The Ghost of a Prince

Chapter 24

Valerie had always thought she had made herself clear on the nature of the knights she fought. Ghosts that had somehow acquired a physical body only to fade to dust after receiving a blow that could have killed them or incapacitated them to fight had they been alive. At least she had never lied or exaggerated. This somehow seemed to have gone amiss to Arthur whose eyebrows were knit together in puzzled confusion.

"They turn to dirt?" he blinked a couple of times. Valerie nodded. It was the fourth time he asked the same question.

"Kinda, yes." Valerie hesitated. "Sometimes they're dirt with something else, whatever they're made off, I suppose. I don't know what to tell you, I just fight them, I don't analyze them." she lifted her hands in pretend surrender.

Arthur hummed. "They are not alive." the way he said it made it sound more like a question than an affirmation.

"I mean there was one that might have been an actual human..." Valerie began, Arthur's eyes shone with interest. "but he sort of vanished right after and I had more relevant issues to figure at the moment." she made a vague movement with her hand.

He tilted his head, his face with a slight expression of disbelief. "Such as?"

"Being left alone with a boy I was not talking to and a friend bolting out like if death was chasing him and possible broken rib." Valerie stated matter-of-factly. "Those things can be dangerous, you know? I could have had a hole in my lungs."

Arthur put a hand over his mouth. For some reason Valerie couldn't quite comprehend, he looked concerned. It wasn't the first time she had told him she had gotten injured on a fight. The way he tended to react was by giving her a pat on the back and laughing about it.

"This means you have never seen anyone die?" he questioned. Valerie pressed her eyebrows together. Valerie's heart dropped.

"I saw my mom die." Valerie stablished. Eyebrows pressed together and her eyebrows turning into a line. Most of the time, -or at least when he wasn't correcting her-, she found Arthur amusing. Now, all she could feel was a lingering bitterness on the pit of her stomach. "But that's not interesting enough, I suppose." she spat. The color disappeared form Arthur's face

"No." Arthur was quick to correct, shaking his head. He rose both hands in front of himself. "I don't mean it like that, I apologize"

"Then what did you mean?"

"There is a process before becoming a knight, boys begin as pages, work their way as squires and then they become knights." he began. "By the time they become knights, they are already aware of the weight that comes with being in battle."

"Sorry for being born in the modern world?" Valerie muttered. There was also the fact that if she had been born in Arthur's time she wouldn't have been allowed in the battlefield as a page, squire or knight. However, it was not something that was worth touching on at the moment.

"Valerie, this is important." Arthur pressed. Valerie sighed, with a slight roll of her eyes. "Taking a life is no easy matter, it's painful, and dangerous, and it haunts you."

She crossed her arms. "Mordred has limited his hunting to ghost knights and magical humans so far."

"I wouldn't put it beneath him to start recruiting regular humans."

Valerie could understand where Arthur was coming from. The realization when the sword came out stained with blood shocked her. If Mordred intended to use England as a steppingstone when it came to ruling, he needed living allies that would fight battles for him. Preferably living ones who would convince more living people of following him.