The Poison Prince

XYLIA had remained mostly silent since they had left Adavale. Taiden had tried to talk to her, prompting her with questions or comments about the dirt on her clothes or the tangles in her long hair. She was entirely non-respondent to him, and just continued to walk forward, careful to avoid any rabbit holes or animal nests that were concealed in the wild grass.
"How do you know?" He eventually asked when he was unable to hold back any longer. She had hopped over a sett that was almost entirely hidden by mounds of dirt and twigs that had fallen from a devastated bush.
"I told you; I knew you were at the mayor's house because I tracked you!" She snapped abruptly, turning around with a fire burning in her eyes of ice.
Taiden blinked twice, slightly bewildered by her words. "No. Not that. The animal nests. How do you know where they are?" He pointed back at the sett now behind them.
Her anger was diffused as quickly as it had erupted. She gazed at the sett for a moment, her shoulders slumping in tired relief. “I taught myself how to notice them when I was in the forests as a child,” she began before slowly spinning and trudging back in the direction they were heading. “In the beginning it was useful for hunting. I could stake out their nests and target them when they came out of their holes.” Xylia shook her head and ducked under a branch. “But then it felt wrong. It was like coming out of my own front door only to be struck down by someone. It wasn’t hunting. It was just murder.”
Taiden let out a small laugh which caused Xylia to stop suddenly and face him defensively. It was then he noticed that she was almost as tall as he was. There were merely inches between them. “Sorry. I truly am. It’s just that I’ve never heard of a hunter with a heart like yours.”
“I only did what I had to survive. After that it was a way of being able to stay in the village.” Once more Xylia turned and continued along the path they were making for themselves. “If I didn’t do something then they would make me leave, and I had nothing else out there.”
“I had no idea it could be so terrible for you.”
“Mutts are worse than anything else in the kingdom; even worse than a murderous queen, or a mad prince. At least to The Draca.” Xylia said sadly, kicking up dirt with the worn toe of her boot as she walked ahead.
Taiden let out a soft sigh and moved quicker to catch up with Xylia. He was by her side in a few long strides and twisted his head to look at her face, obscured mostly by her matted chestnut hair. “I can say with certainty that you are more than a mutt. You saved my life, and you definitely saved many people in the village.”
“That won’t change what I am.”
“It does. The Draca have made you believe that you are worthless, but they couldn’t be more wrong about you. Xylia, you are skilled at surviving, and you are selfless, and wonderful. There isn’t anyone else I would rather be travelling with right now.”
He noticed the red hue spreading across her face and smiled to himself. Taiden was happy that his words had an effect on the young girl because it meant that some part of her had to hear them.
“I’m also a killer.” She uttered quietly – shamefully.
“But you only did what had to be done. You didn’t kill for fun, or because it gave you pleasure; not the way Devanna kills.” Taiden tried to reassure her, but the frown remained fixed on Xylia’s face.

Frustrated by how poorly she saw herself, Taiden grabbed Xylia by the arm and spun her until she had no choice but to look straight at him. He gripped her shoulders tightly, shaking her just a little until she reached up and closed her hands over the top of his in a desperate effort to make him stop.
“Listen to me, immediately. You are not a monster, or a mutt,” Taiden started, speaking fiercely for the first time since Xylia had met him. “If it hadn’t been for you, I would almost certainly be dead by now. Devanna would have spun some tale about how I’d taken my life in a fit of my own madness. This kingdom would be talking about how it was bound to happen because I was so broken by grief - just like my father is - and the whole time she would be on her throne laughing! You prevented her from getting that! You, alone, saved Lyris from that fate!”
“Julius could have done that, too.” She whispered hoarsely as fought off her emotions.
“Maybe, but he’s duty bound to lay his life down for me. You could have stood there and let them take me. Or you could have not come at all.”
“I told you, I tracked-“
“I know,” Taiden opted to believe Xylia’s story simply because of how distressed she seemed to get each time she mentioned tracking him. “But my point is that you didn’t have to.”
Her eyebrows pulled down in confusion. “Why would I leave you in danger like that? You’re helping my uncle. He’s all I’ve ever had in the world.” Her frost blue eyes met his and Taiden slipped his hands down her arms to her cold hands, squeezing them gently.
“Not anymore he’s not.” He promised in a soft, gentle whisper, holding her gaze heatedly.
“Taiden-“ An edge of anxiety crept into her voice as he drew her closer. She suddenly and violently pushed him away, but before Taiden could demand an answer or apologise, an arrow whizzed through the air where he had been standing, whistling just inches away from Xylia’s nose.
“What was that?” He asked, scrambling to his feet and staring after it.
“There’s more coming.” Wide eyed she stared in the opposite direction, her ears detecting the whistling of arrows rushing through the trees straight at them.
“We’re being hunted?! By who?!”
“Who do you think?” She replied darkly, pulling her own bow from her shoulders. It was a low chance that she could deflect anything with her technique, but it was all she had. “The Queen wants you dead!”
Xylia tried with one arrow, but her own vanished into the thicket and she had to dive to the left to dodge one rocketing for her head. She took aim with another, but it missed by half an inch.
“Forget it, Xylia. You’re going to get yourself hurt doing that.” Taiden called out, throwing himself into a thick berry bush to avoid two of the arrows heading straight for him.
She sat up and glanced around, cursing louder than Taiden had ever heard her. It stunned him for a moment which meant she had to throw her body at his to protect him from another set of arrows which would have ripped through his skin. Instead they tore through her cloak and carried on through the air.
“They’re coming back.”
“What?”
“They’re enchanted with magicks! What did you expect from Devanna?” She dragged Taiden to his feet and tugged at him to run. There was little else they could do but run and hope they found something to block the arrow’s path permanently.

The usually quiet forest was quickly filled with the sound of pounding footsteps and the two of them gasping for air as they ran faster and faster, twisting around the trees and jumping through the undergrowth in a desperate attempt to outrun or trick the arrows. They always knew though. They turned and hunted them down like prey, whistling teasingly behind them constantly. If they dared to stop it would only take seconds for the arrows to be upon them, and Xylia didn’t dare turn around once to see what the gap was like. She didn’t want to know. She just kept running even when her calves ached and screamed at her to stop. She would rather hurt like hell later than be dead in some remote part of a forest she didn’t even know.
A strangled cry caught her attention fast and she stumbled to a dangerous halt to take that daring turn back.
“No.” She hissed when she saw Taiden on the ground clutching at his ankle.
“The roots. The blasting roots.” He cursed out, trying to scramble back to his feet but crashing back down when he tried to put weight on his injured leg.
She grabbed him, flinging his arm around her and supporting the brunt of him on her own shoulders. It would be harder to run like this, but she wasn’t going to give up here. They would not be slaughtered by arrows, chased down by a queen too cowardly to take a life with her own hands.

It was only a few steps and a wide clearing before Taiden sighed in resignation and pulled an exhausted, weakened Xylia back.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“We’re not done. It’s not ending like this.”
“You can’t keep running for both of us.” He whispered sadly.
“I can try.”
“I’m sorry.”
Taiden pulled Xylia tight into his arms and felt hers closing back around him as she buried her face into his chest. Already she felt cold despite the sweat soaking through her clothes.
He waited for the pain to come. The blood and the blackness. He waited for it to embrace him the way he did Xylia.