Alexandria: The Rebel Princess

Chapter 14 - Part 3

Men groan around me falling dead or dying in front of me. Jumping over them, I keep going. Blood sprays across my face with the nearby blows. Through the roar of the battle cries, Wilfrid's voice echoes above the rest, "She went that way."

I clench my teeth from memories of the forest, before I had met the Mountain Blades. Their voices calling out to each other through the smoke, in their search for me. Just like that day, I ran for my life, my lungs burning now, not from the smoke but exhaustion. This time I will escape before anyone can drag me back to that horrid man who caused this battle in the first place.

At the far end of the tents, an axe propelled through the air, with Xavier at its axis. Blood sprays around him, in his massacre. He seems to catch sight of me, barreling through the vast men tumbling and slashing behind us. Hollering behind him, I'm left with silence. His deep voice can't reach me. Tristan shuffled forward into sight, shoving back men from the wagon bed behind him. Relief flashing in his eyes from Xavier's hollering. Our smiles reflect each other's and I push harder. Throwing myself through the battlegrounds towards the safety they would provide. Sudden fear consumes him, his gaze reaching past me.

"Chloe!" My heart skips a beat and pulses with a haunting stare behind me that follows that voice. A squeezing pain aches deep inside me and I stumble to a stop.

Gasping for air I saw Tristan's horrified expression from my frozen stop.

"Run," Tristan cries. Fighting through the hoard of men that surround him, Tristan is trapped.

A man is shoved down and Octavius stands in his wake. Prying through the men himself, he looks as if he is reaching out for me desperately. My feet are rooted in the ground, like tree roots are wrapped around them, sealing me to the spot. Thick tears pour down my cheeks as a man charges towards Octavius. He stumbles back groaning in frustration as their swords collide.

"Get down," that voice cries out again.

Forcing myself to turn around, a man flies at me. Tackled to the ground, I slam into the dirt. A soldier's blade swings above me into the air where I once was. I gasp, frozen underneath this man who saved me. A blade twirls before me in the hands of my saviour and is thrust behind him into the soldier who had tried to kill me. With a groan the soldier falls lifelessly behind us.

A relieved sigh echoes familiarly and the man falls over me. Holding himself up on his hands, he stares at me. With heaving breaths, blowing into my face, he smiles. His chocolate brown hair drips from sweat and what I fear is blood down over me. Blinking with each splatter on my face, I'm dazed. None of this matters. Those intense dark eyes swirl with an expression I can't place.

"How?" I whisper.

How what? What am I even asking him after all this time? How did you find me? How are you here? How could you have murdered Queen Helena? My mind blurs with thoughts, and I just stare up at one man who keeps my heart from Tristan, my husband.

"Enough of this," Kalen hisses. He slams his fists on the ground beside my head and I flinch.

Queen Helena's cries from within the tunnel surface like a nightmare. Throwing my hands up, I clutch my head, willing the haunting voices away.

"Fight," Xavier's plea rips through the horrific echoes inside my mind. He charges towards me. An arrow flies towards him, and he skids to a stop. The arrow flops into a curve slamming skillfully down before his feet. He glares down at it hatefully, before staring at the man who shot at him.

Wilfrid draws back his bow, aiming it towards Xavier. Carefully, side stepping between Xavier and myself. "Do not approach her," he snarls. Xavier remains still, squeezing his axe in a death grip. Wilfrid glances back at me, a sad smile falling to his lips for a second, before vanishing into a hardening stare which he directs towards Xavier.