The Poison Prince

Chapter VIII

TAIDEN had no choice but to leave his stallion in the stables. The Draca promised to care for the royal steed, but it still felt wrong to leave him behind. Xylia had no horse of her own though, and no one would lend her one even with her uncle on his deathbed. She would be leaving the village on foot and Taiden was not so cruel that he would make her walk while he sat comfortably on one of the kingdom's finest saddles and didn't wear himself out at all.

As night began to descend, he began to wonder if he would actually be able to keep up with Xylia. She seemed to stride ahead at times, navigating the forests like they were as familiar to her as the castle of Lyris was to him. She warned him of hidden bogs seconds before he stepped too close to them, and sighed when he stumbled over unearthed roots or knocked his head into low hanging branches.

"How do you know these parts so well? We've been walking for hours." Taiden asked eventually as he stubbed his toe on a rock he had completely missed in the undergrowth.

She peeled back a bush to make a path for them both, holding it in place until Taiden had also passed through. "I lived out here for three years. I know most of these forests like the back of my own hand."

"You and your uncle lived out here? Where? I don't recall passing any cottages when I journeyed through with Julius."

"Not my uncle," Xylia shook her head and readjusted the satchel weighing heavy on her shoulder, "just me." She wasn't all too sure if she wanted to talk about this, but the silence only made her feel guilty for leaving the village of The Draca, and her uncle behind.

Taiden blinked at her. He had assumed already that she was younger than he was though she held herself with a maturity he only saw in those far beyond his years. She was agile, her snowy skin unblemished by wrinkles, however he had noticed a small diamond shaped scar on the bridge of her long, sharp nose.

"I was twelve," she answered before he could even ask the question, and he realised then that he had been staring unblinkingly at her for several long, slow moments. "I returned to the village when I was fifteen. I could hunt, and I knew what fruits of the forests would save my life on a cold night, and what ones would quicken my death."

Xylia stopped suddenly and pulled a fistful of berries from one bush and then turned to cross the path where she pulled another handful from another. Opening her palms Taiden found himself staring down at a hand of blue and a hand of purple. Apart from the difference in the colour both sets of berries looked the same.

"Blue makes you spew. Purple...well nothing rhymes with purple so I've never been able to work that one out, but they're safe. Try some."

Hesitantly he pinched some of the purple berries from her palm and slowly brought them to his lips. They were sweet and full of juice, but unlike anything the prince had tried before. He liked them, and reached down for a few more when he noticed his fingertips were a plum colouring now.

"Hey, they stain!"

Xylia shrugged nonchalantly and tossed the dangerous blue berries away again. "It washes out in the rain." Her eyes widened ever so slightly. "Hey, that works; Purple may stain, but comes out in the rain." She glanced down at his fingers and then back up at his bemused face. "There's a brook running beside us this whole time, just through this thicket here. You can wash your hands in it and we can set up camp for the night. It's getting late anyway."

As she watched Taiden wash his hands in cold, crystal clear waters of the book, Xylia took a long moment to think about what she was doing. She had left the ruins of her home, her dying uncle, and everything she had ever known to follow the Prince of Lyris and take her vengeance on the Queen of Lyris. It was madness, complete and utter madness.