The Poison Prince

“WHEN I heard tales of The Draca I always imagined them living slightly grander.” Taiden said, choosing his words delicately and speaking in a hushed voice. No one was around, but he appeared on edge, as though hoards of The Draca might rush them any moment.
“Maybe they did; once upon a time,” Xylia shrugged and double checked that her hood was in place, “so few are left now that I don’t think they could do much more than this.”
It was Taiden who walked forward first, taking those initial intrusive steps into a place where no uninvited outsiders had walked for years. The clacking of his horse’s hooves against the cobblestone caused faces to appear by twitching curtains and Xylia held her breath as doors opened. This was the moment she had been dreading since she had begun to lead the two men back to the village.
“There is nothing here to pillage or destroy,” one man shouted from the door to his home, causing Taiden to chuckle beneath the safety of his own hood.
“Quite a welcome party,” he whispered to Xylia who walked anxiously by his side.
She dared a peek at him, and then kept her focus on her scuffed boots. “No one has come to our village in a long time. Healers we know of in advance, but no one comes this far north anymore. There’s nothing beyond here.”
“Then why did The Draca come here?” Julius asked, keeping a cautious eye on the distrusting faces that followed them further into the tiny hamlet.
Xylia sighed softly and tried to remember the story she had been told by her uncle many times before. “It was before the diseases started striking people down. The Draca have always been proud and thought themselves superior to many. Living alone they could basically make their own rules for their town. It started off well, there were traders and merchants who would come out this far for the wares of The Draca, but then when everyone started dying…”
“It becomes easier to ignore it when the truth is too impossible to believe.” Taiden understood that only too well, and the gentleness of his voice surprised Xylia so that all she managed was a small nod in response.

“That is far enough!” A bold, angry voice halted their steps. Before them stood a man dressed in black finery. He glared at them with bitter amber eyes. Xylia bowed her head more to hide her features, knowing the trouble she would be in if she was recognised before Taiden and Julius introduced themselves. Still, she wanted to prepare them. She had brought them right to the village square without any real warning of what The Draca were like. They were proud and inhospitable creatures of fire, who cared now only for themselves. “You have walked into our home without invitation, without warning, and you will reveal yourselves to me at once!”
“This is Skandar Sulnn. He’s leader of The Draca.” Xylia whispered to Taiden as quietly as she could, but it was enough to have Skandar’s gaze move from Taiden to her.
In a mere second, his eyes went from bitter to enraged. “Mutt!” He spat the word venomously and flew forward to grab Xylia by the scruff of her neck. She was violently shoved to the ground and the skin of her palms was stripped away by the grit. She hissed at the pain, but before she could do anything else Skandar grabbed her again, lifting her almost entirely off the ground by her throat. “What is the meaning of this?! Did you lead trespassers to our village?! For what purpose?!” His grasp burnt her flesh, and she whimpered and struggled against him, but he had the power of the dragon on his side whereas Xylia never would.
“That is enough! Let go of her immediately!” Taiden stepped forward and drew his own sword; a weapon made of the finest steel and balanced just for him.
“We do not welcome outsiders here.” Skandar snarled, tightening his grip on Xylia’s neck, but turning his attention back to Taiden.
“I am no outsider,” Taiden tossed back his hood and met Skandar’s glare with his own dark look, “I am your future king; Prince Taiden Amis Redyir.”
Xylia hit the dirt with a heavy thud.

At the blacksmiths, her uncle tended to her bruised neck with ice and damp bandages. He had grumbled about wasting good bandages on foolishness, but he soaked them in cold water nevertheless and instructed Xylia to keep them wrapped around her neck until the swelling and burning had gone away.
“You should have come round the outer wall and brought them here first,” he scolded, handing her water laced with herbs to drink for her tender throat, “then you might have saved yourself this.”
Xylia scowled at him and knocked back the foul tasting mixture, gagging as she swallowed it. “I didn’t think I’d be Skandar’s beating post,” she grimaced at how her words croaked and scratched at her abused throat.
“I told you no one would want to see you right now.” There was no sympathy in her uncle’s voice. Just the same gruff tone he had always used with her.
Xylia remained silent and looked towards the window. She had crawled away moments after the prince had announced himself, and left him and his captain to talk with Skandar and the others who were starting to gather. Deep down she wondered if they had been gathering in the hopes that Skandar would have finally removed her from their village by squeezing every drop of life from her body. She supposed she owed the prince her gratitude now. Without his intervention she might not have been lucky enough to escape Skandar’s fiery rage.

