The Poison Prince

TAIDEN had no choice but to leave his stallion in the stables. The Draca promised to care for the royal steed, but it still felt wrong to leave him behind. Xylia had no horse of her own though, and no one would lend her one even with her uncle on his deathbed. She would be leaving the village on foot and Taiden was not so cruel that he would make her walk while he sat comfortably on one of the kingdom’s finest saddles and didn’t wear himself out at all.

As night began to descend, he began to wonder if he would actually be able to keep up with Xylia. She seemed to stride ahead at times, navigating the forests like they were as familiar to her as the castle of Lyris was to him. She warned him of hidden bogs seconds before he stepped too close to them, and sighed when he stumbled over unearthed roots or knocked his head into low hanging branches.
“How do you know these parts so well? We’ve been walking for hours.” Taiden asked eventually as he stubbed his toe on a rock he had completely missed in the undergrowth.
She peeled back a bush to make a path for them both, holding it in place until Taiden had also passed through. “I lived out here for three years. I know most of these forests like the back of my own hand.”
“You and your uncle lived out here? Where? I don’t recall passing any cottages when I journeyed through with Julius.”
“Not my uncle,” Xylia shook her head and readjusted the satchel weighing heavy on her shoulder, “just me.” She wasn’t all too sure if she wanted to talk about this, but the silence only made her feel guilty for leaving the village of The Draca, and her uncle behind.
Taiden blinked at her. He had assumed already that she was younger than he was though she held herself with a maturity he only saw in those far beyond his years. She was agile, her snowy skin unblemished by wrinkles, however he had noticed a small diamond shaped scar on the bridge of her long, sharp nose.
“I was twelve,” she answered before he could even ask the question, and he realised then that he had been staring unblinkingly at her for several long, slow moments. “I returned to the village when I was fifteen. I could hunt, and I knew what fruits of the forests would save my life on a cold night, and what ones would quicken my death.”
Xylia stopped suddenly and pulled a fistful of berries from one bush and then turned to cross the path where she pulled another handful from another. Opening her palms Taiden found himself staring down at a hand of blue and a hand of purple. Apart from the difference in the colour both sets of berries looked the same.
“Blue makes you spew. Purple…well nothing rhymes with purple so I’ve never been able to work that one out, but they’re safe. Try some.”
Hesitantly he pinched some of the purple berries from her palm and slowly brought them to his lips. They were sweet and full of juice, but unlike anything the prince had tried before. He liked them, and reached down for a few more when he noticed his fingertips were a plum colouring now.
“Hey, they stain!”
Xylia shrugged nonchalantly and tossed the dangerous blue berries away again. “It washes out in the rain.” Her eyes widened ever so slightly. “Hey, that works; Purple may stain, but comes out in the rain.” She glanced down at his fingers and then back up at his bemused face. “There’s a brook running beside us this whole time, just through this thicket here. You can wash your hands in it and we can set up camp for the night. It’s getting late anyway.”

As she watched Taiden wash his hands in cold, crystal clear waters of the book, Xylia took a long moment to think about what she was doing. She had left the ruins of her home, her dying uncle, and everything she had ever known to follow the Prince of Lyris and take her vengeance on the Queen of Lyris. It was madness, complete and utter madness.
“What the hell am I thinking?” She asked herself, striking the flint to start the fire they’d need to make it through the night. Many of the nocturnal forest creatures were afraid of fire and this would keep the two of them safe until sunrise came again.
“You’re thinking that you want to punish the person who destroyed your home.” Taiden’s voice startled her and she fumbled the kindling in her hand. “Sorry, I overheard. I understand rhetorical questions, but I almost always find myself with an answer to them nevertheless.”
“I should be with my uncle.”
“Julius will bring the best healer to him. That I can assure you.”
“I can’t do anything. I’m just a mutt.”
Taiden sat down next to her on the soft earth. “You are more than that. I saw you rush into that village with no thought for yourself, but for everyone else; for the very people who criticise and scorn you. You saved them when I believe they very much would have left you to perish in that firestorm.”
Xylia hung her head, knowing he was right. The Draca would have left her to die if she had been in trouble, trapped and surrounded by flames. She owed them nothing and yet she had given them everything.
“But the queen-“
“Someone has to stop her. I’ll do most of the work, I promise, but if the people don’t fight back then she will continue to ruin their homes and kill the ones they love most. I believe you can help to make a huge difference, Xylia.”
She shook her head, “I’m just a girl,” she muttered staring at the fire crackling before them. It unnerved her now to see the flames so close, as controlled as they were in the dugout she had expertly created for it.
“That’s all I need you to be. Queen Devanna has hurt the person you love most of all though, and she won’t care one grain about that. All she cares about is power and having more of it. The Draca have done nothing to anyone and look what she did to them.” Taiden didn’t want to lose Xylia, not when he had come so far with her now.
She looked across at him and all she saw was desperation in his eyes. Xylia interpreted it as a desperation to help his people; the people who would one day live under his rule. Taiden was supposedly mad, submerged in a decade’s worth of grief, but right then she just saw his need to stop Devanna. She thought about her need to be accepted by The Draca and wondered if it had ever been as strong as that. If she helped him would they praise her? If she got revenge on their behalf would she be one of them then?
“Do you have a plan?” She enquired, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her cheek atop them.

Taiden had to swallow his smile as he realised he still had Xylia where he wanted her. He picked up a stick from the ground and quickly drew a map into the soil. He marked off the Castle of Lyris first, then the outskirts of the capital before plotting out roughly where the main towns and cities were along the way between there and them.
“I can’t return directly to the castle. I should only make it back the day of the Queen’s Banquet, which is a little over two weeks from now. We can pass through these towns - Adavale should especially prove useful. If we can lower my step-mother’s standing and give the people something else to believe in other than the fear she already spreads, then that will be a bonus. Julius should also be able to join us again somewhere on the journey.”
“It sounds like you’ve been planning this for some time.” The apprehension was clear in Xylia’s voice and she squeezed her legs tighter to her body.
“If you’d have been as close to her as I have and seen exactly how she believes Lyris should be ruled, you’d understand why this is the only way. Devanna is from Nephille. They’re the last kingdom in our world whose people harness magicks.” Taiden explained, pausing only when Xylia nodded in understanding.
“I live in the far north of Lyris; I didn’t live under a rock.” She said, raising her eyebrows. He might be a prince, and was nothing remotely special, but she didn’t need things to be explained to her as though she was stupid.
“I’m sorry. I don’t get to mix with people beyond the walls of the castle all that often. I don’t know what you’re likely to know.” He confessed, ashamed by the harsh, piercing look she shot at him.
Straightening her limbs out, Xylia studied him for a long moment and then sighed in resignation. Royalty did live on an entirely different plane, she supposed. “Tell you what. Speak with me as though I know what you know, and I’ll ask if things start sounding like crazy talk.”
Taiden smirked, very much liking the sounds of that idea. “Most people would say that everything I say sounds like crazy talk.”
“Well, most people aren’t a mutt of The Draca on a revenge quest against the queen.”