The Apothecary and the Cursed Prince

Had she been wrong about his eyes?

Had it been some trick or an illusion caused by the mist around them that had made them appear blue before?

Or was the thickening smoke making her lose her mind?

It could be either. Eleonora decided to leave the contemplation for a later time — a time when she would not be in mortal danger — and put her attention on the footsteps getting closer.

'Are you being followed?' she whispered to the assumably eye changing stranger. Eleonora had shifted to sit beside him, against the log he was resting on as well. His face was turned the other way, looking out for whoever was following him, and she took the time to study him better.

His clothes were ordinary, like those of the usual peasants, but that was all there was to it. Nothing else about him gave the perception of him being an ordinary worker. Before, it was her intuition that had landed her on concluding he was a soldier, but as she sat beside him, Eleonora could now categorically decipher everything that had led her to that assumption.

His ease of movement despite the dagger in his chest indicated he had fought in battles before as soldiers were toughened to fight till their dying breath.

His eyes — not blue, but black, she noticed — moved around their surroundings with purpose, rather than fear.

His hand that had grabbed the back of her neck to pull her closer had been rough and calloused, stating a regular handling of weapons.

And there was something else, something that she was yet to figure out — maybe it was the unusually clean fingernails, maybe it was the perfectly shaven face, or maybe the elegant way he leaned back on the log — that set him apart from the usual working class.

He almost looked regal, despite his disguise. For a disguise it was alright, Eleonora would bet her life's saving to defend that conjecture.

'What do they want from you?' she asked, trying to sit as still as possible. Her voice was barely above a whisper. She would hate for this stranger to lose his life, like his friend over there, because of her incompetence at hiding.

He turned to look at her, high black eyes boring into her. There was a slight frown on his face as he debated whether to answer her question or not.

'Nothing,' he said at last.

'Then why are we hiding?' Eleonora frowned deeper.

'What makes you think I'm hiding?' the stranger asked.

Eleonora stared back at him like he had lost his mind. Which, on second thought, he might have. The blood loss wasn't enough to kill him, but she had read of instances where the loss of blood made people spout nonsense. Was that what was happening with this poor man here?

He might not be as unaffected by his injury as she had initially thought him to be. Maybe his calmness and nonchalance was only a pretense to hide his deteriorating state of mind, after all.

With a pitiful sigh, she raised her hand to touch his forehead. He caught it before she could do that. But Eleonora was a fast learner, and she had expected his quick reflexes this time around. She grabbed his wrist with her other hand and took his pulse. Steady and even.

'You don't have a fever,' she said, relieved. 'Your wound might not be infected yet, but it will be if it isn't treated soon. Will you be able to get up? I can treat it at my cottage, it's not that far.' Eleonora looked around herself, wondering which direction she should head in. The footsteps had faded away, but it would only be a matter of time when they stopped going around in circles and found them here.

'We need to move before they get here,' she said.

She tugged at his arm, intending to pull him to his feet. His grip on her arm was tight, and despite her struggling to pull him up with her full strength, Eleonora found it was difficult to even budge him a little.

'Come on, help me a little here,' she said to the stranger, when all he did was stare back at her with disbelief.

'What do you want from me?' He turned his head to the side and scrutinized her with his eyes.

This was proving to be more difficult than she had initially thought. Jumping into the forest without a definite plan and dragging the stranger out of it with fire slowly catching up to them was supposed to be the harder part of this situation. The thought that the stranger might refuse her help, despite death desperately knocking at his door, was neither a part of her plan, nor a part of the medicinal books that have taught her everything about human emotions and anatomy.

Eleonora sighed as she kneeled in front of him to match his eye level. Still black, she noted.

'Do you want to die, mister?' she asked with firm conviction.

'I'm not going to die,' he stated, simply.

'You will.'

He frowned — a little confused, a little amused. 'Is that a threat, Apothecary?'

'It is what is going to happen to you if I leave,' she enunciated as if talking to a little kid.

There will be time in the near future when her future self would want to jump back to this particular moment in time and choke the life out of her past self, but time was a subject that not even the Aetherians learned in magic and spells tampered with. In this moment, both this stranger and her future was a mystery to her, a mystery that she was not at all keen on unraveling at this point.

'There's a huge fire in the west,' she continued, 'I am not certain how long it would take for it to reach the forest, but we are running out of time. There are people who are following you, and I'm not much concerned about the whys but whatever they want from you might put you in more danger. And you might think the bleeding has stopped so you are out of danger, but if not treated within time, the infection from the wound will spread to your whole body. There is no one who wanders near this forest, so there might be no rescue for you, except of course, me. Now, I understand you soldiers might not trust people easily, but if you don't follow me to my cottage for your treatment, you might not see the sun rise tomorrow. So pardon me for my insolence, but my morals forbid me from leaving a person — no matter how dense they seem to be — to die when I have the means to prevent that.'

Eleonora had hoped making the stranger see a glimpse of reality would help him realise the severity of this predicament. Instead, she watched him in awe as a smile slowly broke out his handsome face and he threw back his head and laughed, his voice velvety and deep.

Would insanity claim him before death does?

'You must have no fear, huh, Apothecary?' asked the stranger, humour laced in his voice, amusement shimmering in his eyes. 'Following a scream in the dead of the night and asking a stranger to follow you to your cottage. Are you simply clueless to understand the dangers or do you believe my injury will hinder me if I decide to snap your neck?'

'Will you?' she asked.

The stranger raised his eyebrows in question.

'Snap my neck?'

'I'm yet to decide,' he said, the humour draining out of his voice.

Eleonora had to admit the thought of her safety had not been her prime concern when she had rushed into the forest, but when you spend a life being hated on by people for a reason unknown, people who wished for your demise with every breath they took, you learn a few survival tricks.

The Noctura powder purse tied to her skirt was one.

The poison needles hiding in her sleeves were another.

Moreover, this stranger was merely making an attempt to scare her. For if he really wanted her dead, he could have done that a long while back. And no one warns you of the dangers of recklessness if they want you dead.

'I've been here before, you know. Bleeding and left there to die, with no hope of a rescue. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. So when I decided to become an apothecary, I made a pledge to myself. I was going to help anyone who needed it. I only save lives, what they do with their lives is not my concern. So, I understand the dangers of what I'm doing. But my fear shall never take precedence over saving a life.'

The stranger narrowed his eyes on her. 'You might think it's admirable now, Apothecary. But making that decision in the wrecked world out there is much more complex.'

'I-'

'Shh. They're coming.' The soldier shifted against the log as if trying to make himself comfortable. Eleonora noticed the subtle changes in his form, with his shoulders slumping and his form wilting, drooping like a flower. Was he intentionally trying to make himself look more vulnerable?

'Shouldn't we be running?' she whispered, shifting closer to him, worried as the footsteps became louder.

'Didn't I tell you, Apothecary,' he said, turning his head to his left where the first of the three soldiers emerged from the darkness. 'I wasn't hiding. I was merely waiting.'