MYOSOTIS

Chapter Three

As I rocked unsteadily on my seat—my hands folded on my lap—I turned my head to look outside, raising my eyes up to the sky.

            There was a bird, some kind of hawk or maybe an eagle flying over the horse carriage I was ridding in, the one that would take me to Clematis, Endine sitting in front of me, beside Lavender, a young seamstress that tended to get on my nerves easily. I wouldn’t be enduring her if it wasn’t for that fact that she was excellent at her job, because otherwise she always seemed to be laughing at me and making snotty comments.

            We weren’t in the official Lily’s coach. That one was dragging behind ours. I had decided to put in my place a new maid in the court that had hair fairly like mine. Poppy’s warning had me worried after all and I had thought that a little subterfuge like this would be a sort of mental solace but it was far from it. All I could think about was that if we really did get attacked, anything that would happen to the maid would be on my conscience.

            That thought had me scratching the back of my hair nervously. The Oaks were warned but they seemed to find it more amusing then disquieting when I told them.

            Would anyone ever take me seriously?

            “Acacia…” I turned my head to look at my maid. “Now that it’s real and that you will finally meet your Future and Ipomoea, there are a few things we need to… discuss,” Endine slowly said, her brows meeting in a frown.

            Lavender covered her mouth to hide her giggles.

            I narrowed my eyes at her before turning my gaze back on Endine. I remembered father’s orders. “Yes I know, I will have to follow his will. It is not because I do not fancy following yours that I will not follow those of my Ipomoea. I am not stupid.” I sighed, scratching the back of my neck, by the root of my hair.

            Following his will did not mean I wouldn’t try to make him understand my point of view though. Everything I had learned about the Myosotis, about our former beliefs I wrote them down over the years and now I had dozens of bound sheets filled with them. I would make him read them… and I would find a way to have them copied to pass them around. Our people needed to know our beliefs, and they needed something in order to do that. If I had to be the person to do it, than so be it.

            “Hmm, yes of course that is one thing, but you see, that was not the one I was… referring to…” Endine was mumbling and Lavender kept trying to hold her giggles. It was odd. My old maid obviously found Lavender incessant sniggers exasperating and gave her a pointy look effectively quieting the annoying seamstress, making me the main target again. “You see my dear; you lost your mother so young that there are a few topics you never had the chance to talk with her about.”

            I was the one frowning now. She was confusing me. What was she trying to explain? “What do you mean?”

            “What I mean… what I’m trying to say is…”

            “Look at that bird…” Lavender whispered in awe, interrupting Endine, her head and shoulders sticking out of the carriage, “it’s so—”

            She never finished her sentence; the only thing we heard was a whistling sound before her muffled chokes.

            And when Lavender back away in her seat again, an arrow was going side to side out of her throat both her hands gripping it, blood spilling everywhere, her mouth opening and closing to breath or to talk I didn’t know. I just sat there frozen while Endine screamed.

            I didn’t know what I was supposed to do to take care of an arrow wound. Was I supposed to take it out? Wouldn’t it be like taking the lid of a bottle? Would it make it bleed more? Or would it be the same as taking a splinter out of your wound, making you feel better?

            All I could think was that she was going to die in front of me and I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

            I tried to move to go to her but once I stood off my seat, the carriage came to an abrupt stop. Endine hysterical screams must have alerted the Oaks.

            At that moment, I was finally able to say something and beg for assistance though my helpless plea wasn’t the only sound breaking our so far silent convoy.

            More of the earlier whistling sound could be heard and so could the barking of orders coming from the Oaks and metal clinking.

            We were under attack…

            I was completely shocked. I had understood the threats but never had I imagined them coming so fast. We hadn’t even ridden for one day; we had barely just left the castle. How could we be attacked so quickly?

            Lavender, still chocking, grabbed my hand with her bloody one, clutching to it so tightly she was hurting me. She kept opening and closing her mouth, her chest rising and falling quickly and sharply. She was trying to say something that much was obvious.

            “It’s alright Lavender, you will be fine,” I said, trying to comfort her, but I doubted my words. How could she be fine? She was dying right in front of me.

            Endine had cowered in a corner, weeping and screaming, keeping her hands that had received blood away from her in disgust.

            I looked back at Lavender, my eyes stinging with building tears. I hadn’t particularly liked the girl but I didn’t want her to die right now, not if I could do something about it. But I was too late because Lavender breathing slowed, her chest rising saccadically, before not moving all together, her mouth and eyes staying wide open, her hand still tightly wrapped around mine.

            Endine screams grew louder.

            Again, I couldn’t move.

            I could have done something but all I had been able to do was freeze in place. And now people were screaming outside and fighting, and I was just standing here? I wanted to do something! But I couldn’t even move because I was too frightened.

            Women screams brought me out of my torpor. There was only one carriage with women other then this one and it was the one with the new girl, the girl I had condemned to her death.

            I wouldn’t stay complacent this time! I would do something!

            I heaved my hand out of Lavender’s, closing her eyes, and crawled to the door at the side of the coach.

