The announcement

Just as I nodded off, an alarm on my phone went off, and I jolted awake. "Oof, that almost gave me a heart attack." I looked on my phone and saw that the shield had been activated. Because of the changes we made both to the shield and the app I could see who tried to enter. The queen and Isyx tried to come through. I wondered why, so I gave them access. At the same time I changed their access to permanent, so they could just walk through the next time. I opened the back door and let them enter my home. I was suprised and qurious as to why they were here. "Your majesty, I didn't expect you here today. I hope I didn't cause too much trouble yesterday." The expression of the queen changed from fear to surprise. I guess she didn't expect me to be so friendly. After all, she only had met me once. Add to that all the other biases from the stories she'd heard and I'd turn out to be an awful person. "Well, we did have to calm the people down a bit. They very vividly remember who you are." I looked up a bit surprised because I wouldn't have thought that they would remember me, especially since I changed so much since then. "How can I make it up to you?" I asked. The queen looked at me and pondered for a while. It almost looked like she didn't know what to do. She looked at Isyx and then back at me. Nobody said anything until she spoke again. "Since I've met you, I've been speaking with Isyx about you. I know you are the bastard daughter of my deceased husband. I also know that Isyx values you highly, so I am prepared to welcome you back into our kingdom with an official announcement. If you want to." I wanted to scream at her, thanking her for this opportunity but I didn't. "Isn't that going to be hard? I mean the people clearly don't like me." The queen thought for a second but came up with a very clever solution.

Two weeks later I got an invitation from the queen to come to the castle, cloaked and I still had to use the shoe spell. Isyx had been learning me a couple spells in the past two weeks. He even had a few sets of clothing made for me by their own tailor. Now that his mother knew the truth Isyx was allowed to visit me whenever he wanted so we spent much time together. Isyx kept preparing me for my return although right now I didn't really know if I wanted to stay forever. I did still have my small cottage at the edge of both worlds. The queen very much wanted me to stay in their village to build trust. I put on the clothes Isyx brought me, put the spell on my shoes and I put on the beautiful cloak I had gotten from the queen. She had been walking around in the village cloaked a lot as well before she became queen. She was of royal birth just like the king was, so when she wanted to visit the village she had to go cloaked in order not to get recognised.

The moment I arrived at the palace, I got a second message explaining how I could avoid the guards so I could enter the castle unseen. Once I was inside instructions appeared. A detailed description of my route through the castle led me to the throne room where Isyx and the queen would be. To my surprise Isyx was standing guard outside the room. His face lit up when he saw me. We went inside after Isyx told some guards to stand guard at the door. They couldn't let anyone in until we said so. The queen had changed so much in her attitude towards me, we even had become friends. We had been planning my return for 2 weeks, and now we were ready to proceed with the ceremony we had put in place especially for this. The clothes I was wearing were absolutely not fit for the ceremony, so I had to change into something more fitting, more royal. After all, I was the daughter of their deceased king. All people from the village were invited, and all were actually there. There were so many people in the hall, it was packed. The queen went to her throne and spoke. "I have gathered you all here today because I have an announcement to make." I felt a little sweaty because I was nervous to get out there with my new look and my spelled shoes. "The long lost daughter of my deceased husband has returned. We are going to hold a ceremony to reinstate her into our royal court. She is the half-sister of your prince. Treat her well, she had been through a lot, partly because of me." When the queen was done with her announcement, I stood up and went to the throne. She kissed me on my hand and my forehead, showing the people that she had accepted me as her family. Isyx did the same. After this I had to take an oath, like they had to do when they became of age.

After the ceremony was a big party with ale, other drinks and some fancy food. There was a band playing and there were people dancing and doing tricks. It was so much fun that it got very late before I thought about going home. I had to stay the night. I informed the queen that I would be gone as early as possible the next morning because my cat was still at home and I had to fetch her. She would starve if I left her there alone longer than 3 days.