Chapter 7

"Reading." I drawl out, plopping on a golden lounge.

"How did you get in here?" He growls again, his eyes flashing a dangerous deep blue.

"There was once a jade door right there." I tell him, pointing to where The door was.

"How do you know about that?" He demands. I look up at him through my lashes.

"Magic." I jest, but not really joking, I do know about it from the magic that showed it to me.

"Tell me!" He demands, stepping closer to me in a threatening manner.

"I technically did Your Highness." I smirk at him.

"Why in the world would it have shown you this library?" He actually questions now. I peel back my white skirt, I see him look away, I silently laugh at his antics. "This dagger." I show him my skirt back to normal. "What about it?"

"It was my mother's. She hid it in this room. I was apparently supposed to find it."

"And how did you find it?" He asks, folding his arms, his claws weirdly sticking up from his hairy arms.

"Last night I had a dream. A dream with my parents and your mother." I pause, gaging his reaction.

"My mother and father were hired to find and rescue your father from an assassins group." The beast growls lowly, I smirk, knowing it was true.

"So it's true then. The King was kidnapped and held for ransom. Well, until my parents saved him. So, one of my questions is, how did he get kidnapped in the first place? This palace is the most secure place on the continent."

"Are you asking if my father willingly kidnapped himself?" Xavier demands, growling at my question.

"Well why not? The whole country knew he was a terrible person." Xavier opened his mouth, most likely to yell at me for disrespecting the late king, but I held up a hand to silence him. "But, with all that in perspective, my other question was why would the king do that? Not personal gain, not the country's downfall, so why?" I stand up and start pacing.

"May I ask you another question Xavier?" I ask him, my pacing has stopped for a moments.

"Depends." He tells me. I nod, shrugging at the same time.

"Where is your twin brother? Zaden, I believe his name was? He's older than you by four minutes?"

"Why are you bringing up my dead brother?" He demands, clenching his fists.

"Well that's the thing, what if he's not dead?" I state, looking at the beast. Xavier's eyes flash before he punches a nearby chair, smashing it to pieces.

"How did you get that conclusion?" He spits, heading over to another table.

"That was the only thing I could think of, your mother was raising you to become a good king, your father didn't like that, tried to change you, realized he couldn't, then he killed your mother and faked his and your brothers death." I state quickly. The beast throws a table into the stone wall, the wood splitting, sending pieces all over the room.

"Then how do you explain me?" He spits, heading over to me, getting closer. I stare up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"You promise not to break anything else?" I demand. He scoffs. I fold my arms at him, my lips sealed.

"Fine." He spits. After a second of thought.

"After your parents and brother died, you realized you had to be King. You didn't know how, you were clouded with grief and misery, and then more responsibilities piled on top of that, like the entire country and then also your younger siblings, so, the only thing you knew how to do, was be like your father. Because if it worked for him, it might work for you also?" I say, just talking as my brain is going on.

"Only it didn't, and a sorceress turned up at your door, testing you, you failed and this is how you turn out. A Beast on the inside, A beast on the Outside." I finished. He smiled cruelly at me, stepping even closer, his huge body towering over me. "Get out." He says quietly but deadly.

"No." I refuse, cocking my head to the side.

"Did you just refuse a direct order from the king?" He demands.

"No, I didn't, I just refused a coward." I spit at him, grabbing my book from where I placed it on the lounge, and walking out of the library with my head held high.

======

"Miss Isla." I hear a quiet reluctant voice ask. I look up from my book and see Laden staring down at me. I was in the lounge room, sitting on a black chair, my feet bare and curled up under me, now warm from my purple cloak. . "Yes Laden?" I ask, putting my bookmark in my place and giving him my full attention. "Do you need something?"

"Will you spar with me?" He asks, fiddling with his fingers.

"Of course, do you want to spar now?" I ask.

"Sure." He picks his head up, his eyes light from his feelings.

"Do you have a spot where you would like to spar?" I stand up from the chair, now looking into his eye level. "Anywhere really, I don't mind."

"What about....-" I look around, seeing the space around. "-Here?" I ask, motioning to around the entrance and lounge. "Here?" He demands, looking around.

"Yes, it also helps with accuracy and concentration, and, it gets you ready for the real world, what if you're in a room and have to jump over obstacles?" I state, walking over to the foyer, hearing his boots follow.

I quickly turn around and unsheathe my fathers sword. "You ready?" I ask, smirking at him. He reaches behind him to unsheathe his sword that was attached to his belt. "Engird." I state, putting my sword up. "Begin." I smirk. He lunges first, I riposte, he parries that. So he was better than I initially planed, so I could go a little harder on him.

"Who taught you how to fence?" I ask him while playing defense, my face extremely calm.

"My brother." He says out of breath.

"Ah, which one?" I ask, he loses focus and I sweep his legs, pointing my sword at his throat from above him.

"How do you know about my other brother?" He demands. I help him up and put my sword up again. "If you win I'll tell you." I smirk at him, his face suddenly gets extremely serious, then he attacks out of nowhere. I play defense again, walking backwards up the grand stairs, I see maids up on top watching us, but my focus was on Laden. "Heres a piece of advice Laden." I tell him, spinning quickly, so now he was walking backwards up the stairs and I was attacking. "What is it?" He demands, trying to act normal. "Don't let someone distract you, in fencing, in life, in anything." I tell him. We were now on the second floor, the flat marble weird under my feet after walking up thirty stairs. Laden pins me against the stone fence, the guard placed there so people don't go back to the first floor in a much faster way than the stairs. "And why's that?" He asks, his voice strained. "See if I bring up Xaviers twin brother Zaden," I state, Laden eyes glass over and I push him off, hitting his leg with the side of my sword, not piercing his skin, but letting him know that I could, I then quickly move my sword up to his throat again, taking my time so he could try and recover. "That will happen." I finish putting my sword back down.