            It’s at that moment that Endine’s incontrollable hysteria ceased and she grabbed for my arm. “Low-Lily! No! It’s dangerous!”

            “I will not stand here while everyone gets slaughtered!”

            And with that I left the carriage. Endine still weeping crawled after me, grabbing my arm again. “Hide Acacia!”

            I slipped out of her grip. “You go, run and find help,” I ordered her.

            “What?”

            “Go!”

            The last inn I had seen was not a long run away from here. If she could get there soon then maybe other Oaks could come to our aid.

            Endine, unconvinced, still followed my order and, grabbing the hem of her dress, bolted away.

            I didn’t stay unmoving for too long, and looking around, spotted the official Low-Lily coach, the one I should have been in. Men, not wearing the Iris colors, were fighting against the Oaks, trying to weave their way to it.

            There were some of my men and few others I could only guess were from the attacking group lying on the ground, wounded, maybe dead even. Why were they doing this? Why were they attacking us? I wasn’t such a huge threat that they would need to go though such extend to get rid of me!

            The Oaks were trying to keep the attackers away, creating some sort of perimeter around the carriages, so it wasn’t impossible for me to reach the other coach but one of my men, that had obviously seen me get out, trudged towards me, sword in hand. “Run, run Acac—” he mouthed, his words, barely more than a whisper or desperate plea, stuck in his throat and he fell right to the ground in front of me. He was already wounded on the abdomen.

            I turned my gaze away, not wanting to stare at another dying person for too long again. What could I do to help someone wounded like this? I didn’t know… I knew nothing as to how to act in situations like this. I had never been prepared! But one thing I knew for sure; I had to go help the ladies in the other carriage.

            Without looking at the dying man too much, I bended and grabbed his sword that had fallen beside him, out of his grip. It had been years since I had touched a sword. I didn’t remember them being so heavy. I didn’t dwell on my thoughts too much though and headed straight for the official Lily’s coach.

            Everything seemed to speed up as I ran towards the shrilling shrieks of the other women accompanying me. It was a dry day and the dust from the road lifted with everyone’s footsteps, making a sort of fog around us, weakening my sight.

            With the hand that wasn’t holding on to the heavy sword, I picked up the bottom of my dress, to speed up my pace but that’s when I saw it in front of me.

            Everything dramatically slowed down.

            A man that was attacking us killed one of the guards, throwing him to the ground, and with that was able to reach the women screaming. I tried to scream, to warn them but my voice was stuck in my throat, paralyzed, and just like that, right in front of my eyes, he grabbed the maid with hair fairly like mine, Ophry, by the back of the head and plunged his sword in her stomach.

            When he withdrew his weapon that’s when I found my voice and my scream filled the road turned into battlefield.

            Bad idea.

            His head immediately snapped towards me, and his gaze locked with mine. His eyes froze me into place, they were menacing dark eyes, I could never forget those eyes, the eyes of a killer, that’s all it amounted to. He was a killer and I was his next victim.

            As I saw him reached for the bow and arrow on his back, I turned around, in a desperate attempt to save my life, dropping the sword.

            But even if I ran the fastest I could, there was the whistling sound again, and a spilling moment later a sharp pain.

            There was this fraction of an instant where I thought “not that bad” but then I fell to the ground, the pain truly registering. It felt as if the only thing I could feel right now was one particular spot on my back, I didn’t have any limbs anymore, just a wrenching pain cause by an arrow stuck in my back.

            I wept and cried, crawling on the ground, my fingers digging into the dirt.

            The man would come to finish me wouldn’t he? I had to get away!

            But it hurt, it hurt so bad I couldn’t breath and there was a rusty taste in my mouth—blood.

            I didn’t want to move anymore, I just wanted to sleep and for the pain to go away.

            What was the point in getting away? Even if Endine found help they would be too late…

            I raised my eyes to the sky, searching for solace and there it was again, the bird. It circled a few times and landed on the branch of a tree right across from me, on the side of the road. For some reason it felt as if the bird was staring at me, straight art me, its gaze piercing and much more aware than the one of any normal bird, like it was actually somehow intelligent and it knew something I did not.

            Would I die under its gaze?

            No. No, no, no!

            I didn’t want to die, I couldn’t die!

            Slowly I turned my head, trying to not move one of the muscles related to the one pierced by the arrow, to see where the killer-man would arrive, but I couldn’t see him now.

            All I could see was something, an animal, too big to be a dog, but too small to be a bear, causing mayhem into the almost lost fight, scaring away our attackers.

            What did this mean?

            Was this the Flora way to protect me? By using a creature of the forest?

            I turned my head again, to look back at the bird, but my eyes fell on boots. Carefully I lifted my eyes, assessing this man in front of me. He looked old and untrustworthy, his face filled with scars, his clothes dirty, and had an evil smirk on his lips, while turning his sword around in his hand.

            My eyes widen.

            No! No, NO!

            But suddenly, his eyes widen too, his sword dropping to the ground. His knees buckled and he fell, face down on the ground, right in front of me, arrow sticking out of his back.

            And there, not so far behind him stood a young man, bow in hand.