Author's Note: Sixteen chapters in and my main character is still a virgin. Considering what type of website this is, I don't know if that's a sign of bad writing or not. Also, warning! Unnecessary costume porn is coming. Seriously. If pointless descriptions of clothing bug you, then you're going to be bugged because this is ridiculous. And, on a final note, there will be some non-sexual violence here. Please don't freak out.
***
Panic.
These men, be they nobles or commoners with special permits, Rahela couldn't say who they were. All she knew is that they weren't behaving as they should have been. They scared all the girls. Ammas was the only man in their group, and he tried yelling at the hunters. Princess Tuya tried too. How dare they?! How dare they act so dangerously?!
The horses on the path, they were understandably upset. They didn't need instructions. They ran out of the way.
Ureche ran too, but not in the way Rahela expected.
It didn't matter how Rahela moved, didn't matter how she tried to correct the mule, didn't matter at all. The mule just kept running. Rahela wanted to jump off but she was worried about breaking a limb. She looked back to her group, which seemed to grow farther and farther away ... and became less of a group and more like a scattering.
Ammas tried to catch up. Rahela caught a glimpse of his furious, determined face.
But Ureche was unusually swift.
She wasn't even moving in a single direction. Curves and angular turns. Rahela could only think to scream. She screamed and cried, trying to let everyone know that she was in danger.
Time went on. Maybe it wasn't very much time at all, but to Rahela it felt too long. Ureche had left the group a while ago. Rahela eventually thought it was best to risk hurting herself. This mare had lost her sense! Rahela didn't even want to wait for her to tire out.
The best she could, Rahela curled herself up and rolled onto the earth.
It hurt.
A mild explosion of twigs, leaves, bugs, and other random things.
An ankle and a foot took on so much pain that it felt like they could shatter with the lightest pressure. Rahela was appreciative of the fact that her head was fine. Her hair had all kinds of things in it. Some of her clothing was torn. Her ribbon fillet was askew. Otherwise, she thought she was fine.
Rahela crawled through the layers of dead plant material and detritus up to a tree and leaned her back against it. Then she busied herself by picking and plucking the litter out from her hair. When one was lost, it was wise to stay put. She'd be found eventually.
More rustling noises.
Behind the tree!
Before Rahela could even yelp, a man was on her, grabbing her skirt, holding an arm. He told her to keep quiet or else he'd hurt her. She kicked with her good foot and pulled out her well trusted knife, yanking the blade out of the case that protected her from being accidentally cut.
First the ribs. A guttural voice, a painful shout, it fell over her. Blood. She felt its warmth. It was being absorbed by the man's clothing.
That wasn't enough for her. With a short cry, she pulled her blade out and stabbed up top. More blood. It spurted and glided, some of it trickling down her hand and onto her sleeve. She saw the man's shocked and painful expression.
Rahela's lips parted. Her eyelids pulled back.
Ganbold Hudma? The stable worker that had been so devoted to Ureche?
Her lips pressed back together and her teeth met in a similar way.
No time to react much more! He was moving, trying to take her wrist!
She drew back, stabbed him again, pushed him down to the earth.
Knelt down.
More stabbing. Down. Up. Down. Her arms hurt. She was screaming again. She barely heard the man's noises. Whenever he tried to get away, she would grab him and yank him right back.
Rahela didn't even hear, or at least not at first, a man calling out, "Your Highness!" He had to repeat the title, hollering it. Only then did she let her wild eyes turn away from the now still and amazingly bloody figure on the ground. Both of them were bloody, actually, and that blood only made it easier for the forest litter to cling to them.
A horse was approaching with Ammas on it. He stopped and dismounted. Then he ran over to her. He went down to his knees, and he reached out with one hand, but that hand froze in the air. His jaw was low. It had likely been low for longer than Rahela had noticed.
She kept her knife in her grasp, but her arm low, the blade facing away from her body. Then, her brain finally told her what to do next. She dropped the knife, put her palms to her cheeks, and screamed again.
And again.
More!
Her throat burned. Her lungs probably resented her.
Even when she heard more horses approach, Rahela screamed.
Even when she heard Princess Tuya's yelling she screamed.
Even when she heard Yana trying to pull words together she screamed.
Even when Ammas was gripping her shoulders and giving her a very light nudge she screamed.
