Baski didn’t answer. The question hung in the air for so long Danika knew she
wouldn’t answer.
“M-my… p-princess…”
Danika stilled at the hoarse sound of Sally’s voice. Her head whipped around, and
she stared at Sally, whose eyes fluttered open.
“Sally! Oh, Creator… Sally!” She climbed onto the bed, crawling towards Sally.
Sally’s eyes found her princess. “M-my… p-princess…”
“How do you feel, Sally? How are you doing?”
Sally tried to sit up, and Danika saw the move. She helped Sally to sit up on the
bed, both wincing at the same time.
Sally heard her wince, and she lifted concerned eyes towards Danika. “Are you…
alright, my p-p-Princess?”
The question so softly asked-so brokenly asked-caused tears to fill Danika’s
hurting eyes immediately. She pushed closer and wrapped her arms around Sally’s
body, burying her face in her neck.
“Oh, Sally. How can you ask about me when you’re the person who’s hurt!? Why
did you do it!? Why!? Why did you do that to me, Sally?” she cried.
Sally didn’t enjoy seeing her princess cry. She had never liked it. Hearing her
princess’s cries, feeling the way her body was shaking against hers, was hurting her
badly.
“My princess. Please, don’t cry,” she whispered, raising her bandaged hand. She
patted Danika’s back in reassurance. “Please, don’t cry. I don’t like that you cry.”
Those words only made Danika cry harder, even as she tried to control herself. She
couldn’t help it. Her body shook with the force of the pain and relief coursing through
her.
Sally’s here. Sally’s alive. Sally would be fine.
Everything else didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how yesterday’s event affected
Sally. It didn’t matter that Sally might probably never recover from it. What mattered
was that she was there. She was alive. She survived.
As Danika cried, she admitted to herself that she must be a selfish person for being
relieved that Sally was alive-even though it was obvious she was in deep pain. At
that moment, it didn’t matter. Danika vowed then that she’d protect Sally as best as
she could. She also vowed to do everything within her power to help Sally heal.
Everything.
“I’ll leave you two to talk. I’ll be back soon. Sally needs her wounds cleaned and
redressed,” Baski’s voice came.
Danika pulled back and stared at her. “Thank you so much, Madam Baski. Thank
you so much for everything.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll be back.” She turned to leave, but then she stopped and
turned back. “He was his cousin,” she blurted.
“Huh?” Danika stared at her with teary eyes, clearly lost.
Baski’s lashes fluttered, her eyes lowering. When she raised them again, the
sadness in her eyes was stark and blatant. “You asked who Declan is,” she said
finally. “Declan was the king’s young cousin.”
You… must… have been so worried. I’m so… sorry, my princess,” Sally
whispered as she gazed at her princess when Baski left the room.
Danika only pulled her close, wrapping her arms around her again, tears blurring
her eyes. “Please, don’t ever do something like this to me again, Sally. You don’t
know how heartbreaking it was. Oh, Sally, I’m so, so sorry. I’m s-so sorry for what
they did to you!”
Sally pulled back. Staring into her face, she palmed Danika’s cheeks with shaky,
bandaged hands. “What those k-kings did… to me hurt so much, my princess. I
almost died… from the pain.”
“Oh, Sally.” Danika’s heart broke a little more inside.
“It hurt, my princess, but I could endure it; I wanted to. I had to. I did it for you
because I know you… could never take s-such treatment from them.” Her lips curved
into a small smile. “You’re my princess; you aren’t a slave.”
“Sally, you don’t know how hard it was seeing you that way because of me. You
should have given me a choice. I would have been on that table instead of you.
Because of me. Me!
“I’m not sure I would have been able to bear it if anything happened to you; you
scared me so badly,” Danika explained, wiping her tears.
Sally smiled slowly. “But I couldn’t… just leave my princess here. Someone had
to be here to protect you. Who would that be if not Sally?” she asked slowly.
Danika took her hands into hers. “No. From now on, I’ll protect you. You just
focus on getting better. Please stay alive for me, Sally. Just try to stay alive, and I’ll
do my best to help you heal.”
Sally stared down at her bandaged self. Sitting on the bed, she shifted a little,
flexing her muscles, and a sharp bite of pain slammed through her body from all
directions. She bit the inside of her lipto make sure her princess didn’t see her in pain.
She stared at her princess’s face, noting how swollen her eyes were from crying. How
red they were.
“If I promise… to fight so hard to survive, my princess, I want you to make me a
promise,” her voice hoarse like gravel.
“Anything,” Danika responded at once.