fall out.
We ran towards my parent’s chamber. They were with Catherin’s parents, and a few of my father’s most trusted knights. Catherine and I crammed together trying to see through the crack. I could smell my father’s pipe smoke through the wall, and struggled not to cough over it a little bit.
“What do you have to report?” My father asked a man whom I didn’t recognize. “ Did he suspect you were a spy?”
“I don’t think that he suspected me Sir, but my sudden absence will cause him to be suspicious.”
My father nodded. “ So what did you find out?”
“He’s traveling with an army that he’s going to hide in the forest. If he’s able, he’ll try to assassinate you, and the Princess. If not, he does intent to launch all-out war.”
I heard my mother gasp.
“So it begins,” my father said. “The time that I’ve waited for all these years.”
“I always knew that our brother would do this,” Catherine’s father said. He put his hand on my father’s shoulder. “ I will do everything that I can to protect my family.”
“What else were you able to find out?” My father asked the man. “What of his numbers? Does he have spies in my court?”
The man nodded. “Yes, Sir. He has followers that are servants of yours.”
“What about the princess? Do they know how weak she is?”
“No, Sir. They knew of the attack, but the ploy to use Catherine has worked.”
“What should we do with the girls?” My mother asked.
“Yes,” Mary said. “What about the safety of the girls?”
“We continue with the plan of using Catherine,” my father replied. “ We want to make him think we’re as strong as possible. Now that we know his intentions though, we need to take stronger precautions.” He put his pipe down, and ran his hands threw his hair.
“We need to hide Isabel and William inside the secret passageways until he is gone. Make sure that the entrances are being guarded at all times. I want that to start happening today. Also, I want to make sure that Catherine is heavily guarded. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened to her. When she’s not with us, I expect her to be inside the passageways.” He picked his cigar back up. “Make sure that this information does not leave the room. Don’t even tell the guards for the passageways, what they’re guarding. Tell everyone that it’s just extra protection if you will,” he said.
The knights nodded.
“I expect that to start happening now,” he barked. I could tell his mood was tense, and it was my cue for us to get back to my room before we were found out.
We hurried as fast as we could back to my room. I was slowed down however by the pain. The more time that I spent out of bed, the more my pain returned. It had been a month since the attack, and I could still feel the poison of the demon in my body. I hoped the demons ate my uncle and his army.
Catherine held onto my hand as we ran through the passageways, and made it back to my room. She pulled me up into my bed, and helped me under me covers just in time for the door to opens.
It was my mother with one of my father’s knights. I knew him as Sir Owen. I had known Sir Owen since I was a child. He was the son of a knight that had been killed by a demon. Like William, after his father had died, my parents had taken Owen in and raised him. He was a tall man with thick black long hair, with blue eyes and a strong jaw
Catherine jumped out of the bed, and curtsied. He gave me a funny looked and then averted his eyes. I wondered why.
“Hello Sir Owen,” I greeted him.
He bowed.
My mother stood at the entrance of the door with her hands on her hips for a few minutes as if unsure of what to say. Then she walked over to my closet, and begins to pull clothes out and put them on the bed.
“What are you doing Mama?” I asked.
“You’re father received some news about your uncle today, and he thinks it will be best if you hide inside the passageways until he’s gone,” she said calmly.
I tried to act surprised.
“What about me?” Catherine asked innocently.
“You are to hide when you’re not with us,” My mother explained. “You all are.” She glanced at Owen. “Owen is going to be personally in charge of you,” she explained. “You are to listen to him, do you understand me?” She asked.
I nodded as did Catherine.
“Should I go pack my stuff?” Catherine asked.
My mother shook her head. “ No, my dear. Your mother is seeing to it. She’s going to meet us there.”
“What about father?” I asked her. “ Will I get to say goodbye to him?”
“Don’t you worry,” she said. “ He’s going to come visit you when he can.”
When she was done packing my stuff, Sir Owen lifted me out of my bed, and Catherine and I headed back towards the passageways. This time, though, we would not be spying. Mother took us to one of the apartments deep inside the underground of the passageways. When we arrived in the apartment, William was already there, sitting up on a sofa with his broken leg extended out.
He smiled at us. “Hello Mother,” he said.
William
When I saw the way Isabel’s head spun around when I called the Queen, Mother, something told me that she wasn’t very happy about it. I didn’t care. I had saved the damn girls life, and she owed me.
I felt hesitant to be stuck in the passageways with the girls. I hated the Princess, and I knew that Catherine had a huge crush on me. I tried to look on the bright side, at least I would have some company for a few days.
I watched Isabel limp over to a couch on the opposite side of the room. I realized that she was still feeling the effects of the poison more then I was. It was ironic in a way. The poison had completely drained out of my body, I just couldn’t walk still because of my broken leg. Isabel on the other hand, didn’t have any broken bones, but I could see that she was still tormented, by the poison the demon had left in her.
“William, this is Sir Owen.”
I glanced up. I had seen him around the palace on several occasions. I knew that he was another orphaned child of a knight. I wasn’t the first child that they had taken in. The King always saw to it that if a knight was killed in action, and his child had no mother, then queen and the king raised him.
Suddenly I felt a lot more excited about being stashed away in the underground passageways.
“I know who he is,” I responded. “ I’ve seen him around the palace a few times.” I didn’t want to mention to her that I often spied on the knights when they were training. Even though I had been told that I couldn’t become a knight, I couldn’t stop myself from watching them. Maybe one day the king would still change his mind.
He smiled at me. “I heard you took on an oar demon, and survived. Good for you lad, you’ll have to show me some of your techniques.”
The queen gave him a sideways glare.
“Or at least tell me all about it,” he said retreating.
I didn’t care. He was a real knight, and his father had been a knight. I was more than happy to spend time with him
Sir Owen
At first I was curious about the boy who had taken on the demon. I have to be honest, even though I was curious about him, part of me resented him.
Like William, my father had been killed in service to the King, and like William, the King had taken me in and raised me. I was only eight when it happened. There were other children as well in my situation. I was told that if the King took in their orphaned children, the men would fight harder for him, be more loyal.
It hadn’t been a bad childhood by any means. The King had provided well for me, educated me, fed me, and clothed me. But I craved the love that all children crave of parents of their parents. I think the King and Queen loved me well enough, but not the way they had come to love this boy. I wondered what had made him so special. Before the attacks, I had hated him. I hated the boy the King
loved in place of a son, instead of me.
I would often lay awake at night for hours, wondering, why the king couldn’t love me as a son. Why, did he love this boy so much more than me? After the attack though, something changed. I wanted to meet him, I needed to meet him. I needed to understand why the King loved the boy so, and why he had survived the oar demon.
The moment I set eyes on the boy that day, something instantly changed. I no longer hated the boy, I wanted to protect him. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt an instant kinship to the boy. The Queen excused herself, and Catherine asked me if I knew where any games were.
I didn’t know, but I stumbled around the apartment for a minute until I found some children’s games that they could play while Isabel was still sitting on the bed.
I still couldn’t get over her appearance. The cuts on her face had closed up, but she still had huge scabs on her face. It wasn’t just that being mauled by the demon had taken something out of her. She looked frail, and underweight.
I wondered if William looked frail in comparison to how he usually looked. He was lucky to have been spared not having his face mauled the way Isabel’s had been. He had been lucky to survive. How had he done it? I kept wondering over and over again.
I tried to avoid making conversation with him that afternoon. I would wait until the girls wouldn’t hear. I knew there were strict orders that he couldn’t become a knight, and he had already disobeyed once by picking up the sword. I didn’t want to encourage him any further. I knew that King favored me, but that
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