The Lost Princess

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

When Gwen came to, the pain began to expand from the numb ache into the searing pain. The arrow was still lodged in her shoulder, and she realized she was bound. She began to immediately test her bonds by tugging at the ropes despite the jaw clenching pain that ran in spikes up her body.

After several moments of struggling, she came to the realization that it was hopeless. The harder she struggled, the tighter the knots became and the more pain she caused her injury. Tremors racked her body, and pain radiated from where the arrow ran through her. She knew she was in terrible shape. Just seeing the tip of the arrow jut out in the fleshy area between her shoulders sent a wave of nausea that overtook her head and she had to hurl. Bounded by chains, sick escaped from her mouth and splattered across her thighs. With it came blood that marked her pale skin.

It was just so...

Gwen started to retch again, but swallowed before anything happened. Nevertheless, she continued to try to get herself loose until she had not an ounce of  strength left within her and her head began to feel light of bearing with the twinges of pain. Eventually, after she had given up her valiant efforts to struggle against the steel cuffs that bound she, she was overtaken by a wave of vertigo and succumbed to the darkness.

***

Consciousness slowly began to ebb through the recesses of Gwen’s mind like a delicate stream passing through the crevices of pebbles. Her eyes fluttered open to see Arthur carrying her in his arms. When Gwen opened her mouth she found that it was gagged. She quickly became alert and panicked, struggling in his arms.

“I warned you Gwenifver,” he whispered hotly with a twinge of remorse in his voice. “I fear that my father will not be pleased.”

Her eyes widened as fear rose like bile in her throat as the doors to the throne room were opened by the guards. Arthur set her down, and one of the knights had the decency to push her forward. She tripped and fell to her knees as the ropes around her ankles were still constricted.

Uther stepped forward, his gray blue eyes – similar and different compared to his son’s – seething in anger. He grasped Gwenifver by her long disheveled snow white hair, jerking her upwards. He pulled her face to his and she smelled the meat and cheese still on his breath as angry and intolerable words left his lips.

“You dared to defy me!” Gwen flinched, struggling from his grasp. It was no use, his hand was tightly wound in her hair and the effort inflicted her pain rather than him. “You little witch! You will regret the exploit you caused my kingdom!”

He pushed her away from his sight, disgust and fury laced in his cold eyes. She wondered how she could ever have cared for a man as condescending, crude, and unjust as he was. Those were times long ago forgot. There was no trace of the man she had once known.

She completely and irrevocably hated him with every fiber of her being.

“For your crime you will be put to death. It’s time I made an example of you, Gwenifver Dragomir of Astolat. It is time you paid for your father’s sins.”

White, hot anger boiled her blood at his words. It was not her father’s sins but his. Uther was just too proud to admit his wrong doings. She had never seen a guiltless man before in her life, and as she stared at his cold unyielding eyes she knew that he would not think twice about his verdict.

“You will perish in fire just as your kingdom had crumbled to the ground, Gwenifver.”

She made a guttural, frightened sound in her throat – fear evident in her eyes. Uther’s voice became a dull sound in the background as the sound of her heart beating wildly in hers overpowered everything in her vicinity. She did not notice the way the knights looked at her, pity and sympathy laced in their eyes. She did not see the guilt that flashed through Arthur’s eyes as he saw his father command preparations for her execution.