Ruins And Royalty

To my Aid - Chp 12 Part 1

The air burned in my lungs with every ragged breath, and my fingers ached from clutching the twin Chakrams. Today’s training had been nothing short of torment, drawn out from dawn until the sun threatened to fall. Sir Damos insisted on it, claiming my focus wavered and that I no longer gave my full strength to the drills. Perhaps he was right. Armorless, bruised, and bloodied, I still could not master the damned weapons. They felt alien in my hands. Too light and too swift. Demanding movements wholly unlike the sword I had been raised with.

“Guard your torso!” Sir Damos barked from the sideline, his voice sharp as a lash. His words dragged my attention back to the fight before me with my eldest brother, Dayron, looming like some wrathful titan, his blade flashing with merciless precision. He was still angry, though whether at me or the Gods themselves, I no longer cared.

I forced my weary legs to move, dragging my leaden body into a guarded stance. My arms trembled, heavy as iron, each motion slower than the last. The cuts along my shoulders and ribs burned with every shift of muscle, and the sting only sharpened my exhaustion. Still, I endured, because Damos demanded it.

“You’ll have no time to catch your breath in a real battle,” Dayron declared, voice dripping with disdain as he pressed forward.

His arrogance only fanned the fire in me. By the Gods, how I longed to sever that smug expression from his face with a single stroke of the Chakrams. The thought alone gave me strength enough to spit my reply. “Does this look like rest to you?” I snarled, surging forward with a reckless strike that nearly broke through his guard.

Dayron parried with ease, his eyes narrowing in challenge. He countered in an instant, his blade colliding with my circular steel. The impact sent a jolt of pain through my arms as the edges bit into my flesh. I clenched my teeth, refusing him the satisfaction of a cry, even as blood trickled hot down my forearms. Dayron withdrew, his face unreadable, while my chest heaved like a bellows, each breath sharp enough to cut me from within.

“By day’s end, you’ll be begging for a medicus,” Dayron declared curtly, his sword sweeping through the air with practiced precision.

“Care to try your own hand?” I shot back, smirking despite my fatigue. “Though we both know you’ve never trained to wield two blades.”

“Clear your mind, Aaron,” Sir Damos cut in suddenly, halting the clash with a raised hand. His voice was calm, almost placid, yet it carried the weight of command. “Your thoughts are noisier than your weapons. As long as your mind remains divided, you’ll never master the Chakrams.” He circled me slowly, hawk-eyed, studying every twitch of muscle, every falter in my stance.

“This is madness,” I spat, anger burning at my own ineptitude more than at his words. I had always been quick to learn, yet these cursed weapons humbled me at every turn. My arms were clumsy, the Chakrams scraped against my own flesh, and I could not fathom why my body betrayed me so.

“You sulk like a child,” Sir Damos rebuked, pausing mid-step, his gaze hard as iron.

“I am no child,” I snapped, heat rising in my voice. I loathed the sting of his belittlement, loathed even more that it rang with truth.

“Then prove it,” he huffed, stepping back from the circle. “Fight! Show me you are a man.”

I tightened my grip on the Chakrams, squaring myself once more against my brother. Dayron’s stance was steady, his eyes locked on me with that same infuriating calm. We surged forward, blades meeting with a clash that reverberated up my arms. I struck again, once at his sword, then hard against the curve of his shield. My efforts barely pierced his defense, yet not without merit. His breathing had grown heavier, his strikes just a shade slower. Even Dayron, with all his speed and endurance, was still flesh, blood and bone.

“You’re tiring, brother,” I taunted, forcing a grin through gritted teeth. “Yield now, before you collapse.”

He snarled, though his composure held as he leveled me with a cold stare. “If you spoke less and fought more,” he said with disdain, “you might actually land a proper blow.”

I scoffed and pressed forward, striking again, clinging stubbornly to what spirit I had left. Yet no matter how fiercely I fought, my skill refused to grow. I was trapped at the same threshold I had begun on, stumbling against an invisible wall. This makes no sense, I thought bitterly. How was I not improving?

The hours bled together, each clash and parry draining me further, until even standing felt like a battle in itself. My thoughts spun in frantic circles, echoing Sir Damos’s warning. My mind was too loud and too crowded, to ever command the Chakrams. Perhaps he was right. So much had happened up to this point, and deep down I knew it was only the beginning. I bore it all alone, despite confiding some to Kalmin. Even he did not know everything. Yet through it all, one anchor remained. My new established bond with Prince Zander.

