The Exiled Gem

Where the Thoughts Go

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
- Normal Vincent Peale

The tournament was over. The party hall was lit up and buzzing. But Alexandra had no desire to join it that night. There was no Mark Fannel to hold her back from silly arguments anymore. Her year-mates were not serving this time. Kane had advised her to stay away from Blaise Quill for at least a year. There were a number of reasons. So, she quietly sat on the grassy lawn near the moat, the place from where the bridge to enter was lowered - looking up at the sky, identifying constellations and waiting for Fannel. But after a very long time, thinking about Liam. He had entered her mind while she'd been sitting in the commentary box - and now, he refused to budge.

Nevertheless, it was something she liked doing. Imagining how other people's life must be. What could the man be doing right now? Would he be at the court ... or the gardens? Maybe not the gardens, because he didn't like it, as he had confessed. Maybe in a meeting? Maybe he was thinking of his past. Because Alexandra was.

Betty had said the previous king ... his father, didn't think much of him. What could be the reason for that? He appeared all virtuous and genuine. Alexandra wouldn't go so far as to say "divine", but he was a likeable person. Good of heart and certainly not the type who would wrangle with his own father. Liam didn't give strangers a thing to complain about. Her own father, King Adelard, had (in secret, of course) been imagining how good it would have been to have a son like that. Somebody who had himself taken away all the responsibilities from the old king's shoulders, even before ascending the throne. And her father had seemed to know the King Ethan, Liam's father, pretty well. And he had always wondered how a person like Ethan had got such a worthy son.

Didn't that somehow point to the fact that Ethan himself hadn't been as admirable? Everything was all a mess of ideas in Alexandra's mind. She couldn't make head or tail out of it.

Women, as you might know, Sir, have a natural talent for digging up information. 

Liam had said that. And Alexandra would prove it. Not dig up information, she would dig up the past. His past, to be more precise about. It was unfair that he knew all about her, right from flaws to strengths - and she? Alexandra didn't know anything of him. Maybe he had had trials. But what? Maybe he had suffered. But why?

Because the strongest spirits are tested the most, Alexandra. Mind enlightened.

That was right, but it was not Alexandra's own philosophy. She had read it somewhere, maybe in one of the books she had picked up from the stalls in the streets of Doveland. There were countless times she'd sneaked out of the Palace. Never leaving any clues behind, no trial. Nobody had any inkling that Princess Alexandra was absent. Somehow, she had always had the knack of spying.

And as far as the line was concerned, Alexandra felt it was the other way. She felt, that perhaps being tested a lot made one's spirit stronger. It was one of Alexandra's strange habits, but when had stamped something as "wrong" in her mind, she wouldn't change as notion fast. And with that habit, she had went ahead to push the book into one of the trashcans lining the streets. It  had certainly not been Alexandra's favorite read.

Alexandra smiled to herself. Where were her thoughts going? From Liam, to his past, to women being information diggers, to a useless quote, to the book of quotes and finally to her own habits. If Betty heard her saying these, she would shake her head to claim that Alexandra had a big brain - and add that she didn't understand any of those intricate philosophies.

Liam would probably just shake his head. 'You really think so?' He would ask, making her indignant. He was only good at confusing people. But of course, Alexandra felt more closer to everyone at Idgard already, than she had to the ones she knew from birth.