Even when Princess Tuya dismounted, pulled up her skirts a bit and ran to her, kicking up leaves and dirt, she screamed.
Even when Princess Tuya moved one of Rahela's hands away and gave her cheek a single, painful slap with her open palm, she screamed. All it did was make her head move a bit. Rahela didn't stop.
The people around her were trying to debate about what to do next. Ammas and Princess Tuya were the most powerful voices, literally and figuratively. Rahela couldn't hear them well. She was still loud. Her voice was high and hurtful.
An agreement seemed to have been made. Rahela could sense that much. When Ammas knelt down to her again, he had a much more resolute expression was on his face, Rahela knew he was going to try to get her to stop.
His hand rose.
The back of his hand went right to her. That time, it really, really stung and her whole body was knocked over. That was what finally got Rahela to stop screaming.
***
The hunters had all been fined and given a beating. They turned out to be commoners. They were fortunate not to have their privileges revoked. They had claimed they were all so eager to catch a certain animal that they forgot how to be polite.
Pitiable Ureche was eventually found passed out on the ground. She was so tired. Later, when Rahela gave her a quick inspection, she happened to find a small something attached to her flesh. It seemed to have been an insect stinger used as a dart. This led Rahela to believe that Ureche had been drugged.
As for the now dead Ganbold Hudma, well, Rahela had obviously taken care of that matter.
Princess Tuya had given a firm quote. "Princess Rahela was clearly attacked by a wild man. She killed him so frantically, and she was so traumatized that she wouldn't stop screaming. I won't listen to any word against her."
Rahela knew that princess' words didn't matter. If anything, they could've inflamed the ire.
The whispers among the nobles, the guards, even the servants, all were well known. Rahela even heard one of her chambermaids ask about it.
Of course, Princess Rahela paid those hunters to separate the group of riders so that Rahela could be given a chance to escape! Of course Princess Rahela needed to be alone in the woods, which was admittedly a popular location for lovers. Of course Rahela had told that stable worker to meet here there, wanting to seduce him. Of course, once Rahela had been caught, that heinous woman murdered him to disguise her crime!
When the Empress Dowager came to visit Rahela in her bedchamber, she sat with her on the balcony for a while, and she commented on the issue.
"The human mind is astounding. Enough prejudice will have one twisting everything into impossibility."
Keeping her fingers busy with a little embroidery in her lap, Rahela asked with her breathy voice, "Your Majesty, why am I being accused of so many terrible things? Have I not proven myself loyal to this mighty empire?"
Sighing, the Empress Dowager looked up to a cloud, or that's what Rahela assumed, and she said, "There are so many reasons. Testoa is still so new to this empire, and you're still considered to be foreign. Your customs are different. Your appearance is different. You discovered corruption and didn't ignore it, bringing difficulty to those that would move in the shadows. You were at the center of a poisoning scandal that resulted in the death of a duke's son, and that duke has his own allies that I might not be aware of." She pointed her face back down to look at her shiny fingernails. She was frowning. "Also, you have the audacity to accept a position many want for themselves, the Emperor's bride and Empress Consort."
Rahela only just missed her fingertip with her needle's point. "There was always darkness lurking in my homeland, but I was never so hated before. This environment is toxic."
"You'll need more than a spoonful of activated charcoal to absorb it all."
Rahela's needle paused as she turned her head up and to one side to see the Empress Dowager reaching up to fiddle with a bit of dangling, silver beads that hung from her headdress. Her frown was melting away. Softly, these words floated out of her. "Activated charcoal, indeed."
Heat swept through Rahela's face. There was a tense moment, a quiet moment, where she waited to see if the Empress Dowager would any anything else about activated charcoal, but she didn't. That older woman only asked if she'd like to play a board game.
***
The morning the Emperor arrived was full of busy people. The castle had been busy before. Everyone had been preparing for the wedding, but that had been a gradual process, a portion a day. Now people were rushing.
Floors had to be swept, washed, and polished. All the tapestries and flags had to be beaten and shaken, the same for the rush mats. Statues and decorative armor had to be dusted. What few paintings there were had been gently wiped with dry cloths.
Rahela, Princess Tuya, the Empress Dowager, and their retinues all prepared themselves to greet the Emperor in the beautiful foyer with the intricately tiled floor and wide rug. Rows of high class servants and guards were there too. They stood in place, waiting.
