The Sword Of A Princess

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

"You don't have to watch over me you know." I breathed out. Arthur sat in a chair beside my old bed. The room was dully lit up, the oil lamp on my bedside table casting a warm light over Arthurs face.

"I do. Every time I seem to leave you alone, you get yourself into trouble." The corner of Arthurs lip curled upwards slightly. I sat upright in the bed, I hadn't changed from the simple dress I was given. I was sure my dirty clothes had been burned rather than washed.

"Only on special occasions." I tried to make myself smile back but it didn't work. I only felt the hammering pressure of guilt. What I had done to Arthur, he deserved so much better than someone like me. "Arthur I-"

"Before you start, I have something for you." Arthur said reaching down to his feet, sitting back up he handed out a polished oak box with a metal lock in the shape of a leaf. "It was found on the battlefield after everything settled and we went back to collect our dead. Edmund found it."

Lifting the lid to the box I saw that silver dagger resting inside. Emerald stones and engraved vines decorating the handle and guard.

"I thought I had lost it for good." I stared down at the sliver blade.

"Lionel gave it to you did he not?" Arthur asked.

"He did- a wedding gift." I frowned. I had ended lives with this weapon- the bandits on the carriage ride, Western knights on the front lines.

"He was a good man." Arthur said glancing down at the box in my hands.

"Was? He's still alive, Lionel isn't dead." I looked at him, my heart starting to hammer in my chest.

"Do you really know that for sure? They could have killed him for your escape." Arthur said. I lowered the box onto the bed between us.

"They needed him for the experiments. He was surviving them, they have kept him alive. Killing him would be a mercy after everything we've endured." I told him- myself. He had to be alive.

"If you believe it, then it is so. I just don't want to see you get hurt anymore." Arthur's hand lifted to touch my face, instinctively my body flinched back. "I- I'm sorry."

"I feel well enough to-." I pushed the bed sheets from my body, Arthurs eyes dropped for a split moment down to the sheets. My own eyes followed down to my dress that hitched up my thigh. The still healing wound on display. Sliding my dress down I looked at Arthur who's eyes were already to my bare thigh, honed in on the fresher scar out of all of them.

Arthurs eyes turned dark, "Did Alexander do that as well?"

"No- another knight, his name was Dracyian. I killed him after he stabbed his dagger into my thigh. When I was travelling back-" I knew if I told Arthur of Thrall and Kalec they would be hunted and killed immediately. Kalec I wouldn't mind but Thrall had helped me, suffering under his brother was his consequence. "I burned it with burning coal. It was getting infected."

"How long were you out there after you escaped?" Arthur asked as I hung my legs over the edge of the bed.

I tried thinking back, so many days and nights, sleeping during the day, walking during the night, passing out when I was exhausted for who knows how long.

"Maybe just over a week? I'm unsure, in the beginning all the days blended in with one another until I found water." Until Thrall and Kalec found me in the stream of water bathing. "I had enough strength to hunt for food after that. Though not enough to make it all the way back, some recruits found me passed out on the road."

"Yes Captain Asta said." Arthur nodded, he fiddled with his fingers in his lap unsure what to do with them.

"I should go speak to your father." I said standing up from the bed.