Royalty vs Rebels

Chapter 5

My eyes were met with the starry night, hanging above me. The stars twinkled silver light, and the light illuminated my room. I love my ceiling. It reminded me of the time Reidan took me star-gazing. He had borrowed a truck – something only the farmers used these days – and filled the trunk with blankets and pillows. Then he’d driven out into the middle of the Ruby Kingdom’s farming district, where we were the only ones amongst the miles of bushes. Well, the only ones besides the gaggle of ever present guards that surrounded the Imperial Prince. Then we laid among the blankets and pillows and just stared at the stars. It was one of the best days of my life. It probably been the memory I went through had I taken a third bite of the memory fruit Clarence had stopped me from eating.

            The second memory, though – my worst memory – would have consisted of a dark alley. The glint of teeth. A snarl. I shivered. Reidan had saved me from that, and I knew that one day we would be together, despite the law. The current Emperor wasn’t going to live forever.

            I swallowed, then winced. My throat felt like sandpaper. Reaching out, I grabbed a tea pot that had been set on my bedside table, and shakily started pouring myself a cup. I sat up and put my feet on the floor so I could grab the tea cup with one hand as I poured with the other, but my shaking hand, which strained to lift the heavy ceramic pot, missed the cup and the scalding tea poured over my hand and sizzled over my skin.

            The pain was too great for me to scream, and I tried staggering to my bathroom, but the floor tilted and I ended up sprawled on the floor. Great. Just great. My hand was burning, as if being held over flames, and my head was pounding. And my room was spinning. I managed to crawl into the bathroom and turn on the faucet of my glass sink bowl. The burning pain in my hand flared when the warm water ran over it, and I could barely keep in a scream as I turned the knob on the faucet to cold water with my right hand.

            Unable to help myself, I let out a small whimper as the burning in my hand turned to cool relief.  I don’t know how long I was like that, kneeling in front of the sink, partially draped over the counter with my hand running under frigid water. After what seemed like an eternity, though, I lifted my head from where it rested against my arm, and glared at my hand. Instead of my usual light golden skin tone, it was bright pink. How was I going to hide this?

            Apparently fate decided I wasn’t going to hide my injury, though, because then Marie walked in and she screamed, even though it was me who received the burn.

            “Your Highness! Oh my goodness, what happened?” She shrieked, rushing over to me. Her hands fluttered nervously, as she wondered whether or not I would get angry if I touched her or not.

            “Just…get my a salve or something to soothe the pain,” I told her. She nodded quickly and scurried away. It wasn’t long before she reappeared with a tube of medicine and a glove.

            “Here, this should reduce the pain,” she said as she rubbed it into my injured hand, which she had gently dried off with a washcloth.

            I hissed. “It feels like it’s increasing the pain, not reducing it,” I managed to say through my gritted teeth.

            Marie merely nodded. “It will get better. And this glove should also help, it keeps the moisture in, and the inside is treated to quicken the healing process,” she said as she worked the white rubber glove on my hand. I wrinkled my nose at the finished product, which was my swollen and very pink hand encased in a rubber glove, which rubbed against the skin and made it feel even worse.

            “Are you still dizzy?” Marie asked.

            Surprisingly, I wasn’t. It must have decided I had enough pain to deal with at the moment.