The Poisoned Prince

Prologue

Louise gazed around the secluded, enclosed forest brimming with blooming flowers. It was a beautiful day, the field smelt of various scents. It was obvious that some flowers were hazardous. He stopped himself from touching them. Louise tightly closed his eyes as he tried to remember how he'd got here, the smells made him want to forget everything and stay there forever. Here, he wouldn't have any responsibility, he wouldn't have any more worries. Suddenly, a shadow loomed over Louise. The clouds turned dark, and the sunlight disappeared. The wind started to howl. Louise turned around and saw a human-like dark figure walking towards him. He began to run, but it was like every step he took, he slid two steps back. The wind was pushing him towards the figure. The currents of the wind were sucking towards it. The strangest thing? The dark figure's cloak wasn't even moving, it remained motionless. The wind wasn't effective, and he started to panic, he ran faster, but he just got shoved back twice as far. The figure was about ten feet away. Five feet. Two feet- Louise shot up in his bed drenched in a cold sweat, and gasping. His heart was pounding. Louise took a deep breath, it was only a dream. His head was spinning. He ran his fingers through his wavy blonde hair, stressed as he tried to calm down. There was a knock on the door, when a nurse walked in, letting him jump out of his skin.

"Sorry your Highness, I didn't mean to scare you," The nurse said kindly. "How are you feeling?" She asked, offering him a glass of water.

"No, no you ok, I mean- I'm ok" Louise answered, struggling to think straight. The nurse took one look at him and then felt his forehead.

"You're still fevering" The nurse replied knitting her eyebrows with concern. Louise was going to give the sarcastic answer but his head was spinning, and he was very warm. "Regent Caledon wanted to talk with you if you feel up to it" The nurse pursed her lips as she stood up, and walked out closing the door behind her. A few minutes later the regent, Louise's uncle, walked in. He wore a purple cape with the king's crest - a silver coin with small writing on its blade, crossed over the coin was a sword. Behind the coin, a pair of phoenix wings slanted to the right, with small vines wrapped around the rest of it. Caledon's eyes had a warm, deep blend of soft and dark brown. Yet, they still illuminated the kindness within. He had a nice trimmed beard and well-combed light chocolate-colored hair.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, walking over and sitting next to his bed.

"I'm. fine" Louise wished. He took a deep breath. Caledon raised his eyebrows,

"Well, I'm getting reports from all over the kingdom requesting medics, and doctors. The farmers aren't able to send supplies to the markets, due to not having any left. Jobs are getting hard to find, which means it's harder to earn money. The kingdom is getting worse, I don't think you're fine" He gave Louise that one look that said, nice try. Louise sighed, he gets it every time. He wanted to be fine, but unfortunately, he was anything but fine.

"Ok, ok I get it, but what am I supposed to do about it?" Louise questioned. His uncle looked him over and simply replied,

"Nothing"

"What do you mean nothing? I have to do something" Louise put his head down, and rubbed his temples, his head throbbing. What did he mean, nothing? He had to do something before he went insane. What was he even talking about? Louise couldn't even stand without passing out, what could he do? Louise's headache must have been clouding his thoughts.

"You won't be doing anything with that poison running through your veins. I on the other hand will, and I think you know what we need to do." Louise glared at him stubbornly before saying,

"We also both know, that doing that would put the people in extreme danger, especially if the cure is where we think." Louise knew his uncle didn't want to do it any more than he did. Everyone knew Louise was sick, it was obvious. Caledon already sent scouts and trackers, of many different kinds, out searching for the cure, but he wanted to put posters up everywhere, offering one thousand, four hundred in gold, in return for the cure.

"We don't have a choice, after we've done that it's all we can do," he replied with a stern tone. "And I'm not losing another family member, not now" That hit hard. Louise's mom died after he was born, and his dad recently passed away, by recently he meant eight years ago. Leaving Louise's uncle, to take charge as regent, until Louise was old enough to take over. When his father passed, the gift moved on to the next closely related generation of royalty, which happened to be Louise. The gift had been passed down for generations. It was when the rightful heir to the throne had a connection to the kingdom. Which at the moment seemed like a curse to him. Louise bit his lip before saying,

"Yeah, I know. I guess you could put up the fliers" Caledon smiled. Louise didn't want people to worry about him, but it was kind of late for that. Because of him, the kingdom was slowly dying. It was his mess, to begin with. If he hadn't been poisoned, if he'd just been more careful, the people- his people wouldn't be enduring all this pain. It was his fault for everything. And, it was for this reason that he needed to fix the mess he made. Whoever poisoned him, knew what they were doing. Louise had a big hunch that the poison was caused by dark magic. Mostly, because he'd eavesdropped on his uncle and the many different medics, nurses, doctors, and even mages. They had strange habits of talking right outside his door or gossiping while they thought Louise was asleep. The poison could only be cured by one thing, the one thing that they had no idea about its whereabouts. They weren't sure exactly what it was, but it was guessed to be some kind of herb.

"So, you don't remember drinking any strange things, or passing any strange people, at all?" Caledon looked like he knew the answer, whether it was hopeless to ask, or not. And he did. His uncle had already asked this a thousand times before.

"No, I already told you, everything was normal the day before it started. I didn't run into any strange people or eat and drink anything unusual, ok?" Louise's tone was a bit more irritated than it should've been. A wave of nausea hit him. He got extremely dizzy. This happened to him every time the poison seeped further into his veins. His uncle looked into his eyes with genuine concern. Caledon's soft eyes peered into Louise's.

"Ok, but if I can do anything to help, tell me" He got up and walked to the door standing in the doorway. "You should get some rest, you need it" Louise nodded, and Caledon softly closed the door. Louise heard him outside the door, telling a servant to put fliers up immediately. This was something Louise had been avoiding for a couple of days now. His people shouldn't have to take care of him and help him, it was supposed to go the other way around. Some king he was. Another wave of pain and nausea came, forcing Louise to lie down. The worse the nausea got the worse his head pounded. The pain was unbearable, but he needed to keep going, for his people. They needed him. Louise forced himself to close his eyes and drift off to sleep.