably. But it was no use, Berenice's vines secured him tightly and would not so much as budge.

"Who are you? Who sent you? What did you intend to do with the king?" Hugh fired, question after question. I'm sure if I were in the boy's place, I'd have wet myself already.

The boy's eyes widened even more if that's even possible. He became as still as a statue and horror creeped across his countenance as he stared at the carriage that held the king. "This is the king's carriage?"

"Don't lie to me boy," chided Hugh, his voice steady. "You knew."

The boy's head whipped back to us. "I swear I didn't know!"

"Hugh," KB said tentatively. "He could be telling the truth."

"I am!" Exclaimed the boy. "I'm a thief, I'll admit that. Steal, that's all I do. I don't have any parents, I don't have no one to take care my baby sister and me. She's all I have." Desperation filled the boy's eyes. I couldn't help but see myself in him, which only made it harder to watch him. "If I had known it was the king's carriage I'd never have tried anything. Believe me, I beg of you."

Hugh sighed gruffly and headed for the carriage. "Everyone except Berenice."

We followed after Hugh till we reached the back of the carriage. He released a deep breath and hesitated. "We can't let him go."

"Hugh, he's just a boy," KB said, her voice heavy. "He's just a petty thief."

"A petty thief who puts his victims to sleep before he takes all their belongings," Hugh bit back."The kid's a mastermind, if not for Berenice who knows what he could have taken. I won't risk His Majesty's safety."

"Mo, Ingram, say something!" KB turned to us.

But words couldn't leave my lips.

"If we let him go, he won't come back, right?" Ingram said. "It won't work a second time."

"Why should we compromise for him," Hugh hissed. "We've handled many thieves, why not him?"

"Because he, because he," KB was lost for words but her heart was in the right place.

"Because his young and lost. He's got no one to guide him and he's doing all he can to protect what he loves," I found myself saying before I knew it. "If breaking the law keeps him and his sister's stomach full than he'll keep doing it. If we take him away, away from his sister, we'll only be breaking him even more."

"Yeah! What Mo said!" KB chimed in.

Hugh held my gaze for a moment longer than I felt comfortable. I didn't realize what he was doing till a little later, making sure I meant every word. "If we let him go, and something goes wrong again, whether it has anything to do with the boy or not, will you three take responsibility?"

Ingram, KB and I exchanged glances. As relieved as we were to hear Hugh give in, the thought of being responsible for everything that could go wrong dawned on us like a dagger in our hands pointed at our own throats.

"Let him go," KB said solemnly.

"I'm with KB," Ingram added.

"I'll take responsibility," I said, knowing full well I'd regret it.

"Then I have all three of your words," Hugh affirmed.

When we told Berenice our plan she released the boy, but before he could leave KB spared him some advice that seemed to stem directly from the heart. "You don't have to steal. Make something of yourself, this isn't a life you want your sister growing into. Everyone gets second chances, but not everyone makes use of it."

With that the boy sprinted into the woodland, till he blended in so well he practically disappeared.

That was when I learned Rule No.1 of being a king's guard, never, under no circumstance, compromise.

"We're being followed. There are two people in the trees. Keep your sights on the road. They cannot know we are aware of them," Hugh's voice said in my mind.

A/n: oof cliff hanger.