Fan Fiction ❯ Spirit of the Dragon ❯ With the Dawn ( Chapter 11 )

Chapter Eleven

Dawn was breaking when Acanthus' army returned to the castle. They marched wearily through the gates, for their horses had run for a day and a night to Veridea and back. Squire Kaiden rode in front on a borrowed steed, holding his beloved prince up in the saddle. Acanthus slouched foreword, drifting in and out of consciousness. His clothes were tattered and his hands were burned. He looked the worst out of all of them.

The only sounds were the hoof-beats and the squeaky wheels of death wagons in the back. They were empty, save a poor white horse that had run until its heart gave out.

Acanthus' world was nothing but a blur of colors, broken by shafts of white light. If it weren't for the motion of the beast below him, he wouldn't know where he was. It was difficult, though, to keep from slipping. The fire and the fall had dulled his senses, rendering his reflexes unwieldy.

He was still in shock about the whole thing. Two whole armies burned alive. All because of a single whim.

The monster was unstoppable. It terrified him.

His army had found him sprawled across the road while a fire blazed for a mile's diameter. It was a wonder he wasn't consumed as well. Somehow, the flames had spared his life. He had still been burned, however, wherever his skin met the air. This meant not only his hands; it was also a great portion of his back where his clothes hadn't been thick enough. He didn't think of himself as particularly vain, but he was thankful to Fenris that he had fallen foreword to avoid disfiguring burns on his face, and that he had thought to keep on his helmet so that his golden-brown hair was not singed away.

No one asked him about what happened outside of Veridea. Perhaps they could not quite believe a seventeen-year old had the capacity to single-handedly obliterate six- hundred soldiers. Perhaps they didn't want to. Whether it was the former or the ladder, he didn't really care.

Cool hands reached out to him, touching his face. Someone was looking him in the eye.

"Can you hear me, Canth?" Frostleaf sounded concerned.

"Yes." Acanthus' voice was filled with unshed tears. The burns brought him terrible pain.

"I want you to prepare a bed for him." He heard Frostleaf say to a nurse.

Green twinkled across his view as the healer reached out to him and pulled him foreword. The man's strength never ceases to baffle me. He thought while Frostleaf caught him as effortlessly as one might catch a child's doll, and proceeded to hold him steady. Squire Kaiden dismounted and came up on the Prince's other side, so that he could lean on both of their shoulders for the voyage up the stairs.

He took a step, and the ground pitched.

"Whoa, now, hold him steady…" Frostleaf tightened his grip on Acanthus. "Are you ready now?"

A tired nod.

They made their way very slowly upward, for Acanthus set the pace. His body told him he should be carried, but Frostleaf had made the appropriate guess that his godson's pride would interfere with the proper mode of transportation.

It seemed the steps were infinite. And somehow not being able to see them clearly made them considerably worse. When they finally reached the familiar arched door to the infirmary, Acanthus' back felt as if it were still on fire. It was all he could do not to weep.

"There now, Acanthus…" While Frostleaf and Kaiden helped him to his bed, the prince spotted a blotch of distinct hues that belonged to an onlooker. He could feel her eyes regarding him with silent sympathy, and he winced to think of how wretched he must look to her.

"Is he alright?" Crowe asked, trying not to sound as concerned as she was.

"He has been overly exhilarated, and burned, and thrown to the ground, but somehow…it seems he'll be fine." Frostleaf set to work cutting away what remained of his tunic and began tending to the damaged skin. Part of this process involved rubbing it with an odorous herb ointment, and the cold sensation brought immense relief.

"What of…Ronori's army?"

Squire Kaiden decided to answer this one: "By the time the rest of us got there…" He shook his head. "We found Acanthus lying in the road. Not far off, there appeared to be an explosion of some kind. I am sorry milady, but we saw no survivors. It looks like your comrade's army was burned alive."

"I see…" Crowe's figure reached for her doorframe.

"The spirit…the fire…" Acanthus grumbled, aware that he probably sounded delirious. "I killed them. I killed them all."

"What's he talking about?" Crowe demanded sharply.

"Don't mind the lad." Frostleaf said, "He's not himself."

"I killed them!" Acanthus shouted in a horrible raspy voice. "I called the fire and they kept screaming and screaming!"

Colors swayed in dizzying patterns. He was going to be sick again.

He half-coughed, half-disgorged what was left in his system, and turned his head from her in disgrace. He was humiliated to have her see him like this.

"I am so sorry." Acanthus moaned. "Sorry that I called to the spirit again. Sorry that I let it kill your comrades. And Kaiden…sorry that I ran your horse to death. Chastity deserved a far nobler fate."

Kaiden looked away. His voice was no more than a whisper: "It is alright, milord."

"Kaiden, get the servants to bring in a basin, for cleaning this up." Frostleaf spoke softly.

Shadows flowed across the room as the boy left.

"I will return shortly…" Frostleaf stood. "I need some medicine."

When both of his friends had left, Acanthus was aware of the smothering silence. At first, he wanted nothing more than for Crowe to be gone. The fact that she had seen him in such a pathetic state made him ashamed.

Then he heard her approach him---even when she was a blur, her eyes were such a lovely blue---and she parted a strand of hair from his eyes as a lover might, and she knelt beside him in the shadowy morning.

"Immo fon effluo." She told him.

"What does that mean?" He had grown breathless in her presence.

A thin smile. "All is forgiven."

He smiled in return, and let her fold a warm hand over his equally cold one, watching dreamily through slidded lids as dark waves of hair brushed against her pale face. It was that day, that something began to move in him. Something that he could not avoid even if he fled to the highest ridge of the highest mountain for the rest of his existence.

It was frightening and wonderful.