Desires of the Crown

18 - Coloured in Blue and Purple

          Alliar

"Let go of me!" I screamed and kicked as I was thrown into a carriage. "No!" I held my hands out and tried to object but the force of a foot in my back forced me forward into the carriage, making me fall onto the small wooden floor. The thick dust rose into my lungs as I gasped. "Please!" I hissed with pain as I pulled myself up, and looked out at the window.

I got one last look at the crumbling walls and green pastures of the convent before the carriage jolted forward and I fell once again, this time, my head hitting the wooden seat with enough force to send me into a daze.

The small cheap wooden carriage spun a little in my vision and my stomach began to flip, threatening to spill the contents of my already empty stomach all over the rooting wooden floor.

I placed my hands on either side of my head, trying to stop the spinning as I looked around for another plan. There had to be some way out of this, some way of prolonging my life and procuring a way out of this blasted situation and back to my family.

The head sister at the convent had come outside as I watched Jacqueline being dragged away. Her stone face complexion free of emotion as she carelessly watched one of the girls she rose up and trained being dragged to her death. She had placed her hand on my shoulder and simply turned me away, telling me 'I was no longer welcome at the Convent'. Her reasoning - I hadn't been there for no more than two hours before I had caused more trouble than I was worth.

Leaving me there on the floor with the dust and my tears she turned her back on my poor helpless soul and let the smirking Reaper King rip me to shreds. I tried to run, I really did, but no matter how quickly I put one foot in front of another - he caught me.

It looks as if I was once again facing my death at the hands of that man.

I finally pulled myself back up in to a siting position on the chair in the carriage an evaluated myself. Hissing as the pain of my recent blow to the head and kick in the back was causing me.

Checking over my skin briefly I could see, the bruises of firm touches colouring me blue, many bruises from the nights before were already beginning to turn to a faded purple but now I had new ones ready to take their place.

The cart jolted again sending my figure into the air making me hit my head on the hard roof of the carriage.

I cursed in the most unladylike of ways and held my head like precious cargo. Another jolt and the carriage rocked violently to the side.

"What the hell is going on out there?" I pulled myself closer to the window and peered out at the scenery. Trees, twigs, fallen branches - all were making the ride as rough as possible as the carriage was being drawn into the forest.

I smiled. For the first time since I left home, I actually smiled with true meaning. "Idiots." We were in the forest; all I had to do was jump out and run during the next hard jolt over a thick branch. The driver - whom I suspected was Jonathan - would be too distracted the movement to look back and watch me.

Glancing down I went to open the door to the carriage when I stopped at a gruelling realisation. The handle had been sworn off.

I made a displeased sound with the click of my tongue and narrowed my eyes at the handle as if willing it to return. Maybe they weren't as idiotic as I gave them credit for - a true shame if you asked me.

But, when there is no door for a princess to walk through, one must come up with other alternatives. I nodded to myself in reassurance as I lifted my gaze to the only other way out of the carriage: the small window.