Crown Sword

Chapter 8

My body just stopped moving, barely being able to hold onto my breath as I was dragged meters under the surface. It's grip was tight and it was pulling me down so fast that my ears began to pop. My lungs screamed for air and my eyes stung. The water was too dark to see anything. My hands were up over my head as my lower body was caught in the embrace of the river monster.

My vision spotted in the dark of the river. I coughed finally releasing the bubbles of air into the water as it drained into me, filling my lungs.

Just then I felt something above me. I looked up before closing my eyes. A strong human arm wrapped around my waist. Beneath me, I felt someone hack away at the river monster's grip on my lower body. I heard it roar underneath us as its hold on me loosened. The soldier's body held tight to mine as he kicked us up to the surface. I was conscious of the fact that I was slowly losing my consciousness. My brain was crashing and my body was no longer moving.

We broke the surface, and I was barely able to register the events that happened after. I was dragged onto the shore. There the soldier straddled me and slapped me multiple times on the face as if to wake me up. I opened my eyes to see Scar's face looming over me, but I still could barely breathe. His eyes were furious. He began to do chest compressions until I coughed up the water that had filled me up, choking on it. I lay there panting, and near lifeless as he collapsed to the side of me, trying to catch his breath.

We lay there like that for about another ten minutes before, "milord?"

Leon and the group of knights stood behind us, peering down at us both. Scar sat up immediately. He held up the knife I used to escape.

"How the fuck did she get this?" his voice was a growl, low and cold. I shivered.

"I...." Leon looked between me and the knife. "The fault was mine,
milord, it was in my bags and-"

"Where were you during her escape?" his blue eyes glittered in the dark, glaring at Leon.

"I-," Leon started.

"Nevermind, I should have known that this was too much for you to oversee. Must I do everything myself?" Without a moment's notice, he got up and slung me over his shoulder. I couldn't move my body much, but I tried to struggle off of him. My hand scratching at his shirtless skin.  He only held on tighter as we got to his tent. I looked back at the knights who stared after us, before we got into the tent.

His tent was quite big, the floor lined with furs of all sorts of colors. I shuddered thinking of all the animals he must have killed. It was lit by a small lantern at the very center. It was warm compared to the cold of the outside night air.

He then slung me down onto one of the furs, and walked to the opposite side of the tent and grabbed a piece of rope from his bags. He leaned down and tied one end to my left wrist with a complex knot and did the same to his right wrist.

"I bid you good luck trying to get out of this one. There's not a blade in here you can use, without waking me." He moved as far as he possibly could from me, which was about three feet. He settled down onto a fur and turned his back to me. I looked down at the knot.

"It's clever what you did there. Going out into the Meriden to commit suicide, braving the Meridian Serpent, especially considering what the king may have in store for you. But I couldn't let you do that. Not without the king's approval. I, however, would have used the knife. It's a coward's way out, I know, but easier to face," his voice held a mocking pity.

"I, however, don't care. And it wasn't my intention." I sniffed and wrung out my clothes as much as I could. "I was trying to escape."

Scar turned back to me,arms folding over his chest, his face an incredulous expression, "Surely, you jest."

I turned my nose up and looked away.

"No one goes in the Meriden River at night, and expects to come back out alive." I felt his eyes watch me with unnamed curiosity, torn between disbelief and disgust.

I stayed quiet. I needed to think to myself. I was still terribly confused about what I was going to do next and the threat of the execution was still very real. I closed my eyes listening to the room go from silent, to the sounds of his deep, slow breathing. I couldn't help myself. I looked over.

Scar was asleep, facing me.  His face had softened considerably, and painfully as his beauty really hit me. Black curls spilled across his forehead as his long eyelashes cast shadows on his high cheekbones, His scar ran long underneath his dark brow. It ran past his perfect roman nose, and red slightly upturned mouth, down to his chiseled jaw. I looked down his neck to the planes of his muscled torso and arms. Those arms that had pulled me from the depth of that water. Those arms had saved-

    "Ugh,"I muttered, disgusted with myself, I turned away. I needed to wake up from this nightmare. I needed to wake up in my tiny twin bed, where things were back to normal and nothing had happened between Carter and I. I looked around me. This time, there was really nothing I could escape with. I was left in the worst place possible. I cursed myself for never learning how to swim.