The man did not give him enough time to see how bad the wound was before swinging that shining sword towards him in a vertical movement that he was sure would slit him in half.
Liam's heart raced. It reminded him of the moment he was forced to drink that crazy concoction by that mad man. He looked into the man's cold eyes and he could not help but feel like he would have to die this time too.
He closed his eyes but his hand swung on its own in the darkness his closed eyes gave him and he concluded that he would get slowly butchered to death. The hand that hand swung forward against his will would be the first to get cut off.
No pain? He opened his eyes. His vision was reddened as though he was wearing a red-tinted pair of shades. He swallowed as the smell of blood was so thick.
He made the dark red frame of the man. The man was no longer holding the sword. He looked down. The sword was on the floor and he picked it up as the man advanced toward him.
"Kill him," came a voice loud and commanding in his head.
The man who had lost his sword was staring at him with his eyes void of the earlier bloodthirst and coldness Liam noticed in his eyes.
His eyes were wavering as he had completely given up and the fear was not hard to miss as the man looked at him like Hulk was standing behind him.
"Kill him, he tried to kill you," came that loud voice that was so foreign. He looked around for the owner of the voice but he could not see the person. He was alone with the man who had just tried to kill him.
With the same vertical movement, the man used against him, he swung the sword that felt lighter than he expected when the man began pulling out another sword.
Liam watched the man with that red-tinted vision he was yet to understand as the man fell to his knees before falling forward on his face.
He blinked his eyes to get rid of that tinted feeling but he was too scared to open his eyes as he felt the sting of the wound on his arm and the weird sticky feeling of a viscous substance splashed on his face.
"You are a man, open your eyes," he whispered to himself between clenched teeth and opened his eyes to the bloodied scene on the floor.
He felt a strong urge to vomit but he held back as he swore to himself that he had done nothing wrong but the smell of blood that had gotten lighter seemed to have gotten more uncomfortable.
He looked away and took a step back. His feet which had been soaked in the blood of the man on the floor, only carried the blood backward with him.
The sticky warm feeling on his feet felt very irritating he hurried to the rug and dragged his feet on it until that sensation reduced notably.
He looked at his stinging arm covering him his blood as well as the man's blood. He did not drop the sword he had acquired from the man as he walked to his bed and sat down.
He was sure none of his guards will show up until the day breaks so he lay on his bed and slept.
******
The knight was horrified when he walked into the room to the bloodied scene. The prince was sleeping peacefully like a baby with an open wound on his arm.
Dried blood on the prince's arm and the bed made it look like the prince might have bled to death but when he approached the bed, the prince was breathing steadily like he was having a very beautiful dream.
He took steady steps closer and tapped on the prince's shoulder while praying hard that he won't be the next corpse found in the prince's room.
". . ." The prince raised his head and stared at him with his eyes opened only slightly. The prince groaned in pleasure and turned his face away before he continued to sleep.
With that response from the prince and the fear of what he might be punished with by the prince, he moved away from the bed and left the room.
When he returned with people to clean the room, the prince was still sleeping and he slept like that through the whole cleaning process.
*******
Liam rolled and opened his eyes feeling so tired like he had not had enough sleep. He met the gaze of the knight who was standing by the wall, watching him.
He turned away as he found the look in the man's eyes scarier than a nightmare. "Make sure I am awake before coming into my room next time. Don't you know it is scary to wake up to such a sight?" he groaned as he slowly sat up.
"My apologies, your highness. I did not come in to scare you. I had the room cleaned earlier and your bath has been made ready for a while now. I also called the doctor for you," the knight told him with so much respect he found out of place considering the knight's usual disrespect.
"I will eat breakfast first. I am famished," Liam drawled as he stood up from his bed and stretched slowly to ease that dizzy feeling and the stiffness he felt.
"I will see to that, your highness," the man told him before bowing and walking out of the room.
Liam was too tired to take note of the bow as he sat down on the bed again and massaged his brow. He snapped and turned toward the window where he had left that body.
The body was gone and that felt alarming until he remembered the knight told him he had cleaned the room. He could see wet marks on the wall that must have been left when they cleaned the blood that splashed on the wall.
He was too occupied with his thoughts to bother taking the masks the man wore off to see the face beneath it. Even if he saw the face, he was not sure if that would be useful in knowing who was after his life.
"I did well," he encouraged himself as he remembered that he had just killed a man. He remembered how he swung the sword at the man and the spray of blood that came afterward.