The Scarlet Phoenix and the Prince of Winter

Chapter Nine

The noises outside the house sounded like they were from footsteps and voices of men. Fear immediately registered in my mind when I heard them. Who are these people? And why are they here?

"Don't move," Prince Kao whispered to me as he was still listening to the noises just behind the main door. He then tiptoed to the kitchen and took the first thing that he saw. It was my Aunt's wooden rolling pin which she uses in her bread baking activities. I followed what he did and saw a long knife that we use in cooking too. Then we silently approached the door, waiting for the people outside to make a move.

Someone talked behind the door. "She must be here by now. Let us make it clean and fast."

"Yes, Sir," said other men to the one who ordered something. And then they opened the door.

That's how the pandemonium started. A tall, burly man came inside the house. Not recognizing who he was, I screamed. Then the Crown Prince swung the rolling pin to his head. It smacked him and he immediately dropped unconscious to the floor. "There she is! Catch him!"

It was when at least five people enter our house forcibly. They were covered in black coats and their faces were covered too just like the Crown Prince. They have weapons with them too, which were mostly swords, but one of them was wielding a chained spiked ball that he swung around the house. The spike ball must have been extremely heavy because it flattened one of our wooden walls to bits and pieces.

"Who are you? What are doing here?" I asked them but they did not answer me. Instead, they kept on advancing to us with their swords pointed at us. "Are you the ones who took my Aunt?"

"Identify yourselves!" said the Crown Prince to them in his most authoritarian tone. "Who are you and why are you intruding in someone else's house?"

"Who are you too?" said one of the men who was pointing his swords at him too.

It did not sit well with me. "How dare you ask that to us when you are the ones who are trespassing my house? You have the audacity to ask for our names?"

But the man ignored me. It looked like their focus was on Prince Kao alone and that scared me because what if they manage to hurt the Crown Prince? I would never forgive myself if something happens to him. He shouldn't be here in the first place.

"I think he is her brother," said the other guy to the one who had the guts to ask for our name. At that, I saw his eyes widened in shock and I think I know why. But before I could even warn the Crown Prince of their next move, one of them fell to the floor again with a loud thud.

"What? Kill him!"

But they were too late. Prince Kao already smacked him with the rolling pin on his head and I swear I heard his skull c***k. He fell to the floor too shaking and I saw blood trickling from his head.

"Oh no, oh no! There's blood involved now!" I was screaming at the top of my lungs so that our neighbors could hear us and maybe try to rescue us. And then another man tried to hit me with his fists but I managed to dodge it. But I was not lucky with the next attack, as my chest was hit by the spiked ball that's attached to a long chain made from steel. The guy who was wielding it grinned at what he did while I fell to the table at the back.

I crashed to the wooden table with a loud thud. I did not even have the time to scream when I landed on the broken pieces of wood. I did not feel anything at first, but then my back was starting to feel funny. It was also wet there and I don't know how did I manage to stand up after that but I miraculously did.

"RAINHA!"

The Crown Prince's voice was hoarse when he shouted in my direction. It was obvious that he got angry when someone attacked me like that. The next thing I saw was a series of cool moves from him. First, he searched for the guy that attacked me, then after he spots him, Prince Kao ran to him and kicked him in the face after a jump and turn in the air. My mouth fell open with this.

He looked so godly as he fought them. The Crown Prince was enraged that I took a hit from these bastards and I think I am living for this moment. It was a two on one battle but it looked like an evenly matched fight. The cold wind started blowing into the house because the door remained open when they burst in without permission.

"Travor! Behind you!" I shouted when I noticed that the man with the spiked iron ball got up and was trying to him from the back. With my screams and shouts, the Crown Prince was able to duck before the spiked ball hit him again. And since he ducked the spiked ball went directly to the closest person next to Prince Kao and it was the other guy. The metal ball hit him in the head, causing him to vomit blood from the impact. He then flew away and crashed to the chairs where the Crown Prince and I tried to sleep on. It was a huge mess.

And there was only one man left, the man holding the chained ball. He swung it around again but I intercepted him by throwing flour at the floor where he was standing. There were lots of jars in the cabinet behind me where I got the flour and when I saw them an idea just came to me and use it on this bastard.

Of course, he slipped right through it and fall hard to the floor too. I then immediately took the golden opportunity of smacking him in the head with a cutting board as thick as three books. The man quickly lost consciousness.

At last, all of the unknown men that came to intrude here were all defeated. I kicked some of them just to make sure that they were no longer going to get up and luckily all of them had been knocked out.

"Are you okay?" asked the Crown Prince. Blood and sweat were on his handsome face and I quickly went close to him to wipe it--- but I stopped mid-way when I realized what I was about to do. I silently scolded myself while cringing hard. What the hell? Why do I want to flirt with him right now when we were just attacked by unknown people?

"Argh!" I suddenly flinched when I felt instant pain searing right through my body. Prince Kao was quick enough to come near to me to check what was happening.

"You are bleeding," he told me. "Quick, we have to go to the Health Pub---"

But I shook my head and held his left arm tightly. "No, please, Y-Your Highness. Please let us not go there."

