The Hathway Kingdom (Book 2)

Nineteen.

~Nineteen. ~

By the time that they finally reached her room, Larissa had barely enough strength to keep herself standing. In fact, if it weren't for the two men holding her up, Larissa would have been lying on the floor out cold. Her vision was blurring, and her legs felt like they were going to give out from underneath her at any second. She leant heavily into the two men that were helping her remain upright, and, though Rosaleen had applied an ointment on her injured hands that stopped the bleeding, it had done nothing to alleviate the throbbing pain.

She collapsed onto her bed the second that she reached it, panting heavily, and sweating from the effort of walking all the way to her room. The two men who had helped her bowed to her before they excused themselves politely from the room as Rosaleen began to help Larissa out of the armoured dress that she wore.

"Elissa!" Rosaleen called out as she worked on the clasps for the armoured corset that Larissa wore, pausing briefly as Larissa winced. Elissa came into the room a few moments later and bowed to them.

"You called, Lady Cooper?" Elissa asked as she bowed before she lifted her head in time to see Rosaleen removing the armoured corset and she gasped.

"Don't just stand there, Elissa. Come over here and help me," Rosaleen said without looking up at her and Elissa hurried over to help Rosaleen remove the top of Larissa's dress now that she had removed the armoured corset.

What they saw when they removed her top had them both gasping and taking a step back. Larissa's back was covered in bloodied gashes as if she had been whipped. Whilst some of the smaller, more minor wounds had already stopped bleeding, several of the more serious ones were still bleeding, with several having trails of blood rolling down her marked and bloodied skin.

"What...What happened?" Elissa asked in a quiet voice as Rosaleen began to clean the wounds as quickly as she could.

"She said that there was a storm created by the Fates. She, the air, and the water troops created a barrier around the kingdom to protect it using their combined abilities and a spell. They said only her hands had been injured when they came and found me...Did they not know about this?" Rosaleen asked quietly as she dabbed at a particularly bad wound and Larissa flinched away from her.

"They didn't, Rosaleen," Larissa began to say as she did her best to relax before she winced as Rosaleen continued to work on cleaning the blood from her back. "I didn't realise that if I had participated in creating the barrier, it would bind it to me," she managed to get out after a moment of fighting through the pain.

"What do you mean by that, Your Majesty?" Elissa asked as she handed Rosaleen a clean cloth.

"These wounds..." she began to say before she paused and closed her eyes. "These wounds are from the lightning striking the barrier. Because I helped them create the barrier and didn't just teach them how to do it, the spell bound me to the barrier and I felt every lightning strike," Larissa explained in between breaths as she gripped onto the skirt of her dress tightly with her hands, balling it into her fists.

"They're from the lightning? That would explain why some of them look like they are burns instead of wounds," Rosaleen said as she wiped some more blood away. Larissa hissed and her back tensed from the pain as Rosaleen continued wiping her back.

"Try and not to tense up, Your Majesty. It only makes the pain worse," Rosaleen said as she took yet another clean cloth from Elissa as she handed it to her.

"I'm trying not to. It's just...hard..." Larissa said in a quiet voice as she closed her eyes and her hands tightened on her skirt.

Rosaleen nodded her head before she continued to work on her for a long time after that, with little success. Though she had stopped the bleeding on almost all the wounds, there were still two large ones that refused to stop bleeding. Sighing as she wiped away more blood, Rosaleen handed Elissa the bloodied cloth and water before speaking to Larissa.

"I'm going to have to use my abilities to close these last few wounds, Your Majesty. Otherwise, they aren't going to stop bleeding," Rosaleen said, and Larissa bit her lip before she nodded her head.

Muttering a quick spell to hopefully numb the pain that Larissa was in, Rosaleen then placed her hands on Larissa's back and closed her eyes. Her lips moved silently as she reached out for her abilities and soon, Rosaleen's hands began to glow. The light coming from them was a soft and warm yellow light and it slowly spread over the entire area of Larissa's back. Where the smaller, non-bleeding wounds were, they all closed, leaving behind nothing but pink and irritated looking skin. The two largest wounds and the other slightly smaller wounds were the problem.

Rosaleen's brow furrowed as she felt blood rolling down and over her fingers. Sending more of her energy into the spell, she sensed the wounds slowly beginning to heal. The slightly smaller wounds closed and left nothing behind. The two larger ones remained open, but they no longer bled, thankfully. The glow from Rosaleen's magic slowly shrank before it returned to her hands and disappeared as she gently pulled her hands away. As she did this, both she and Larissa let out a gasp and Rosaleen reached up to wipe the sweat that had formed on her forehead with the back of her now bloodied hands.

"Is...Is it done?" Larissa asked in between breaths as she glanced back at Rosaleen over her shoulder carefully. She nodded her head as she sighed before she lightly touched the areas around the two wounds that were left, causing Larissa to wince.

"These two are too large for me to heal. I've done what I can for them but we're going to have to let them heal fully on their own..." Rosaleen explained before she paused and looked at Larissa, who looked at her in return over her shoulder.

"What is it?" she asked as she held her breath, both wanting to know what Rosaleen was holding back and not wanting to know at the same time.

"Some of these are going to scar. Especially the two that I couldn't heal," Rosaleen said, and Larissa sighed, letting out the breath that she had been holding.

"It's...It's fine, Rosaleen. It was bound to happen," Larissa said as she looked forward again and closed her eyes. Rosaleen nodded her head before she turned to Elissa.

"Hand me my bag, Elissa. Once I've applied the medicinal ointment to help with the swelling and the pain, we'll cover the wounds and then she needs to rest," Rosaleen said, and Elissa bowed to her before doing as Rosaleen instructed.

Larissa did her best to remain still as Rosaleen worked, applying the ointment to her back before she covered the wounds. Once that was done, she helped Elissa get Larissa out of the dress she wore, placing it to the side to be washed as soon as she could as it was covered in blood. Dressing her in a light, loose-fitting night gown, the two women helped Larissa into bed where she fell into a fitful sleep.

Meanwhile, in the cave that he had now begun to call home and set it up like his home after using some of his abilities over the earth to turn the mountain that the cave was on into his home, Isidore looked up from the report that he had been reading and stared towards the door of his study. What he had read there was remarkably interesting. He hadn't had to ask Verginius to do anything. The Fates had done his work for him this time around.

He looked down at the page before him. The file contained everything that had gone on in Hathway, including the most recent storm which had left their Queen wounded and out of commission. She'd suffered after having used a spell that, if she had paid attention to the meaning behind it properly, bound her to the barrier she had created around her kingdom.

Placing the file to the side, Isidore stood from his seat and walked over to the fireplace. He stood in front of it now, watching as the flames danced before his eyes turned to the door of his study as a servant came into the room, carrying a tray of food. He placed it on Isidore's desk before he bowed to the banished Prince and left the room. With Verginius' help, Isidore had been able to hire a few servants as well as a couple of guards to keep him safe.

Walking back over to his desk, Isidore picked up the glass of wine that had been brought in and sipped it slowly. He needed to bide his time for a little while longer for his plan to work.