The Medici Prize (The Stolen Crown Trilogy Book 1) by Prince Sylvia

Author:Prince, Sylvia [Prince, Sylvia]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2019-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Beneath her composed exterior, Caterina’s emotions swirled and threatened to knock her over. But she couldn’t afford to give in to the tempest. One of them had to stay alert.

They were an hour into the woods. An hour of backtracking when they faced a rocky ledge and avoiding an open patch that looked like a wild pig’s wallow. And checking on Lancelot every three minutes.

She had forgotten to ask his name, and now she couldn’t. His eyes were closed and he swayed dangerously on the horse. Caterina wondered if he harbored hidden wounds, a cut to his chest or leg that drained his life while she tried to save them. Otherwise, his reaction to the arrow didn’t make sense. Could one arrow really throw a man into a stupor that quickly?

Of course, Caterina had never been hit by an arrow. She’d fired a few when she was younger, but only training arrows, lacking the metal head that did damage.

Was it possible that the arrow carried some kind of poison?

If it did, Caterina had limited options. She’d refilled the two waterskins in a spring, but unless she could whip up an antidote from water, apples, and meat, she was in trouble.

The floor of the forest was covered in plants of all kinds. Caterina knew some of them had to be useful for healing, but which ones? Did the green leaves with five points hold the solution, or would they only harm? What about the purple flowers that grew on the vines wrapped around the dark tree trunks?

Herbology hadn’t seemed a useful skill back in Florence, but right now she would trade her favorite dress for a remedy.

And the woods were so quiet. Caterina hadn’t spent much time outside the city walls, and certainly not in deserted woods. The silence made her yearn for the bustling streets of Florence. The horse’s whinnies echoed through the thin trees. Twigs crunched under foot.

At least she wasn’t completely alone. Lancelot might be dying, but Caterina had his horse. Cosimo, she’d named him, for the white star at the top of his soft, brown nose and because he reminded her of her grandfather.

Grandfather had always seemed so certain of himself. He knew which strings to pull to bring Florence to his side. Years ago, when her father Piero was still a boy, Cosimo had been exiled from Florence. Grandfather had told her the story when Caterina was young enough to sit on his knee, the daring tale of his travels in Italy during the exile. Had he been to Viterbo? He’d certainly visited Rome, traveling the same road as their ill-fated journey.

In Grandfather’s story, his enemies had conspired to evict him from Florence, anxious over Medici wealth and power. But Cosimo was smarter—he used that power to rig the next election, even in exile, so that Medici loyalists swept into office and reversed Cosimo’s sentence. In a matter of weeks, his enemies found themselves in exile.

At that part of the story, Grandfather had always stopped and let out a short laugh.

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