Rouge Princess

Chapter 5

I bolt up thrashing wildly, my fist connects with something solid.  A soft grunt reaches my ears and hands grip my wrists to prevent me from hitting again. 

"Harl- Ow!" My wrists are released after my foot catches someone square in the chest.

I hear something so loud it vibrates deep inside of me, with a jolt I realize I'm screaming, I take a breath and force myself to stop.   Turning my head to the left I see Keith curled on the ground, eyes tightly closed, clutching his abdomen with both arms, and a dark shadow forming on his right cheek.

The boy lets out a groan of pain.  "Keith?" I ask softly.

"I'm good, just give me a few minutes," he gasps.

I nod, I feel horible.  I did that to him, he was only trying to be nice and help me and I punched and kicked him.  Hard.  "I'm sorry.  I really didn't mean to."

He nods as he pushes himself up so he's sittting, "I know.  Are you okay?  You fell from your horse and started screaming and thrashing.  Did you hit your head?"

My forehead wrinkles, "I- I think I'm okay.  I remembered something though.  I don't know what it means."  Before he can say anything I speak again.  "The King, my father, what's his name?"

Now it's his turn to furrow his brows, "King Edvard.  Why?  What do you remember?"

I study his face for a moment, shadow of a bruise on his left cheekbone, eyes more gray than the silvery-blue they were days ago when I first met him, his hair is unkempt and messy, as I'm sure mine is as well.  "I have- had? Have?  A message for him; "tell King Edvard that I'm coming for him".  I was trying to tell someone the message to pass it along and that's all I remember." 

After a few minutes of silence I speak again.  "Why would I say that?  The man is my own father, what could have possibly happened to prompt me to say that?  Better yet, why did the mention of Croydon. . . "  I leave the sentence hanging.

Croydon.  What about Croydon?  But I thought I came into Nathora from the oposite direction that we traveled to get to Brookhaven.  Keith even pointed it out to me on a map.  What am I still missing?  A lot, obviously. 

"We should just camp here," Keith suggests, breaking the silence, and my thoughts.

I nod in agreement with a weak smile on my lips.  My heart is pounding in my chest, eager to figure out what happened.  To remember everything.  "I can't go back.  There's too much I need to figure out now.  Like my father.  Who poisoned me?  Was it my father?  Someone who works for him?  Someone from another kingdom?  There's so many questions that I need to answer before I can go back.  What about my mother?"  I hardly notice that I'm rambling and that most of it doesn't make that much sense.  I can't stop the flow of anxiety now that it's started, it just keeps pouring from my mouth.

"Hey, it'll be okay.  Just take a deep breath,"  Keith says, placing a warm hand on my back.  "Whatever this is, we'll figure it out."

He says more, but I'm finding it really hard to focus on his words.  It feels like there is hardly any air entering my lungs.  A sudden wave of dizziness washes over me as the edges of my eyesight go dark before my eyes roll into the back of my head.  Oh no.  Not again.

Hello my dear readers.  So it is currently my goal to try and update every day, and if that's not possible, at least every other day.  I have alarms set on my phone to remind me to update.  Not sure if I'll be able to update on Saturday though, I'm going to a hockey game with my family and a friend of mine. 

But anywho, thanks as always for reading, I hope you all are enjoying the story.  Have a nice rest of your day.

Book Lover out.