“You are distracted,” Dayron’s voice cut in, calm but edged, dragging me back into the present. I barely managed to twist away as his wooden blade swept past me. My jaw tightened as frustration rose... not at him, not at Damos, but at myself.

Dayron adjusted his stance, discarding his shield with deliberate ease. “Pull yourself together,” he commanded, voice steeled with authority.

I steadied my grip on the Chakrams, forcing strength back into my weary arms. My body screamed for rest, yet I shifted into a guarded stance, knowing my first move would be to block rather than strike. My strength was nearly spent. Every breath burned and every muscle trembled.

The sun sagged low on the horizon, casting the field in streaking light. Amber rays pierced through the gathering clouds, a fleeting beauty above us while below, I struggled simply to endure.

I braced myself for the strike, but for the first time that day, my mind fell quiet. The warmth of the sun touched my skin like an embrace, and I let it in. Tilting my head back, I caught the blinding brilliance of the sky and, within it, the fleeting vision of Zander’s face, serene, almost angelic, echoing the kiss we had shared on the balcony only nights before.

And then I yielded.

I yielded to my failures, to the weight of myself. My body slackened, my guard faltered. Dayron saw it, tried to rein himself back, but too late. The momentum carried him through. His sword crashed against my blades, and I did not resist. My arms followed the pull, the Chakrams slipping wide until their edges grazed deep. They tore through the fabric of my tunic and kissed my skin with steel, sending sharp agony bursting down my sides.

I released them. The Chakrams clattered away as I collapsed onto the ground, breath stolen, the sting of the wounds drowned beneath the cool earth cradling me. White cloth bloomed with crimson, and the raw air met open flesh. The pain was sharp, yes, but there was relief in it too. Staring up at the vastness above, I almost welcomed the nothingness it offered.

“Aaron!” Dayron’s voice ripped me back. His hands gripped me hard, dragging me upright with a ferocity born of fear.

I turned away, refusing his eyes.

“Are you out of your mind?” he roared. “Do you want to die?”

But I remained still, unflinching. What I felt was not fear, but it was release. Letting go, if only for a moment, had been liberating. To feel nothing, when I had been a storm of nerves for so long, was its own strange comfort. Perhaps that was why I could not advance, why I was trapped.

“Enough!” Sir Damos’s voice cut through, sharp as a blade. He stepped into the clearing, anger radiating. Dayron’s grip loosened, though he would not yet let me go.

“Your reckless behavior is unpardonable. You are dismissed until I deem you fit to resume training.” Sir Damos’s words carried a restrained edge, his composure fraying beneath his vexation. He exhaled sharply, as though forcing himself back into calm. “Use this time to clear your mind, Nightingale. Let your wounds mend properly.” With a final gesture toward Dayron, he ordered my brother to escort me to the medical bay within the palace temple.

Moonlight washed over the temple’s marble floors, turning them into mirrors of silver. The great grey orbs of the night sky hung low and heavy, full and near to the earth, casting their solemn glow upon the world. I might have lingered in awe, had the fire in my sides not kept my breath shallow. A sudden stab of pain made me wince, hand instinctively finding the gash along my right hip.

The chakram blades had carved several long slashes across both sides. I always forgot to allow space for their arc, compensating for the missing armor I should have been wearing. I sighed, letting my head fall back against the lounge’s carved headrest. It seemed I had spent more hours in this bay tending wounds than on the field mastering the weapons that caused them.

I looked down at the stitches. The injuries were far from fatal, but they were cruel all the same. Most of the blood had dried to a dark crust, but at their deepest point the cuts remained raw, tender to the faintest brush of air. Pain flared with every shift of breath, doubled by the symmetry of the wounds across my body. The physician had slipped away to provide a report, and I found myself alone in the presence of my solitude and burning wounds.

“Aaron?” The voice came softly, cautious, breaking through the hush of the room.

I turned my head and caught a glimpse of blonde hair and green eyes. My heart skipped, and an involuntary smile broke across my face.

“Zander,” I said softly.

“For a moment I thought you were dead,” he teased, gesturing at my wounds.

“It’ll take more than playing with rounded blades half-dressed to kill me,” I shot back only to be cut short by a sharp sting in my sides. My grip tightened on the lounge until my knuckles whitened.

