I didn't leave the party until much later that night. It was in the early hours that I was finally paraded back to my room by none other than Rucio, my dance partner. He had danced with me ever since he had interrupted Prince Lawrence and had taken me up on my challenge. He had been a better dancer than Prince Lawrence but he hadn't had much passion in it like the prince had. He had escorted me up to my room, I was dead tired and it seemed that I wasn't the only one. Rucio appeared to be about to fall on his face but when we reached my room his demeanor changed. Instead of the light and happy man I had danced with, he had become dark and sullen.
"I have a message from my mistress," He informed me when we got in the room and I started turning to him.
"Your mistress?" I questioned and he nodded.
"Princess Dalia, I am her...personal slave," He replied and I frowned. Something was going on here that I didn't want to know about but it appeared that I was stuck in the middle anyway.
"And her message is?" I asked and he looked at me, a dark shadow moving onto his face.
"My mistress requests your presence in her rooms in the lower floors. She promises not to hurt your prince if you agree to meet her. She also promises not to interfere with anyone else as long as you see her. What is your reply?" he requested and I stared at him. So she was making her move already. What would she do to hurt my prince?
"Do I have to answer now?" I asked and he shook his head.
"The latest you can answer is a week from now. My princess will show you what she is capable of during that time. I'll come back when the week is up," he said and I nodded. He started to leave the room but turned back to me with a pained look on his face.
"I suggest you take the deal. She'll get you later on and she'll use you then. There isn't any way of escaping her," he whispered and practically ran out the room. I was shocked at the amount of fear the giant man had in him but I wasn't about to give into the princess's demands. I wasn't her slave so I wasn't loyal to her in any way. Deciding that not going would be my course of action, I fell onto my small cot and fell asleep.
The next week was a nightmare with small pauses in between. The morning after Rucio delivered his message, I woke up to the smell of something rotting. Yawning, I got up and searched for the source of the smell. In the process, I got to know my room really well. It was on the middle floors with the other servants and contained very few things. A small chest with some extra clothes my prince had bought for me and a desk with a small chair in case I needed to write anything. I was a lucky one to know how to write considering that most of the servants didn't know how to spell their names. The other objects included a cot with sheets, blankets, and a pillow all paid for by my prince, along with a chamber pot in case of an emergency. I found the scent's owner under my bed next to the noted chamber pot. It was a large cat with a kitten next to it. I picked up the large cat first and went to go bury her outside. It was tiresome work but it needed to be done and I said a small prayer for its safe passage to the afterlife. When I got back to the room, I picked up the kitten and was about to bring it outside when it mewed. Shocked, I quickly made a bed for it out of my blankets and sent my tattoos into its body to look and see if anything was wrong. The poor animal had been beaten nearly to death and the only reason why it was still alive was because of its dead mother. Anger flashed through system as hot and unbearable as the summer itself. Quickly fixing the small cat, I told it to wait there for me to get it some food. When I asked the cook for some milk, she just handed me a pail and told me to go get some from the cows in the barn. After I returned, I put some in a small cup and thanked the cook so profusely that she blushed and grinned and waved me away after handing me a loaf of bread. I put the milk in front of the newborn and she drank from it hungry. She was exhausted from the healing though and fell asleep straight after she finished and I told her to stay in my room. I had left enough milk in that room to get her through the day.
It was still early morning when I went to find my prince, who was still sleeping. I slipped in without knocking on his door and smelled something even more foul in here than anywhere else. Searching for it was much harder than searching for the first source because of the amount of furniture in the room. I found the source of this smell in the water bowl meant for the occupant of the room to freshen up. I reached in to touch it and my finger burned after I touched it. Whoever brought it here meant to burn my prince's hands.
The next attack was during breakfast and I was eating next to my prince when he got a piece of poisoned meat. I switched the two with the swiftness of a Selenium and luckily nobody noticed. Except the princess, her eyes watched as Aiden ate his food and when he didn't get sick, she turned her gaze on me. The hunger that I had seen earlier was back and she watched with me that unsettling gaze and I merely blinked. A small smile played on her face and I looked away. It was a horrible moment when I remembered the way the slavers had looked at me the entire time I was on that ship and then when I disobeyed...I could only shake the thoughts of my mind and I looked back at Princess Dalia with an emotionless stare. She wouldn't break me. That's when she smiled fully and asked to leave the table.
The final attack was preceded by a string of poisonings, sporadic fires, and a couple of assassins. Aiden barely even noticed because I was able to get them far away from him before he did. I didn't need him getting angry because of the hostility that he didn't know was going on. The attack started when my prince was in bed and when I looked up to see who it was I choked. The person was the same kitchen boy who had danced with Linessa the night before. He went after me again and I parried the attack with so little force that it nearly passed past my knives. Pushing past my shock, I disarmed him and he landed on the floor with a thud. My knife was at his throat and I stared at him for a long moment.
"Why are you trying to hurt my prince?" I asked calmly and he glared at me.
"Princess Dalia will kill all of you disgusting Argons and then we'll have peace," he hissed and spat in my face. I wiped it off with the handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffed it back in.
"Were you the one who tried to poison him?" I questioned and his glare turned into a glower.
"Yes and I'm proud of what I've done. The princess promised to make me a knight in her kingdom if I killed the prince," he grinned and I stared at him. He wasn't the one who poisoned the food. He wasn't able to do that kind of thing more than once a lifetime. He didn't seem like the type of person to do that even if he was disillusioned. I let him go with a warning but the visits didn't stop until the week finally ended.
"What is your answer?" Rucio asked at the end of the week. I looked at him tiredly and said, "I'll come tomorrow night. Just stop trying to kill my prince."
Author's note: Thanks for your support! Don't forget to vote and comment!
