The Prince and His Slave [REWRITTEN]

Chapter 2 - [Injured]

– Arius –

She was as horrible as I had imagined her to be. Lady Hepa of Hati seemed to be the typical spoiled princess who was dying for attention. It did not take me very long to understand that being the third daughter proved disadvantageous to her and she clearly wanted more than she was getting.

Though it was easy to see that she had a lot.

She was beautiful, yes, with fair skin and eyes that were shaped like that of a feline. She was thin, with silky hair and looked exactly how a princess ought to look.

But I was not interested in her at all.

Despite her beauty, she seemed to be a bore. I had seen a hundred more interesting Egyptian girls than her. Unfortunately, my uncle would never consider marrying me off to one of them.

Removing my claim to the throne was one thing, but harming the royal name was completely another.

So I found myself in a horrible mood as I rode my horse back to the palace.

We had just crossed the border to my land and as we rode through the desert, all I could think of doing was trying to concoct some sort of method to get out of this marriage. The heat of the sun on my skin was nothing compared to the utter annoyance I felt in my spirit.

"My Prince?"

I looked up and saw one of the six soldiers who were escorting me slow down. My horse began to slow down too. "What is it?"

"We need to hold back for a moment," he said. "And if you will, I ask that you pull your hood over your head."

My eyes narrowed, but when I looked past him I saw two other soldiers riding off towards a group of people off in the distance.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"We are unsure," another soldier said as he watched me pull my hood over my head. "But we were told by the soldiers back at the fort to be weary in this area. Bandits run around and attack travelers."

I looked back at the soldiers who had rode off. They must have gone to check to see who those people were.

I wasn't particularly frightened by bandits. I felt that I could fend for myself quite well. Aside from spending most of my life training, my best friend himself was a soldier and he quite enjoyed teaching me a thing or two.

But right now I was exceptionally tired and annoyed and for the sake of hurrying home I hoped that we weren't dealing with bandits.

Of course, it seemed that for the last couple days, the gods had been extremely unhappy with me. Things weren't exactly going my way these days.

First the fiancée and now what seemed to be the angry shouts of soldiers who were fighting off exactly what I hoped the men off in the distance weren't. Bandits.

I wanted to roll my eyes, but before I could I saw three of my soldiers pull their horses in front of me and one went behind me while the bandits in the distance got on their own horses and raced towards us.

To my surprise, there were only four bandits.

I found it a little shocking that my soldiers were worried about four measly bandits.

The three soldiers in front of me charged at the bandits and my dark brown stallion, Neshny, reared back in panic when the sharp noise of swords clashing and angry shouting filled the air of the quiet dessert.

"Whoa, whoa," I tried to calm him down as I pulled out my own sword in case I needed to defend myself.

Like I said before, though, the gods seemed to be unhappy with me. Which was probably why these bandits easily knocked my soldiers off of their horses while one of them came charging at me.