Chapter 7

This whole journey was bad. Really bad. Velagh didn't care a single bit and had thrown me out of bed early in the morning. I wasn't even sure if he had slept at all. I mean, he was kind of tall to fit in the single bed and it sure seemed untouched when I got up. Then again his quarters always looked like no one lived there.

I never bothered to think about it, but the few times I was able to see his room, it seemed abandoned. Who knew where he was actually sleeping. Not in my room, that was for sure, much to my disappointment. But he had to sleep somewhere. Maybe he slept outside the barbarian way. It's not like I ever cared, but maybe I should have.

Because after he had almost ordered me to get dressed—although in his usual calm demeanor—we had returned the key. Of course, they didn't want to take money from us, so we were on our way. I was tired and felt every bone, as not even the city was awake at this ungodly hour. And by the time it slowly came to life, we had passed the gates.

Now, around 8 hours later, I was whining.

"Veeelagh… I need a break. My feet hurt, my thighs are sore, I'm hungry, and I'm tired…" Who had ever thought that walking could be so unbearable? Ever since the road had become more rural and less plastered, I could feel my feet pulsating. I felt every little stone, every up and down of the terrain under my feet and it was exhausting, to say the least.

"Are you listening?!" I griped, but he kept walking at a steady pace. This was unfair. His legs were longer, he had to make fewer steps for the same distance. Of course, his feet didn't hurt, I was using mine so much more!

"Fine, ignore me then." I had enough and was willing to just sit down, put my bum down in the middle of the muddy road. My eyes darted down and I flinched. On second thought, maybe not. It was dirty, and the last thing I wanted was to get my gowns dirty.

"I demand a rest!" I exclaimed and stopped. I wouldn't move another step if he wouldn't comply with my request. I was still a prince and he was still my guard. What good was a guard if he didn't follow orders?

I watched him make another few steps, but finally, he came to a halt. He turned to look at me, his face equally annoyed as exhausted from my constant whining the past hour or so.

"Oh, hello," I waved at him, my tone sarcastic in every nuance, "forgot I was here or something?"

"You've been whining like a small child, it was hard to forget, believe me," he sighed and I suddenly felt proud. These were the first words he spoke to me since we left the room.

"Well, how else am I supposed to make you understand that I can't take it anymore," I asked.

"For someone who can take quite a lot from a man you are extremely easy to falter by simply walking," he snorted, almost amused with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"Are you calling me weak?"

"I'm calling you lazy."

"Same thing,"

"If you want to get angry about it, then by all means do it, but do it silently." His voice had turned cold, just like that. "Maybe you should have thought about proper shoes for such a journey," he added.

"In my mind, we were settling down in a tavern and waiting everything out," I explained. How was I supposed to know that he would really push me to travel that far? Especially after throwing some cryptic words like 'what you've done' at my head. I just assumed he had as little interest in getting there as I did.

"In your mind, you do an awful lot without thinking at all."

"Can you stop insulting me?"

He looked at me with an intensity I wasn't used to. He stared at me and for some reason it made me feel uneasy, and also a little heated. He couldn't expect me to not imagining things about him if he kept doing this to me. He made exactly three steps and suddenly was standing right in front of me.

"I am not insulting you, I'm judging you." His voice was so much calmer now that the distance between us was no more. He was a mountain of a man, and yet I didn't feel small facing him like this. In fact, I felt elevated by my stubbornness.

"Then stop judging me." I blew my nose in annoyance, knitting my eyebrows together in irritation and slight anger. What was he on about?

"Lyron—" shivered by the way he said my name "—you did the bare minimum to prepare yourself. I am here to protect you, but I can't protect you from yourself. Even with your upbringing, you could have thought about this whole journey at least for a second and realize that you, maybe, should have prepared better. That you, maybe, should have asked someone to help you, someone who could have informed you of what might await you. Even if we did stay in a tavern, a year is a long time. Did you expect to be locked up in a room for 365 days without doing anything?"

My expression remained, but there was something about the way he spoke that eased the anger. I was badly prepared; I could admit that much—at least to myself—but I felt too much pride to see reason. I was confronted with the fact that I did everything wrong I could do wrong, when in fact, people should have cared. At least someone should have cared enough about a prince to make an effort. Someone should have told me, should have informed me, should have guided me. What did they expect of me? Miracles?

"So, what you're saying is it's my fault?" I kept my head held high, my chin raised, glancing right at him as if this was some kind of power stand-off.

"No, what I'm saying is that you failed in doing something. Take this as a lesson. You've been sheltered from making mistakes for far too long. I will not shelter you. For the future, think." His voice remained calm, but I could hear a hint of warmth somewhere between his words. Well, I wanted to, anyway. Might as well have been my imagination. But I liked the thought of it, so that's what I made of it.

"Do you do this because you care, or because you don't care?" I wanted this warmth I just heard to be real, and he better not answer wrongly to this question.

"What do you think?" He countered the question and it left me speechless. I wanted a simple answer, instead, I got… something I couldn't make sense of. He gave me time to answer, but when I couldn't he turned around, ready to move on.

"We'll reach a small town in another hour." It's the only other thing he said, and I accepted it.

Not that my feet hurt any less from standing in one place for 5 minutes, but I probably could endure another hour. At this moment, I felt like I had to prove myself to him. I felt like I could handle my decisions perfectly fine. I was, however, wrong and started to whine again just 10 minutes later. But this time I kept walking, and he kept ignoring me.