Aligned

Chapter 2

Groaning, Sybil swipes at her chin, her fingers coming away with warmy, sticky blood. Ignoring the pain in her jaw and the nausea rolling through her stomach, she presses forward, avoiding the clusters of high violence.

    The battle on Pozaria's bank of The River seems like it has been raging on for hours, but Sybil knows that if the rising sun is any indication of the passage of time, it has only been a few minutes. And yet the carnage and loss is already too much.

    She trudges through the soft ground, the mud of the bank mixing with the blood of fallen Pozaria and Vande soldiers slowing her steps. The morning mist has lifted since she dressed for battle, but the sweat, sound of metal against metal, and yelling of soldiers has generated a new type of fog. Sybil takes a shaky breath, clearing her mind as best as she can, and moves forward.

    The glint of a sword catches in her peripheral, giving her enough time to duck to the ground and swing her dagger at the assailant's ankles. He goes down with a yelp, falling to his knees. Sybil slashes the side of the blade against his throat, turning and moving on before she can register the slaughter. I need to keep going. I need to help defend my home. I need to find the tree.

    Most soldiers in the battle on both sides only know that they are fighting for monopoly of The River and the remnants of its magik. Sybil, being of the royal family, however, knows where the inner heart of the resource lies. The tree.

    The infamous orange tree, with fruits so vibrant and fragrant that surround the people of the land with hope and happiness and comfort. The songs that whisper through the branches and leaves that bring men to their knees with tears in their eyes. The orange tree that's location along The River seems to ebb and flow with the changing current. The orange tree that needs to be claimed for Pozaria in order for the kingdom to survive another day of the plague.

    Sybil scans the battle area, eyes sweeping across the water, the weapons, the bodies, in search of the tree. If she can lay claim to it before anyone else, her home would be saved. The bloodshed could stop. The suffering of her people could stop. Her family could rule in peace. The magik of the land could once again build its strength and return to its former glory under one kingdom. Her kingdom.

    Before she can dash to another scouting location far removed from the brutal battle, a long horn sounds in the distance, coming from the direction of the Vande soldier's advances. The sound of the end of the battle. The sound of temporary truce as the still standing haul the injured back across territory lines, leaving the dead to be offered to the land as payment.

    Sybil sighs in relief and disappointment. She's alive and relatively unscathed, but she risked being caught by her parent's watch in order to end this misery only to come up with nothing. Another lockdown as a consequence for her ill-thought out good doing is imminent. She can at least delay the punishment of basket weaving and mandatory family meal times by helping her Pozaria soldiers back home.

    By the time she reaches the outskirts of the closest scrimmage, most breathing Vande soldiers have been helped off the ground, limping figures already making their way back to the kingdom in the near distance. Sybil starts to head in that direction when a moan to her left catches her attention. A mud splattered Pozaria battle uniform lay on the ground, the wearer struggling to get up. Sybil rushes to his side, support him under the arm as he rolls to his hip, then his feet, swaying a bit on the trampled mud.

    "I'll help escort you to the castle infirmary," Sybil says in a gentle voice to the soldier. "They will treat your wounds well there and you'll be able to return to your family soon enough."

    The soldier turned to face Sybil, shock registering across his dirty, bloody face. "You're a woman?" he asks, startled.

    "You must be new," Sybil chuckles softly, leading the soldier away from the battleground and towards the castle. "Plenty of women can be found in the Pozaria ranks, but you must not have been acquainted with any before jumping into this mess."

    He grunts and doesn't offer anything else, just letting her support his weight as they shuffle towards the group of injured soldiers also making their way to the infirmary within the castle walls. They don't exchange any other words, but Sybil catches the soldier glancing her way a few times on their short journey.

    Once at the infirmary entrance, Sybil helps to lay down the soldier on an unoccupied cot and grabs the attention of a nurse.

    "I'm unsure of his specific injuries, but if any of this blood is his own, I would say he needs immediate attention," Sybil tells the nurse who is already wetting a washcloth to clean and assess the soldier.

    "Him and the rest of them," the nurse says, swiping at the soldier's face with the washcloth. He doesn't even get close before whipping his head back around to stare wide-eyed at Sybil.

    "Don't even say it," Sybil says before he can get a word in, the look on his face already telling her what she already knows. I'm in big trouble.

    "You better go to your chambers and clean up before you know who catches you down here," the nurse whispers quickly. "I'll send Olive and Melinda up with medical supplies to check you out, a doctor will see you this afternoon when your mother and father are at a meeting."

    "Thank you," Sybil replies with genuine thanks in her tone. She lightly touches the nurse's forearm and looks at the soldier she brought in one last time before quickly leaving the infirmary before anyone else recognizes her.

    She could have sworn that the soldier's initial shock that he wore on his face when first hearing her voice tripled at what he overheard the nurse say. Sybil would deal with that later.