Protector

captain of the gaurd

When I awoke, I found myself lying on a cot in a tent, a flat pillow under my head. Squinting, I watched the fabric of the tent billow slightly in the breeze, the sunlight shining in shafts. Groaning slightly, I sat up. My side still hurt but much less than it had. Upon inspecting it, I found that someone had cleaned and re-bandaged it. Shaking my head to clear the stars, I took in my surroundings. The tent was simple enough, but appeared to belong to someone of importance in the war I had stumbled upon. I heard voices approaching the tent and my heart dropped. They stopped outside my tent and I instinctively reached for anything to be used as a weapon. Finding only a candlestick, I grabbed it and held it tightly, wielding it like a sword.
A figure entered and stopped short at the sight of me. I assumed I looked pretty ridiculous, covered in bandages and holding a candlestick like it would do any damage. My eyes searched the stranger's face and after a brief moment, I realized it was Roden, the boy who had saved me in the forest. Staying where he was, he put his hands up to show he carried no weapon and meant me no harm.

"I'm not here to hurt you," he said, holding my gaze.

Gathering my courage, I took a deep breath and lowered the candlestick, sitting myself shakily back onto the cot. Roden slowly approached me and sat down in a chair beside the cot. A bruise blossomed on his cheek, one that hadn't been there before.

"How are you feeling?" He asked.

"Better," I said hoarsely.

"Good." Roden said, reaching into his cloak for a canteen, which he opened and handed to me.

I was so desperate for water that I didn't even think before gulping it down.

"Where am I?" I asked him, my mind going again to my surroundings.

"A Carthyan war camp," he responded.

We were both quiet for a moment while I considered a response, but he beat me to it.

"Where did you come from?" His eyes went again to the wounds on my torso and back. "Who did that to you?"

I swallowed. Somewhere deep down I knew I could trust this boy, but I couldn't bring myself to tell him everything. Not yet.

"I escaped an Avenian prison camp where I had been help captive for, well, a while."

He bowed his head slightly, acknowledging his understanding. "How long is a while?"

"Six years."

He snapped his head back up. "Six years?"

I nodded.

"Why were you a prisoner?" He asked tentatively.

I chose my words well. "I have information that they want. And being there for that long resulted in me learning things they didn't want to get out." I gave him a half smile. "I guess I was just a girl who knew too much."

Roden shook his head in admiration. "You never broke. That has to make you one of the strongest people I've ever met."

He reached out towards me and I cringed away, an unconscious reaction to someone touching me.

"Sorry," he said, pulling back and raising his hands in a show of surrender. "You're safe now. I promise you will never go back to that place."

And suddenly, stupidly, I was crying. Tears slipped down my cheeks and I didn't fully know why.

How humiliating.

Maybe it was because it finally dawned on me that I was really truly safe.

Roden sat there awkwardly for a moment before asking, "Can I touch you?"

I nodded, sniffling, and he pulled me into a hug.

"Thank you," I whispered into his shoulder.

"Of course."

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Days passed and I spent most of them sleeping, recovering. I didn't leave the tent much and Roden kept me company. He still didn't know the legacy I belonged to and some part deep inside me realty liked it that way. He treated me like a normal person, not demanding anything from me or treating me like a royal and or like an animal. No enemies attacked and no one was trying to kill me.

I found that for the first time in six years, I was happy.

Being happy was something so foreign to me, that I didn't know what I was feeling at first. But, as I learned long ago, all good things must come to an end.

The camp was attacked.
It was a surprise attack, in the dead of night. When morning came, only a handful of Carthyan soldiers remained and the captain of the guard and the daughter of the throne were gone.
Captured by Avenia.