Saving Her Kingdom

♡ Chapter 30

How I imagined the rose ^^ (but with a slightly more curved stem)

Chapter 30 (Edited)

The next morning, I woke up at the sound of birds chirping. I could feel the chill of the night in the air, and as soon as I opened my eyes, I saw the rosy clouds between the branches, showing that the sun was barely up. Thomas had already woken up, since he wasn't beside me.

I sat up slowly, my limbs feeling quite heavy after a few nights of sleep on the hard ground. Thomas was cleaning Apollo with the only brush we had taken with us. He glanced at me and smiled when he saw my movement. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Thomas," I yawned, "Have you been cleaning Belle and Apollo since dawn?"

"No, only after I ate my breakfast," he said with a smirk.

"Your breakfast?"

He nodded. "Yes, there are quite a few berries in this season."

Ah, yes. We were mid-summer, so a lot of berries must have grown now. "That's great!", I smiled at him sweetly, "Did you leave some for me?"

He rolled his eyes teasingly. "Yes, since I'm so nice."

My face immediately brightened. "Thank you!"

He put the brush down and handed me a big leaf from the ground that I hadn't seen before, with some wild strawberries, wild raspberries and blackberries on it. I licked my lips. It was a while since I had eaten those berries.

I put some in my mouth and immediately closed my eyes in bliss. They're so good. "From the look on your face, I'm assuming you like them," said Thomas' teasing voice while he sat, leaning against a tree.

"Mhm," I agreed, while munching on a raspberry.

"So," Thomas stated, "We have the rose. What do we do now?"

I thought for a moment and replied, "Well, now we're going to look for the secret, I guess."

He eyed me with a glint of excitement. "Finally. I can't wait to find it."

"Let's look at the map," I suggested.

He took it from his pocket, opened it and gestured for me to come closer. He furrowed his eyebrows while examining it.

The map showed clearly the two kingdoms and a bit of the land and sea around them. The kingdom of Tannerson had a coast on half of its west side, with mountains in front of it. Then, plains and hills extended themselves on the entire kingdom until the Vast Forest in the east. The border between the two kingdoms was in the middle of the entire length of the Vast Forest, and on the side of the kingdom of Ravenport, there were the beginning of low mountains. The kingdom of Ravenport also mostly consisted of plains, but with a large lake on the south. A river, which source was in the middle of the Vast Forest, was flowing in it. The source was on the side of the kingdom of Tannerson; the river went south and was the continuing of the border after the Vast Forest. At one point, it was divided in two smaller streams, and one half of the river went east to the lake, and the other half went west to the sea.

The source of the river was where the symbol of my pendant was drawn.

The two royal palaces also figured on the map, as well as the largest towns, and the most important routes. Luckily, I knew that the location of the cottage we were at was in a large parc near a town called 'Darkwood', which we could see on the map. It was not far from the border of the river.

"We're near this town," I pointed at Darkwood.

"Good. We'll have to follow the river to its source then."