Royalty

Princess Anna sat her hand on the cold seat beside her. Her mind was running wild with thoughts of the past and what would hold for her in the future. She had many sleepless nights like this where she could not disassociate her present self from the past. She thought of what could have been and what could be.

Cory bent down. "My Lady, I think I hear the church bells."

Anna peeked up as if she could see over the wall surrounding the garden. When she listened closely, she could hear what Cory meant.

She shook her head. "Those are not the church bells."

She stood up and grabbed the ends of her dress. She did not wait for Cory to follow her, instead, she raced towards the door.

The halls of the castle were silent, but the bells she heard were no doubt the bells of an attack. She did not let fear take over her, but she couldn't help the racing of her heart. The last time she heard those bells was the night the old Queen had died. She'd been killed in her private rooms where not even her maids had been allowed inside. Her throat had been slit. The guards were no help by the time anyone knew what had happened.

The bells rang, warning the rest of the castle that there had been an attack.

That day was the day when Anna's world had been turned upside down. The only woman she could ever truly call a mother had been snatched away from her. Since that day, she'd vowed that she would track down the person who slit the Queen's throat. It wasn't an easy thing to do. There were many suspects, including her own birth mother, but most of the evidence pointed in the direction of an assassin.

There were many men that could be hired, but the technique and the blades associated with the kill were linked to two of the most highly established Brotherhoods in the Kingdom.

Anna glanced around the empty halls. Cory came to her side. Her face was flushed red and her eyes were skittish.

"Please, my Lady, let us take shelter." She reached out for Anna's arm, but she hesitated.

Anna turned with a glare in her eyes. A deep frown pulled at her features. Something dark had crossed her face. "Go back to the maid's quarters."

Cory shook her head in dismay. "I can't do that!"

"Do it," Anna commanded. She peeled off her large coat and tossed it at Cory. The young girl caught it with both arms. She was so stunned that she could speak.

But her loyalty won out. She turned on her heels and raced back to her quarters. Anna watched her go, the frown on her face deepening. The hall was as silent as ever, but there was something in the air that made her feel as if she was being watched. The feeling crept up the back of her neck, raked across the top of her head, and sent pulses of chills through her body. She froze there with her hands hanging by her side and a blank expression on her face.

Something was going to happen. There was no hint as to what it was that was going to roll through the castle or the Kingdom. This feeling though, it was big. It made her stomach feel ill and made her palms sweat. Her heart felt heavy inside of her and at one point she thought it had stopped completely. She couldn't breathe or move.

Cory had disappeared around the corner. Anna was left there alone. The bells were getting louder.

She held her breath, waiting until there was a slight whistle of wind against her ear. She put her hand up to cover her face, turning towards the closed door towards the garden. The door was open. There was a pull for her to walk towards it. That moment made her feel as if she was going to be swept away in the wind. The cold was like the warmth of an arm around her shoulders. It was a strange feeling that made her hair stand up on her arms.

"Anna!"

She blinked. The door to the garden wasn't open and there was no such wind blowing in her face. It had just been her imagination.

Her mother ran towards her and pulled her up into a hug. "Where have you been?"

The words didn't hit Anna until a couple of seconds later. She blinked up at her rosy-cheeked mother. There was nothing she could say then. Everything that she was thinking didn't make much sense to herself, no doubt it wouldn't make sense to her mother.

The Queen glanced around the corridor. A flock of five armored guards turned around the corner and marched towards the two of them.

"We must leave. Your father will be waiting for us."

Anna let her take her by the hand and lead her down the hall. The guards followed after them, marching until they flanked beside them. Their swords were drawn and ready for an attack.

Anna never thought she would be the scared one in the situation. She'd grown up being bullied by the older kids in the castle. It hadn't been until her mother turned into royalty herself did she have the safety to be herself. But this was quite different then the world she was leaving behind. The person attacking them wouldn't have any mercy for her or her mother. If their goal was to kill the royal family, they wouldn't care if Anna didn't much like them either.

The blood in her veins was all that mattered to anyone here. Her ties to the crown mattered more than her life.

It was then that she fully realized that this might be the last time she would see the garden. She couldn't tell why this was her last thought, why it mattered to her so much that she wanted to pull away from her mother's grasp and run back to the garden. Even if it meant dying, she wanted to see the garden the old Queen had loved so much.