The Lost Princess

Chapter 10

As far as they could tell no one had followed them out of the forest. The pack, along with Charlotte, the prince, and Sam, were only a day away from the princes home land.

Charlotte sat in the grass watching the sun rise slowly out of the ground. She and Kendall hadn’t talked at all since last night. She could sense his anger with her and Charlotte knew that she deserved it. She had thought all night about what he had said. ‘Your not the only one who has problems. It’s not that simple for anybody.’

The line replayed in her mind over and over again. Charlotte tried to sleep, but she couldn’t stop the thought. He was right, everyone has problems. And everyone thinks their problems are more important than anyone else’s. Thats the entire reason she’s in this mess. Rider has a problem with the King, in his mind thats all that matters. Anyone who gets hurt in the process of solving that problem is no more than collateral damage to him.

A bowl of familiar grey paste suddenly appears in front of Charlotte and a warm body sits down beside her. They sit in silence for awhile until Charlotte picks up the bowl and takes a bite. The scraping of the wooden spoon on the wooden bowl was the only sound between them as she ate.

After she had finished she heard Kendall sigh and start to stand up from his place beside her. Her hand shot out instinctively to stop him. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I should have listened to you when you were trying to explain things… it’s just that your the only friend I have here, and by friend I mean someone who is forced to do things for me but still engages in casual conversation sometimes. I just didn’t want to believe that you could be as harsh as the rest of them. I forgot that before I came along to annoy you all hours of the day, that you were just one of the pack.”

“You think I want this,” he said, “I hate this plan. I talked to Rider this morning. I told him I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be apart of murder. It goes against everything I fight for. My hatred is for the King, not his daughters and wife.”

Despite her hand on his arm Kendall continued to stand. He picked her bowl up from the ground and began to walk back to the main campsite.

He sounded almost offended that she would even suggest that he was playing a part in this.

Charlotte sighed this time and went to start taking her tent down. They would be leaving soon and even though she knew Kendall would do it when he got back, she didn’t want him to help her anymore than he had to anymore. After about ten minutes of trying to remove the tarp and get the wooden stakes out the ground  Charlotte heard laughter behind her.

Kendall and a couple of other men she had refused to learn the names of where standing there watching her work. Kendall was smiling while the other two were laughing.

She huffed in defeat then stood aside and let them do the rest of the work. “Good effort,” said Kendall, “but even I can’t take down a tent of this size without at least a little help.” 

Charlotte looked away in embarrassment. 

After they took down the rest of the tent the three men all gave approving nods to each other, then the two she didn’t know went back to the main campsite.

The fire that Kendall had built the night before was only ashes now, but Charlotte took a seat beside it anyway. The silence between them was deafening for the next couple of minutes until she heard a sigh from behind her and Kendall took a seat beside her in front of the pile of ashes. “Rider wants to see you before we head out,” he said, “I don't know what he wants, but it’s best you just go without making a big deal about it.”

Charlotte turned to look at him. Kendall stared at the ashes intently. She stood up from her place and started walking to the main camp. Charlotte knew that Kendall was following behind her, but she didn’t wait for him to catch up.