First Life, Alice. (9)

'I promise' her last words to her mother kept echoing in the heavy silence as her feet moved with practiced ease through the corners of the palace she had lived in all her life. 

The walk back to Alice's chamber was shorter than she would have thought since her father, the king, chose to be quiet the whole while. His curiosity is well masked behind his calm and cold demeanor. 

Alice saw her dad as a cold and calculated man even to his family because he shows nothing but strength yet sometimes she often wondered if his cold countenance was just a mask or if it was his true nature. She always dismissed such thoughts and it seldom came up. This was one of the few times. 

"We are here" Albert announced to an absent minded Alice whose thoughts still lingered with her mother who was at death's door and the promise she had to make to her, a promise she was yet to understand.