Thorns and Treason Chapter 1 rough draft

One of my dark romantasy drafts, still in very early stages

Thorns and Treason

---

Chapter One

“Grab the sword on top! Camp’s to the left! Now go!” I yell, running out of the hot forge with Cara just behind on my heels. I’m clutching the stolen dagger and a bow to my chest, the cool of the metal disconcerting against the heat radiating from the forge. My hair, once pinned up in a tight bun, comes undone, strands coming loose and whipping against my face. I hear angry yelling behind us, arrows whistling past, going so close to my head I can feel the rush of air. I dodge the first few, but I’m not so lucky when the next round comes, three hitting my leg and getting stuck in my thigh. I cry out in pain, vision blurring as I start limping and fall behind. I arrive at the small circle of tents we set up earlier, only a few seconds behind Cara despite my injury. I frantically crawl around, performing the only glamour I can in this state, just a little illusion to hide us for a bit. The magic feels like drying tar, sluggish and resistant,  and it takes everything I have to pull it out.

 “Thank the stars they’re mortal guards. We would have been caught otherwise.”

  I collapse right next to the campfire, my leg bleeding. Cara’s eyes widen when she looks at my leg, bleeding out onto the leaves. For a split second, her lips remain parted, panic finally setting in as she kneels at my side. 

       “Jade! Why didn’t you tell me! I didn’t know your leg was this bad!” 

          “It’s ok……use your healing powers……get the arrows out…” 

 My vision blurs, my head spinning. I feel my head hit something hard, and the last thing I see before I black out completely is my sister’s worried face.

     I wake up on a bed of leaves, my leg throbbing. I groan, sitting up. Looking down, I can see that Cara stitched my leg, and her healing magic has stopped the bleeding and removed most of the pain. I don’t know how much time has passed, but before I can get up and find out, my sister looks up from her sewing and rushes over, seeing I’m awake. 

“Ugh……how long has it been, Cara?” 

  She glances away, apparently finding the tree bark on the ground very interesting.

   “How long. Tell me.” 

“Erm…it’s been….5 days.” 

That alone is almost enough to make me spring up from the leaves from surprise.   

 “S**t! You know I’m exiled! That glamour was only meant to last a few hours! If anyone walks down the wrong path, we’re caught, and I don’t want to be hunted by the King’s men, and I don’t want you to be associated with a criminal either!” 

   “I’m…I’m sorry, I couldn't do anything while you were unconscious, you know my powers are healing.” 

   I’m screaming at myself inside, mostly for getting hurt and ruining the whole plan. 

“Did we at least get what we came for?”

 She nods, ducking into a tent and pulling out a bag.

 “The dagger, the bow, the sword, and the scroll, all of which are tied to the court,” she says while pulling out each item. 

“It is the right scroll, right?”

   My head fills with all the worst case scenarios, like the guards knowing where we are or getting the wrong scroll or accidentally grabbing a cursed weapon.

 “Yep. The royal scroll of King Avery himself, and some of his weapons.” 

  I exhale, glad that at least one thing on this mission went well.

 “We open the scroll. We read. Then we leave before we have royal soldiers shooting our asses off.”

    She nods, and I slit it open. The wax is still hard, a good sign. It means that no one else got a chance to read this, and it’s another interception mission gone well. 

    I scan through it, Cara looking over my shoulder, her expression changing. 

“A new law? Are you serious?” 

  I read a section aloud. “Legislation of the Court #52. Any being caught entering the Hall of Ashes shall be punished for a year and a day in the dungeons of the castle. To be enforced immediately after being announced. Passed and signed by King Avery.” 

   I exchange a look with my sister, both of us thinking the same thing. The Hall of Ashes was the main spot revelries occurred, but everyone knew it’s home to almost all of the court’s secrets. The kind that would unravel the entire kingdom if they were found. 

“What are they hiding? There’s no other reason to close off that building.”

   “Wait, there’s more. No being is permitted to leave city grounds between dawn and noon. Anyone disobeying this law shall be punished likewise for a year and a day.” 

  Cara looks horrified. 

“That’s just tyrannical. There’s no reason for that, and if one does exist it must be something really important, but I don’t know.” 

“Power. Power would be the reason for that. We all know King Avery only wants power, and to him that's a reason for everything.”

  She sighs, saying, “I better put this with the rest of the intercepted messages, I’ll hand them over to the rest of the Twilight Court.”

   I whistle, waving my hand up. 

 “No need. They’re here already.”

    Out of the shadows, three spies seem to appear, crunching softly on the leaves as they move. Edgar, Allison, and Alaric, or at least that’s what I know them as, are the rest of the Twilight Court, a small band of spies, dedicated to dethroning the current king. 

Alaric speaks, his voice so low I can barely hear it. “You were supposed to intercept the message. Those weapons nearly got you caught.”

    My face flushes, heat prickling up my neck. It’s a special gift of his, always being able to make me self conscious.

 “There’s nothing we can do now. Now we get out before scouts find us. Oberon’s in the stream.”

 I bid my goodbyes, walking for a few minutes until I finally reach a small, trickling stream and see Oberon, a friendly water spirit. He helps out a lot on missions, and today he takes the form of a winged horse. I swing a leg over his back, and he speeds up through the clouds, touching down a few minutes later on a lawn. 

The house stands there, old and shabby in a bad neighborhood, the perfect cover for an exiled spy. I still can’t shake the feeling of danger. Every time I close my eyes, I see that scroll. But that’s not the only thing. For some reason I can’t explain, Alaric is featured prominently in most of my thoughts…

Author's Note

I'd like whatever feedback you can offer, improvements on sentence structure and emotional impact are very welcome as those are some areas that are important and that I struggle a bit on.