Darelle

26

Nothing was more interested than imagining to kill the man who made her life hell, and stood before her. Prince Winston, the second. But she had no strength to fight after refusing to eat until they released her. Not that her uncle cared a bit about her welfare.

"Three days inside here hasn't stomp that feral look in your eyes. Plotting my death through what? Don't be silly." he said, as he paced the room alone, knowing he was stronger than her. "I heard you haven't been eating."

"Let me out. I need to know what you have done with my friends." she told him.

He ignored her question with a cocky grin. "Did you think I care whether you cut yourself or starve? The king that wants you . . . is no gentleman. I have heard he has ways of making you as humble as a woman and wife should be."

Her voice weakened as her eyes watered. "Just tell me where they are." she begged.

A knock whipped her head to the door and her uncle's eyes lit up with happiness. "Come in. I was waiting for you." he said.

The twin doors open to reveal . . . Darelle widened as she saw Marisa. "Thank God, he didn't harm—"

Marisa walked up to her uncle and delivered a letter. "Here it is, sir." she said.

Winston collected the letter as he was about to rip it open, he glanced at Darelle. "Shocked, aren't you?" he asked before he pulled the letter from the envelope and let his eyes scan the contents. "Your king would be arriving in two weeks. Enough time to educate you on his preferences." her uncle said.

The princess looked between her lady-in-waiting and her uncle. "What's going on?" she asked, suspecting some foul play that would make her best friend work under her uncle.

Winston laughed at her facial expression. "How did you meet her? Who allowed her into the palace? Who suggested she takes up the dreadful position of being supervising you?" Her uncle threw upon her a brick of questions she couldn't answer.

For the first time in her life, she wondered how did she meet Marisa, but her uncles provided the answer, or the one in finality.

"I did." he motioned to Marisa, who held an emotionless expression. "Her mother and I have some agreement of our own that doesn't concern you. The funny thing is that if you had involved her in the middle of your plans to stop your previous engagement. You would never have achieved it."

"Marisa, why?" Darelle asked, refusing the thought that one of the very people she trusted was her uncle's spy, who watched over her. She wanted Marisa to slap her back into reality, and ask her on earth she was dreaming again with a stern face and a playful tone.

Her pretentious friend said not a single word. "That's it. Then I have things to do and scores to settle." Winston said, as he handed Marisa, the letter. About to left in his tracks, he eyed Darelle. "I'll leave you to your pasts for the sake of family." he winked at her.

The door shut behind her uncle and the princess shifted her eyes to Marisa, who didn't run to her or change a thing. Darelle dropped her gaze to the floor as she spoke. "What did you gain from this?" she said, brokenhearted by the only person who didn't leave her side for years. "Was it money or something I could've helped?"

"It's not like that." Darelle lifted her eyes to her friend, who stood in the middle of the room and moved her eyes to the side. "We all have a choice and I made mine."

The princess opened her mouth. "Marisa, what has he do—"

Her friend looked her eyes, hiding the person she once knew or thought she did. "Forgive me." The last stable person in her life—departed and the door closed, leaving her in the cold silence.