Cedric's attention was torn away from the storm just in time to watch in horror as a large, smoldering branch from one of the older trees prepared to hurtle towards Sofia. She was hunched over, screaming, with her ears covered ears, and her eyes closed, terribly afraid of the storm, or rather the wild, unpredictable magic that crackled through the woods as the storm grew. She had no idea that the branch was seconds away from crashing down on top of her, attached to the tree by a mere inch, which was all too quickly burning away.
Cedric tried to call out to her, and willed himself to move, but just like in the dream, he was paralyzed. He was so terrified that he couldn't budge, stuck there in silent shock. Wide-eyed, he watched the branch prepare to fall in what felt like slow motion.
"Sofia!" James called out to her in panic. The sound broke Cedric out of his awful trance, and he sprung into action, hurling himself at the princess. The two of them toppled over, landing off to the side, Cedric shielding her with himself just as the flaming branch landed directly on the ground where she had stood only a second ago. He breathed heavily, clutching the princess to him in relief.
"Factum!" Miss Fauna's voice shouted, and the storm disappeared. Cedric knew he should get up, take responsibility, maybe even try to explain himself. Instead, he stayed there, holding onto Sofia as if she would vanish forever when he finally let go. Her whole body was shaking, and she buried her face into his chest, which only made him tighten his grip around her.
"It's okay, Sofia. It's okay. It's okay." He chanted the words into the princess's ear like a mantra. She let out a small whimper, going limp in his arms, and he continued to whisper reassurances to her.
"Who is responsible for this?" Miss Merryweather demanded, joining the other fairy. Cedric didn't move, keeping his back to the women. Sofia was much more important than the fairies, and he was determined to continue soothing her for as long as he could.
"It was Dax's cloud. I saw the whole thing." James told her, consumed with jealously as he looked at the older boy wrapped around his sister.
"He didn't do it on purpose, and he saved Sofia's life!" Amber added, coming to Cedric's defense.
"He wouldn't have had to save her if he hadn't done it in the first place." James argued. Miss Merryweather floated over to Cedric and Sofia angrily. She softened a tiny bit at the scene before her, listening to the boy chanting reassuring words to Sofia. She placed a hand on his shoulder gingerly, and he jerked.
"Prince Mendax, we need to take Sofia to the infirmary. She's probably in shock." Miss Merryweather told him quietly, casting a worried glance at his pale bundle.
"I'll carry her!" He insisted. He struggled to lift her, but found that he wasn't strong enough to safely carry her any distance in this form, and cursed himself for his weakness.
Miss Merryweather cast a floating spell, but allowed him to keep his arms around her as if he were carrying her himself. Quickly and silently, they made their way back to the school, Amber and James trailing nervously behind them.
When they arrived at the infirmary, Cedric carefully arranged an unconscious Sofia onto the cot, the fairy removing the floating spell once he wasn't at risk of dropping the girl. Cedric held her hand in his, begging Sofia to wake up. Miss Merryweather placed her hand on his shoulder again.
"She needs to rest. Come to my office so we can talk about what happened." She tried to lead him away from the bedside, but Cedric shook his head, refusing to leave her. For a moment, he completely forgot that he was currently a child and Miss Merryweather was supposed to be in charge of him.
"No! I'm not going anywhere until she wakes up. I'll tell you everything right here, if you want, but I'm not leaving her side." Cedric insisted, gripping Sofia's limp hand firmly.
He heard James scoff behind him, but kept his attention firmly on Sofia. Miss Merryweather nodded.
"Okay. We'll do this here. Tell me everything that happened." She said, trying to remain patient with the student and hear his side of things.
Cedric went over everything. Trying to keep the younger kids out of the woods, the small clouds, the party invitation, though he left out how he felt about it, the lightning spell he had accidentally cast instead of getting rid of the storm like he intended to. He told her about feeling frozen in sheer terror as the branch fell towards his friend. Finally, he recounted knocking Sofia out of the way and covering her body with his own, mere inches away from where the branch struck.
"And the rest, you saw. Miss Fauna cleared the storm, and now we're here." He was shaking as he finished the story. James stormed up to the older boy, fists clenched at his sides.
"I don't believe a word of that. Everyone knows you're the best at magic in the entire school. I bet you're even better than any of the kids at Hexley Hall. My royal sorcerer can't do magic half as well as you. You cast that lightning spell on purpose!" James shouted at Cedric, unknowingly hitting a nerve when he belittled his performance as royal sorcerer.
"And why would I do that?" He raised his voice, knowing full well that he shouldn't respond, but doing so anyways.
"Because you're a show-off, and everyone knows it. You do it in class all the time. You were showing off to try and impress Sofia! And she didn't invite you to go to that party with her, so that makes you a liar, too!" James was right in Cedric's face now, his usually fair skin glowing beet red. The fairies attempted to intervene, but they were completely ignored by both boys.
"I'm not lying about any of it. It was an accident, and she did invite me, you were just too far away to hear her. If you and Sofia hadn't taken off into the woods when I told you not to, none of this would even have happened!" Cedric didn't understand why he was so enraged with the younger boy, but the voice reminding him to keep his cool was now completely silent. He stood, glowering down at James, daring him to continue. James straightened himself up, standing as tall as he could.
"There's no way she asked you to go with her, because she was already going with me!" James spat out. His eyes widened and his hand flew up to cover his mouth, but it was too late, realization had already begun to dawn on Cedric as he stood there slack-jawed, narrowing his dark eyes at the prince. His body acting before his brain could register cohesive thought, he plowed into the boy, knocking him down onto the ground. He raised his fist and swung at James with all the strength he had, punching him right in his mouth.
Author's Note: So, this chapter has some more of that OOC Cedric that I keep promising will get explained in-story later, and I still promise. Originally, it was explained by now, but that was before I expanded the story.
One advantage of having chapters written so far ahead of updates is that I get to see the reactions & speculations in the comments. I had to chuckle when James' crush was revealed and all of the comments were talking about how they hope James doesn't interfere with Dax, because I knew that in a few short chapters this was going to happen. Anyways, thanks as always for reading, and I really do love reviews.