He looked confused at what I pleaded with him. "But why? What's wrong? Why don't you want to go there?"

"T-There could be more of them..." I said to him warily. "And if we go to the underground tunnel we might get ambushed... I don't want you to get hurt..."

His expression softened when I told him that. "But you are wounded! You need medical assistance! Or even just first aid!"

I nodded because I also want my wound to heal as soon as possible. "I know a place where we could get first aid, plus we could wait there while we sort these things out... Please, Your Highness, trust me with this..."

He looked like he still wanted to argue with me but then he suddenly nodded. "Fine. But I have to come back here in the morning so that we can report it to the local guards."

I nodded and he let me rest on the floor first. Then I saw him search for something, which turned out to be ropes. He found my brother's ropes that he uses when he goes to the nearby forest to hunt. He uses it in pulling heavy animals since most animals in this country are bulky and covered by thick layers of fur.

"What are you doing with the ropes?"

"I'm going to tie them here so they can't escape while we are gone. We still need them so that we can interrogate them later."

"Oh yeah! I have a feeling that they are the ones responsible for my Aunt's sudden disappearance!"

"Me too. And I think they also wanted you, so we have to go away from here first in case there are more of them."

I swallowed hard when I realized that the Crown Prince was right. They were also after me. They were going to kidnap me too, had it not been for Prince Kao here with me. And didn't I just heard one of them say that the Crown prince was probably my brother?

Oh my God. These scary people knew that I have a brother in the Royal Guards, that is why they look apprehensive about Prince Kao because they taught that it was my brother, so they expected him to be good at fighting!

And it would have a huge disappointment if the Crown Prince did not know how to fight, but the rumors are true that he excels on it because he almost defeated them single-handedly!

"That would do," he finally said. I saw my unknown attackers now tied to each other. One of them was heavily wounded which made our floor stained with a lot of blood. It made me dizzy for some reason, and then I don't know what just happened but when I tried to close my eyes a flash of bright red and yellow appeared on my mind.

I had to gasp loudly from that weird vision. "Oh, it's not real..." I said sighing with relief.

"What is not real?"

It's nothing," I told him trying to make a straight face. He nodded and went to me and to my greatest surprise he offered his back to me and carried me. "I could walk, Your Highness. This is too much already---"

"I know, but we have to get out of here faster," he explained and I just let him do what he wants. Besides, I would be lying if I told him that I do not like what he is doing to me right now. Of course, I do! This is every girl's dream, to be carried by the person you love like this, right?

I could smell his body as he carried me to the houses below the hill while I leaned my head at his back. I was even tempted to kiss his nape because it was getting exposed from the cold as my body weight was pulling down his jumper and coat. I had to slap myself just to remind myself of what I can and cannot do. It was a struggle that I convincingly passed so I guess I have to commend myself for being able to resist temptation.

When we reached the fork in the road, one of which leads to the suburb where we came from and the other one leads to the forest, I instructed the Crown Prince to go to the forest. This surprised him, of course, as it was so random and out of the blue. But I guess he trusts me enough to follow my instructions so he walked towards the dark and cold forest of ghostly trees.

Plants in Aure do not grow anymore outside of the greenhouses that the farmers built underground, so the trees here in the forest are not actually alive. They are nothing but frozen tree trunks that have become as hard as rocks from the long period of time of being exposed to winter. Because of this, countless scary tales have originated from this forest. When I was still a child we even used to call this the Devil Forest.

And since it is the Devil Forest, no one lives here for that one obvious reason. Aside from that it is a scary place, it is uninhabitable. This makes the person that we are about to visit sound like she's both a monk and a witch, names that me and my playmates used to call her before when we were kids. Only her granddaughter, Kaylie, have not called her any names, of course, and out of respect for her, I also had stopped calling the old woman names.

"Who is this person that we are going to visit in this forest? And why is she in such a place?"

"Her granddaughter, which is my friend that I told you were about to marry, told us before that her grandmother hated the people in our neighborhood because they used to gossip about her. Her grandmother is, you know, eccentric. Maybe that's why she prefers living alone."

"You can still live alone without going as far as isolating yourself from the rest of the country. It's hard to imagine someone like her. I have not heard of anyone living in a forest. The frost would have killed her."

"Which why people call her a witch," I said. "Maybe she can withstand the cold by through her magic."

I earned a laugh from him with that remark. "You do not believe in the existence of deities but you believe that someone could be a witch."

"I did not say that I do not totally believe in the presence of the deities. I just said that it is hard to believe it. There is a big difference between the two."

"Fair point," he said back at me. I did not reply anymore because I realized that the Crown Prince might be having a hard time walking with me on his back and then I still talk to him making him focus on me instead.

I just closed my eyes because the dead, frozen trees around scared the hell out of me. I have not been here for years now, so it brought a lot of memories to me. "Is that her house?" the Crown Prince finally said and I looked up to the house in front of us and saw what he was talking about.

"That's right. Kaylie's grandmother lives in there..." I said in a whisper, dreading the encounter that I have avoided for quite some time now.