The Arcane Rebellion- The Arcane Series #1

Chapter 8

Xavi

Currently, I am the living example of why you should never down two bottles of whiskey one after another.

My whole body hurt and my head was pounding as I tried getting up from my bed. I don't even know how I got there. I'd probably left the common room at some point and came to my room.

Now the whole room was spinning and getting up was torture, but I knew I needed to get up and go check on Layla. She could already be awake for all I know.

I headed to her room, and contemplated whether I should knock or not. I decided against it because I knew she wouldn't be able to answer me. Hesitantly, I opened the door to her bedroom to see her still sleeping peacefully. I went over to her bed and gently shook her to wake her up. She jolted up, her eyes frantically moving and searching the room. She almost punched me but I caught her wrist in time. "Easy, it's just me.", I told her with a slight smile and she exhaled in relief.

Even though I knew she couldn't answer me, I still asked: "How are you feeling?". She shrugged in response, silently trying to say 'Fine, I guess.', at least her body language was suggesting so. Her eye was purple and swollen and the bruise was stretching all the way over her nose and almost to her other eye.

"What happened to your eye?", I asked her, but sensed she wouldn't want to tell me by the way she tensed, along with the fact that she couldn't speak. "I'm not going to push you into telling me, I'm just curious.", I assured her. She tried talking, but again, no sound came out.

I was hesitant to ask the question that was forming in my mind. "Did they- Layla, did they beat you?", I asked with a frown on my face, scared to hear the answer. I thought, perhaps, she'd gotten in a fight with some inmate. She slightly nodded, confirming my suspicions. "They tortured you for answers?", I asked and she nodded again. The knights can be ruthless when they want to be, which is almost always.

"And they still didn't believe you when you told them the truth?", I asked and knew I was right. If they believed she was innocent, they wouldn't have hung her. She was looking at me, not answering because she knew I already knew the answer. I shook my head, disappointed in our corrupt monarchy.

"Wait here. I'm going to get an ointment for your eye and neck. I'm not gonna force you but, would you please consider taking the remedy?", I asked and she stubbornly shook her head. I sighed and headed to my office. The ointment is made of Bloodroot, which is a plant that grows here in our kingdom, and some other herbs. Bloodroot has strong healing properties when used correctly. When not, it's poison.

The proper way to use it is actually quite simple. You just have to boil it for three hours. Boil it less, it's poison, boil it longer, it basically loses all its' healing properties. By the way it looks, it highly resembles dahlias. Specifically black dahlias, but, unlike the black dahlias, Bloodroot's color resembles a rotten cherry, or even blood, while the black dahlias have a more purple-ish color. Its' petals have a velvety feel to them.

I got the jar of ointment from my office and went back to Layla's room where she was leaning on her dresser and looking in the mirror, an angry expression on her face. The last time I'd seen her so angry was the demon siblings incident. I get why she's angry.

When you're constantly tortured, underestimated, blamed for something you didn't do, hated for something you can't control and treated like Layla often is, with disrespect, you become full of pent up rage, full of anger. She could be angry for a million reasons, but I was sure she was angry because of what the knights had done to her. No, scratch that. She was angry because of everything that had happened. And I didn't blame her.

When she noticed me, she sat back down on her bed and I crouched down beside her, first rubbing the ointment on her neck as gentle as possible, and then on her eye.