A Royal Ruse

Chapter 5

Two Years Later

Zita felt like a bruised banana.

After being abducted, she had spent what felt like an eternity jolting around the cramped cart with only her tormented mind as company. The image of flames greedily devouring her home consumed her. She couldn't stop rebuking herself. The more the dingy cart rattled along, the more unforgivable her lack of action became. Why didn't she do more? Why didn't she fight? Now her fate and the fate of her loved ones hung in the balance and she had done nothing to stop it.

Any attempts she had made to writhe free from the ropes were in vain. The masked brute had tied her hands up in mangled knots. She was trapped in this dingy cart without even the faintest clue of where she was. They had spent hours on the road and Zita was certain she had never traveled this far from her nation's capital before. Her situation grew more dire with each bumpy mile they traveled.

Just when Zita thought she might pass out; succumbing to the mental and physical strain, the cart pulled to a sudden stop. The cart door opened and light pierced her eyes like a javelin, momentarily blinding her while the same burly arms that had thrown her into the cart hauled her out of it. Zita looked around trying to get a feel of her whereabouts but they were very nondescript. All she saw was endless green; lurking evergreens and grassy knolls hugging a crude dust road.

Zita was shocked to discover that the first thing the masked brute did upon lugging her out of the cart was work away at the rope restraining her hands. Zita could feel him behind her, yanking and wrestling through each knot with the help of his trusty blade. Even with the sun rousing from its slumber, she had still not uncovered her traveling companion's identity.

"I apologize, Your Highness," the brute's voice sounded ill-placed amidst the high-pitched trill of the larking birds, "I imagine you must have a few questions concerning this morning's developments."

Zita felt the ropes slither off her hands and pool onto the ground. She immediately began to massage her abused wrists. Although she should have had every impulse to flee, she spun around to look the masked man— who was no longer masked— squarely in the eye.

"You mean when you kidnapped me at knifepoint and stuffed me into the back of a cart?" Zita spat the words vengefully at her captor. Her body was shaking with anger.

"Yes."

Zita squinted at him. In the light of day, the brute's stature was the only thing intimidating about him. Now unconcealed; his face was revealed to be quite pleasant-natured. Although his features were rather unconventional and hardy, they weren't nearly as threatening as Zita had imagined them to be. She wouldn't go so far as to call him handsome, but he definitely didn't need  to be lurking in the shadows. Daylight suited him fine.

"Your palace was under siege and I needed to get you out of there immediately. I apologize for any distress I might have caused you." He stood with his hands posted contritely behind his back.

Zita gasped. She remembered the cries. The bloodthirsty cries she heard rattle the palace.

"What do you mean 'under siege'? Who would attack the palace?" she demanded, although she need not have.

The threat of uprising ran rife through the streets of her beloved country. After the incident with the Haddonite queen, the princess had been placed on house arrest. Her father had even gone so far as to assign her a guard to shadow her around her home and report her every movement back to him. In a small act of mercy, he let Zita keep Clera as her ladies' maid. Clera had been Zita's only companion and form of contact with the outside world.

Despite being completely sheltered, even Zita could feel the unrest percolating beyond the palace walls. Her father spent most of his time in his legal chambers with his royal council, and he had stopped granting audiences to civilians. He also fortified and increased the number of royal guards stationed in and around the palace. The King's paranoia had become all-consuming — evidently for good reason.

"It was a coup. Your father had made many enemies. Arnoa was bound to reach a boiling point."

"Why did you only save me? What about my parents? Clera? What is to become of them?"

"I cannot be sure, but..." The man trailed off, momentarily averting his gaze back toward the direction of the dust road they had just traveled. The princess's eyes followed. Billowing above the canopy of proud leafy elms, she could see a sinister grey cloud blanketing her country's capital.

A sharp pang shot through Zita's chest. She clenched her eyelids together, unable to stomach the vision and awful reality that accompanied it. What was becoming of her beloved kingdom?

She shook her head defiantly. She couldn't succumb to her sadness. Her sorrow was bigger and stronger than she was and if she were to grant it an escape it would rule her; destroy her. Caging it would be the only way to control it.

"So what now? Where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere you will be safe, Your Highness. We are just stopping to give the horse a rest and for you to stretch your legs or alleviate yourself if needs be. We will be on our way shortly."

"I'm not getting back into that cart. It smells like rotting cabbage."

"I assure you, Your Highness, you won't have to spend much longer in it. The Arnoan border is just over that hill. As soon as we cross into Luiga we will be able to switch to a carriage and stop for food."

"Luiga?" Zita's face scrunched in disgust, "I'm not going to Luiga!" she felt insulted by the very notion.

Zita had never visited  her neighbor to the west, but from the tales of barbarism she had heard from her parents and their consorts, she was certainly not eager to make a trip there any time soon. Surely there was a safe haven he could take her to within her kingdom's limits. Surely Luiga wasn't the only option.

"I've received very strict instructions to deliver you—"

"Deliver me? I'm not cattle. You can't just chuck me in some grubby cart and take me wherever you please."

"You are in great danger," Jax said emphatically.

"I'll say. I'm trapped in the middle of nowhere — alone —with a brute." Zita plonked herself down on the grass with a thud. She jutted out her chin indignantly, "I refuse to go to Luiga. Make another plan."

"We don't have time to discuss this. We need to get you to safety. The very people who attacked your palace are looking for you as we speak. I guarantee you they have a punishment far worse than smelly carts in store for you."

Zita felt a heavy thudding in her chest. She was living what her nightmares were made of. She was being forced the flee the one place she loved. Her kingdom was not only her home. It was her destiny. The princess would find it silly to admit to it, but a part of her believed that she would disintegrate the moment she crossed the border. Who was she outside of her gilded cage; her palace, her books, her Clera, her crown? Her world was small but it defined her. Without Arnoa, Zita ceased to be.

"Listen here — " Zita barked at her frustrated travel companion, "what's your name?"

"Jax, Your Highness"

"I think you've put me through enough, Jax. First, you kidnap me —"

"I didn't kidnap you," he rubbed his face roughly. It was clear that both his patience and wakefulness had begun to wear thin.

Zita glanced up at her hulking companion. His head was whipping anxiously between the road they had just traveled and the ground they had yet to cover.

Zita sighed and then rose from the ground. Her partner's agitation was infectious and suddenly she became attuned to just how vulnerable they were to attack on the open stretch of land they had parked on.

She looked at Jax, desperation in her eyes, "At least tell me who sent you?"

Jax looked at Zita, beleaguered. He sighed. The stress of his nighttime exploits written all over his bloodshot eyes and washed-out complexion, "You'll find out soon enough."