The Princess and The Bandit

FORTY NINE

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"Die!!"

Brad yells as he ripped his helmet off, showing himself in a fit of blind rage, burying his dagger, darkened by bothropis, deep in Lauren's chest. He doesn't see reason or sense, he was like a crazed animal.

He took everyone by surprise. It all went down so fast.

He already knew he was going to die, and his intention was to take the person who stole his woman down to hell with him. But plans, like always, doesn't go as intended for it to be. He aims to murder Camila. But the recipient of his rage becomes Lauren.

Oh, well . . .

At least he can go to the afterlife with the woman of his dreams.

Everything happened so quickly. Two seconds was all it took. One moment Camila was smiling back at Lauren. She was happy, she was breathing. Then next she's . . .

Camila felt her heart taken into a tight grasp, and have it squashed, ripped away from her ribcage. She felt the tearing, the cracking inside her, every fiber of her being was crushed. She was breaking as Lauren fell in her arms, unconscious, pulse fading quickly, blade sticking out between her bosom.

But she refuses tragedy to repeat again. Her strong will pushes through.

She is not going to lose her.

Camila catches Lauren in her arms. One hand pulls the poisoned dagger, the other circled over Lauren and pressing hard on the wound. She sets the blade on blue fire, barely holding its heat in place as she barely holds her own pained emotions. Then she stabs Brad's face with it as he was still there snickering at her. His head quickly catches fire. But before the fire spreads through his body and out in the open, Dinah jumps in with her long sword, chops Brad's head off as Hailee and Ally rush with a bunch of people to drench the fire the size of a human head with pails of water before it consumes them all.

Camila keeps the pressure tight on Lauren's open wound right in the middle of her chest so she won't bleed out.

"Simona!!" She bellows.

The old woman was right there quickly, just as everything was going down. She doesn't have much on her, but she's got a silver flask of her special whiskey. It isn't just an antivenin because it is indeed a liquor also; dealing with the empire's state of affairs sometimes requires her that much-needed strong drink. She didn't anticipate that she'd have to use it again to save someone's life.

She runs and she immediately pours all of it on Lauren's parted mouth.

All the while, Normani on the other hand yells for the imperial doctors present in the crowd. They all rush towards the platform to save the empress.

"Lady Camila, please, you need to move aside. Let the healers take over," the priestess pleads.

Camila couldn't move or form words.

She's too devastated. Her eyes never left Lauren's beautiful face even as tears clouded it, just as her hands couldn't leave the wounded chest that holds the most precious heart in the world. Even as hope flicker in her own chest seeing that the best healers in the empire, the same best healers who made Dinah's fatal injury heal faster than it should, are trying to give Lauren immediate medical attention.

The priestess beckons Lucy and Hailee to help her forcefully drag Camila away. And as much as the bandit wants to cling on Lauren's side, she must trust these people to save her. A doctor takes her place in keeping the wound close. The empress was then carried off carefully but with quick efficiency. Camila yanks herself away from the three people holding her back and follows the empress and the doctors. The crowd of Arcadians part in the middle as they cleared a path for the empress to be taken back to the castle.