Chapter 28: Just Because

Gisella could only watch helplessly as Malota was dragged away from them.

Protests rose from the rest of the troupe but Gisella could barely hear a thing as she was released from the grip the guard held her in. It was her mother’s arms that wrapped around her and dragged her towards the quarters where they were being kept.

However on their way back, just before Gisella would enter the doors of the troupe’s quarters with her mother, Ryre’s voice called out to her.

When she turned around, she saw him approach her. Her mother’s grip on her arm tightened when he came into view.

She saw Ryre then in the way her mother might see him; dark, looming and royalty.

Part of the same family who had condemned her greatest friend to a life of imprisonment for a crime she, nor any members of the accused, had committed.

Although to Gisella, he was not so. He was neither the blood of his father that ran through him or the golden bands on his wrist that whispered royalty. He was just… Ryre.