A sharp knock at the door shocked her from her thoughts and she watched her uncle cross the small workshop in three long strides to open it. He dropped into a tidy bow almost instantly and her eyes fell upon the prince, no longer hiding beneath his black cloak.
“Your highness, to what do I owe the honour?” In all her years she had never heard her uncle speak so courteously to anyone, not even Skandar. The gruffness was gone from his voice, too.
“I have come to see if Xylia is okay. It took some coercing, but I believe she should be here?” She couldn’t see past her uncle’s broad shoulders to the prince now, but she heard her uncle grumbling to himself about being a troublemaker.
“Aye, she is,” she blinked up at him when he stepped aside and looked at her with a resigned look in his dark eyes. “Why don’t you head back on back to the hut now, Xylia. You need your rest anyway.” She nodded and collected her things, struggling with her cloak now that her neck was swathed in sopping wet bandages.
Taiden stepped aside to let her through the door and then fell into place next to her. Julius was also there, his hand clasped around the hilt of his sword ready for any trouble that came their way. Maybe there had been more after Xylia had made her escape.
“So…you’re not one of The Draca then.” Taiden stated it as fact rather than phrasing it as a question.
Xylia coughed softly, trying to ease her wounded vocal cords before she parted her lips. “I never actually claimed to be one.” Her words still came out raspy and dry.
“Mutt seems a bit strong though.”
“The Draca are a proud race. Mixing their blood with someone less worthy is an unspeakable dishonour,” she explained, though the look on Taiden’s face said enough; he didn’t understand. “The Draca came from dragons. They are mighty and beautiful creatures. Some of The Draca can still wield the fire within their veins.” Xylia recalled how Skandar’s touch burnt her and she wondered if his fingerprints had left scars beneath the cooling bandages. “Why should someone who is unworthy get to share that power? Why should a rat get to be a king?”
“That’s barbaric thinking.” Julius sounded horrified from his spot slightly behind them. He was always behind them, Xylia noted.
“It’s not mine, obviously.” Xylia led the two men towards the edge of the village where the small hut stood lopsided. It looked as though it might collapse any moment, but it had, in fact, been built that way on purpose.
“So you-“
“Are unworthy. To everyone in this village anyway.” Xylia pushed open the wonky gate and held it open for the two men. Only Julius thanked her and she realised that the prince probably never even noticed people holding doors open for him.
“What about your parents? It was a local boy who eventually told me that your uncle was the blacksmith around here, and that you resided with him.” Taiden told the short tale in a voice that was enough to imply that finding that much out had been hard work.
“My mother died when I was very young. And my father…I don’t know who he is. He wasn’t one of The Draca though.” She pushed open the door to the hut and found herself smirking to herself when she noticed that once again Julius was the only one to thank her as she let the two men inside.

The hut was void of almost all decoration. A potted plant with dry, curling leaves sat on a bookcase in a cracked pot. Soil tricked out of it like sand, spilling down onto the few books that leaned haphazardly against each other on the shelves below. The furniture was homemade by her uncle and simple in its design. All oak, all painted dark because he liked it that way. The air smelt like smoke despite the fact that the fire hadn’t been lit in days; it was a smell affiliated to The Draca.
Taiden picked up the cotton shirt that Xylia had left on the table the night before, needle and thread still jammed into it where she had been mending a hole before bed.
“It’s not much, but it’s home,” she said quietly, her fingers itching to rip the shirt from his grasp. Her needlework was not good and she didn’t want him to mock her for what little she had come from.
“The place we’ve been put up in has imported silks and I was offered wine the moment I stepped through the door.” Taiden mused, still running his thumb over the half-finished stitching.
“I could offer you rabbit stew from last night.” Xylia said through gritted teeth and thinly veiled anger. She wasn’t going to compete with the richest of The Draca. Her uncle had lost more than he would admit to just because he had taken her in after her mother was killed. Even now people still liked to punish him for putting a roof over her head.
“After three days of travelling I’d take stew over wine.” Julius said with a sly smile. His attitude to her seemed to have changed since arriving in the village and meeting The Draca. He was less distrusting of her.
“And I’ve never actually drank the stuff,” Taiden confessed with a wide grin, dropping the shirt back to the table, “I prefer a strong mead,” he laughed warmly before turning to Xylia and letting his eyes fall to her bandaged neck. “Are you seriously alright?” He asked, all humour gone from his face now.
“I’ll live, if that’s what you’re asking.” She allowed herself to drop into one of the chairs. Taiden lowered himself into one opposite her and fixed his dark eyes on her.
“How often does that sort of abuse happen?” Julius asked, positioning himself by the door now that it seemed they were staying a while.
“It’s never been that bad,” Xylia admitted softly, unclipping her cloak from her shoulders and sighing as the weight dropped, “usually it’s name calling, maybe throwing something my way, but never anything like that.”
“Come with us. Leave all of that behind.” Taiden said abruptly, a wild delight dancing in his eyes now.
Xylia looked at him with a shocked expression, taken aback slightly. “What? Why would I do that? I’m not one of The Draca. I have nothing to offer you on your journey – wherever it may be to.”
“I am remarkably glad that you’re not one of The Draca. Still, why would you stay somewhere you are so unwelcome? Come with us.” Taiden leaned in close to Xylia and reached for her hands, but she leaned back away from him.
“Your highness, there’s something outside.” Julius spoke up, interrupting Xylia before she could even ask why Taiden wanted her to join them so much.

Outside the skies had turned a thunderous black and the clouds swirled together in an unnatural clockwise motion. Screams resonated from the centre of the village and the wind howled from the forest around them.
“We don’t get storms like this here! Not without warning!” Xylia shouted over the moans of the wind, ignoring the pain of her throat as she forced the words out.
“This isn’t a natural storm.” Taiden responded, his face pale in fright, eyes wide in fear as a hail of fire descended from the stormy heavens.
Xylia shrieked in terror as those homes with thatched roofs were engulfed in flames. Julius turned to Taiden and grabbed him roughly by the shoulders, shaking him harshly. “What did you do?! What did you write in that letter?!”
Taiden blinked silently at him. The words there in his mind, but he found himself unable to speak them. He didn’t want to accept that this was his doing. This reckoning was because of his words.
Julius stared at him in horror, his fingers now digging in hard enough for it to actually hurt the prince, but Taiden didn’t move or say anything. His Captain held him in place and spoke what he didn’t want to admit. “She’s found us. The Queen has found us.”