"Will you still tell me how you know about him?" Laden asks. I smirk.

"I will tell you when you win." I tell him, putting up my sword again, but this time, I attack first. I lunge and slice, but he parries and flicks my sword away from his. "How did your parents die?" He asks. I smirk, he was trying to get me off my focus as well, very good.

"They were murdered." I tell him, attacking again.

"By who?" His breaths coming in short pants.

"No one knows." I tel him, sweeping down, about to take out his legs again, but he jumps over it.

"How did you feel when they weren't going to raise you anymore?"

"Well considering I watched them get murdered, fine. I knew they weren't going to raise me anymore. I just hoped they would have won." I tell him, he falters again, and I quickly spin, lightly scratching his side as a reminder, and then I put his head in a headlock, my dagger that I had pulled out of my cloak now pointed to his throat. "Kid, you need to focus." I tell him jokingly.

"You watched your parents-" He stutters out.

"Yes." I tell him, letting go of his head, putting my dagger back in its holster.

"And I don't think it's fair that you have extra weapons." Laden says, turning to look at me with folded arms. I chuckle. "Fair enough." I take off my cloak and put it on a chair that was overlooking the foyer. I reach behind me and take out my throwing knives, my poisonous darts, my Japanese throwing stars, and many other weapons that I kept on me.

"How many knives do you have?" He asks bewildered.

"A lot." I tell him, grabbing my sword again. "Oh, wait." I remember, I reach down to my slip on shoes and take them off, slipping out the tiny knives hidden in a little seam on the sides.

"Now I'm done." I tell him, looking at the pile I made right next to my cloak.

"Shall we?" He asks, putting up his sword. I smirk,

"We shall." I tell him, lunging right off the bat, playing with his reflexes. I start really going after him, making him work extremely hard to catch up to me, at one point I feel someones eyes watching us, and following us as we duel our way down the long hallway, Laden opens a door without looking and still defending himself from me, and we step inside. I see Laden jump over the table in the middle of the room, and I stand on it, having the higher ground. He swipes at my feet, I jump over the sword and back on the floor, lightly scratching his cheek in the process.

"I could have killed you just then." I tell him while we parry and thrust. "Oh yeah? why didn't you stop the fight then?" He asks.

"Because if I stopped the fight, then I wouldn't be able to do this." I say, running onto a piece of furniture and jumping to the next one, now I was behind Laden, I could see him almost in slow motion reacting to me, turning to see me. I jump on top of him and pin him to the floor, my sword at the nape of his neck.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" I hear a voice screech. I turn my head to look at a terrified Amalie, everything in her hand dropped, hitting the floor with a bang.

"It's not what you think!" Me and Laden yell. She turns and runs down the hallway, I get off of Laden and chase after her, my sword being put in my sheath at the same time.

I see Amalie open a portrait and step through it, closing it behind her. I grab the same portrait, but I couldn't open it. I put my ear to the wall, hearing for what turn she took. She look a right. I run down the hallway, down the grand stairs and into the dining hall. I see her step through a wall mirror in the hallway. "Amalie!" I call out. She snaps her head to me.

"You tried to kill my brother!" She screams at me.

"Why in the world would I do that?" I ask

"I don't know, you might be an assassin, sent here to kill us!" She yells at me, starting to run again.

"Then why was I hired by Benjamin!" I yell down at her, she still was running down the dining room and she opens a door that I didn't know was there. I grab the door before she closes it and grab her wrist. "Why would I ever try to kill Laden?" I spit, trying to make sense of why she was running like this, I thought she had liked me.

"I don't know, money? The downfall of the country? If you kill the royal family then you could become Queen?" She spits at me, trying to wrench her hand out of my grip.

"NO, we were just sparing, If I was trying to kill all of you, you all would have been dead by now!"

"Oh that's so comforting." She says sarcastically.

"I thought you trusted me!" I tell her, loosening my grip a little.

"What does this have anything to do with trust?"

"It has everything to do with trust."

"Well I trusted my older brother and look where that got us!" She spits.

"That's not my fault. Your brother was a cruel king and person inside and out. He needed to learn a lesson."

"He has learnt his lesson!" She screams.

"Clearly not, otherwise he would be a human again, why are we even talking about your brother now?" I ask, dropping her wrist.

"Why were you even sparring with Laden in the first place? And in a room?"

"He asked me to spar with him, and us fighting lead to a room. That's it." I tell her.

"How do I know your ultimate goal isn't to kill all of us?"

"Why would it be anyways?" I ask her, my brows furrowing.

"Because there have been people who tried before. They all are too nice, well, to us that is. They're always hurting the staff though."

"So I was too nice that it made me suspicious, and you guys haven't seen me around your staff that much, have you?"

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's fine." I tell her, placing a hand on her cheek. "I'm not like the others. I will never be. And I will actually try to break your brothers curse. I'm not like those other....Maidens-" I spit the word -"That cry when something is frightening, or like the ones who run away from problems. I'm here." I tell her, smiling down into her eyes.

She smiles and embraces me tightly. I wrap my arms around her and rest my chin on her head, whispering, "It's alright, no harm done."