The curtains hung heavy around my chamber, dividing the royal medical bay into private compartments, spacious and lavish enough to remind me where I was. Even in pain.

“It seems you are well taken care of,” he claimed, gesturing towards the spider silk bandages hugging my forearms and the stitches at my waist. Zander stepped closer as his gaze flickered over me intently. “Let me treat your scars with hyssop oil,” the young Prince of Yarrow said evenly. “I’m no physician, but at least it isn’t surgery,” he added with a grin.

“If it were up to me, I’d have just slept it off,” I replied, meeting his tone with quiet humor. I nodded for him to continue.

Zander’s lips curved faintly as he stepped closer, bandages in one hand and a wooden bowl of oil in the other. Setting them beside me, he dipped his fingers into the mixture and began smoothing it over old scars on my upper arm. His touch was steady, but his refusal to meet my gaze gave him away. I watched him closely with admiration.

He shifted to my other arm, his fingers warm and deliberate as they worked the oil into my skin. The sensation was almost unbearable in its tenderness, heat climbing my spine until it spread through my whole body. When his thumb pressed firmly over my bicep before his hand traveled upward over my shoulder, along the ridge of my collarbone, then down toward my chest.

By then, his composure was fraying, his face caught between focus and a barely contained panic. I wasn’t faring much better. My skin burned as though fevered, and it took all my restraint not to seize the bowl and drench myself in oil just to prolong the desperate intoxication of his touch.

“I’ll wrap the bandages around your waist now,” Zander announced abruptly as he drew back, ever the professional. “It will help with the absorption of the oil and treat the scars better.” With distance between us, I finally saw his face clearly. He carried himself as though composed, but the flicker of nerves in his expression betrayed him. Was he as tempted for a kiss as I was? Yet, I had to admit... I was tempted for more.

“Alright,” I murmured, clearing my throat as I straightened in my seat.

He picked up the wraps, placing one hand gently on my abdomen to anchor the bandage while the other wound it around me. His palm settled fully against my waist. It’s warmth and softness lingering longer than necessary. As he worked, that same hand slid slowly along my side, across the curve of my back. His face hovered so close to my stomach that each breath against my skin sent a shiver through me.

Zander took his time, silent and unhurried, as though savoring the excuse to touch me. And Gods help me, I would suffer a hundred more wounds if it meant feeling him this way again.

At last, he finished, his hands trailing reluctantly from my back. His teeth caught on his lower lip, betraying hesitation. I caught his palm before it could fall away, guiding him closer. With my other hand, I tilted his chin, coaxing his face toward mine.

His chartreuse green eyes lifted to meet mine, and in that suspended moment the temple seemed to hush around us. Zander’s gaze flicked from my deep ocean-blue eyes to my lips, then back up again. I slid my hand along his palm, entwining my fingers with his, and drew him closer until our bodies met gently. He let out a shaky breath as I rested my forehead against his, our heads pressing together in quiet connection.

For a moment, we simply stayed like that, suspended in the space between us. Then he shifted slightly, his lips brushing the side of my temple. He pressed a soft, deliberate kiss to the top of my head. Sparks raced through me, electric and dizzying, leaving my thoughts scattered and my breath shallow, craving more. I lifted my hand to rest it on his waist, grounding myself against him. Around us, the world was utterly silent. I could hear the rapid beat of our hearts and the soft rhythm of our breathing.

His hands moved slowly, threading into my hair, while his plump, rosy lips lifted from my head to plant another tender kiss on the bridge of my nose.

"If this is the kind of care I get for getting injured," I whispered, a teasing smile tugging at my lips, "I might have to let blades strike me more often." I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close, afraid, irrationally, that he might vanish.

"If you end up here again, this stops," Zander scoffed, though the worry in his eyes betrayed him. I huffed playfully, tightening my hands on his waist. "I’ll be more careful next time," I promised, seeing his tense shoulders relax slightly.

Then, on impulse, I grabbed him, pulling him up onto the medical bed with me, swinging my body over his. I hovered above him, savoring the flush that crept across his cheeks and the way his eyes darted in surprise.

"You’re going to get us caught," he protested, grabbing my biceps to push me off but to my shock, he flipped me instead, pinning me gently to the bed. Every nerve in my body screamed from the pain in my wounds, from the stitches pulling slightly, yet the thrill of the moment eclipsed it all. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.