Crown of Blood

17.2.|| Drums of War

The two bodies were still at the entrance of the pass. Kat crouched next to the fallen Endirian soldier, analyzing the arrow protruding out of his forehead. The plumes were black and purple.

The colors of the royal house of Iride.

The voice whispering in her head provided the necessary details.

"Cage," she muttered in Irdian.

"I beg your pardon, your Majesty?"

Keith was by her side, attentive as ever. She got the feeling he was afraid she would be killed, completely oblivious to the fact that she could protect herself with magic and he couldn't. The least likely of all of them to be killed.

"The king of Iride. This is his arrow." She grabbed hold of it and pulled it out.

Warmth filled her palm, as if he'd just let go of it and passed it to her. A shiver ran through her body and she had to force herself not to drop the object. Instead, she turned it over. The head was still attached, its tiny metal edges jagged to cause more damage. The wood was dark and sturdy, but just wood, not steel like in Endirian arrows.

"The king's?" Keith sounded shocked by the development.

Kat was not for some reasons. She glanced around, wondering if he was still there, watching from the shade of the trees. The bodies were still warm, so the skirmish couldn't have happened too long ago. Would she even feel him if he were? To her shock, she knew that at some point, she could. That being away from him would cause her pain.

A curse. It was nothing but a curse.

The words brought tension to her muscles. There was something odd about being there, something beyond the two men with arrows sticking from their heads. Her gaze fleeted to the other man. That arrow was obviously Endirian. She gritted her teeth.

"Why has our scout been shot?"

"What?" Keith turned to the other man and the surprise on his face morphed into a frown. "You two!" He signaled for the men who had accompanied the fallen soldier.

The two dragged their feet towards their general, both of them hanging their heads. Kat was unpleasantly reminded of naughty children.

"What happened here?" Keith demanded. "Why is this man shot?"

The two soldiers glanced at each other, and then past Keith and into the woods. She hoped they weren't stupid enough to blame Cage for this.

"The truth!" She stressed the last word to make sure they understood the gravity of the situation.

"The sergeant was not pleased," one of the men whispered. "He thought the Iridian--"

"The scout," Kat cut in. Their scout. A man who, despite his ethnicity, believed in Endir and wanted to help them rather than the kingdom he could be considered closer related to.

"The scout," the man repeated, "was not doing his job properly. That he was thinking of betraying us."

"Why would he think something like that?" Keith asked.

There was no answer. Kat didn't expect one, because it was obvious and yet something neither of the two men dared to say.

"Because he is Iridian and Iridians can't be trusted?"

"Yes, your Majesty," one of them whispered.

Kat growled and turned away, walking towards the forest. Keith called after her but she ignored him, caught in a whirlwind of anger, sadness and hatred. She was a second away from screaming that she too was Iridian, even if she didn't look like it. She was born there, had an Iridian father, and had been raised there. Did that make her untrustworthy?