For My Sister

Chapter 1

If misfortune ran in my family, I am the one who is most to be pitied. My grandfather came from a broken home but at least his mom loved him and he got to spend time with her while she was still alive. My mother lost her mother before she could even remember her but at least she got to grown up with my grandfather. See the common thread? They had a family they knew and got to spend time with despite the fact that they started out in some difficult circumstances. I'm as good as an orphan. I've never personally known my mother or father and information about them is kept from me. All I know is that we are royals. My grandfather was King Llama the Old of the Snow Islands and my mother is the Lady-Regent Ana, his daughter. Father was their gardener for the longest time and I guess he always knew he was going to marry Mother. He just never had the courage to ask her to marry him for a long time. I guess I'm like my father in that respect. I've been in a certain situation for so long that I am scared to ask for something I'm afraid I won't get. I've lost everything and have nothing. The only thing I've ever had going for me is my twin sister.

This is my story. I am Julian. I am no prince, but I have reason to believe I will be king one day. Queen Gina the Kind has no children of her own and I'm the older of us twins, so I'm probably the one that's going to get the crown. But I've never really known for sure. In fact, I'm starting to wonder even if I am the child of Lady Ana and Lord Rowan and if they even had as great of a relationship as we are told. My sister, Jolene, is sure of it, though. I feel like she should be the older one most of the time. She's the one that comes up with all the fun ideas that get us in trouble. It seems that our parents forbade our foster mother, Valentia, from telling us a whole lot about our story. For the longest time, we only knew who our parents were and that we were hiding among the Snow People because we are being hunted.

That by itself was not a whole lot to go by, but based on our family's history we were able to come up with a theory that when we told it to Valentia, she had no choice but to tell us the whole story. My grandfather had to take back the throne from his brother, Nociv the Banished. But before he had done that, Nociv had apparently raped a servant girl named Athaliah who had had a crush on him for some time- and he got her pregnant. He had threatened to kill the baby because he knew that it would be very powerful having inherited some of his dark magic so Athaliah ran and hid in another country and we never knew which country. Our family didn't know anything about what happened to her until my first birthday. We were celebrating with cake and whatnot when all of a sudden a woman with bright red hair and a big ugly mole apparently appeared out of nowhere.

"You weren't going to invite your dear cousin to this extraordinary gala?" She asked pretending to be really sweet. "What a shame. I even had a gift picked out already."

"Athaliah's daughter!" Grandfather had exclaimed rising from his seat. "I wondered what had happened to you both."

"I'm Bhavani and yes, I am your brother's daughter. Mother died several years after my birth. Even at a young age, I found comfort in practicing dark magic and made the decision to follow in my father's footsteps. Dark magic seems to come naturally to me after all." She spun her finger in a circle to form a small red tornado.

"You know for once I almost think Nociv had the right idea about eliminating you now that I've met you." Grandfather continued starting to draw his sword.

"Don't worry," Bhavani had said snapping her fingers and transforming his sword into a sewing needle. "I'm not here to settle scores with you. At least, not today anyways. No, I'm here to hash things out with my dear cousin."

Bhavani snapped her fingers again and Mother appeared right next to her. Father looked first at that spot that she had been standing and then back at Mother who was wearing the exact same shocked expression on her face as Father. He made a move to go to her side but a 'stop' hand motion from Bhavani froze him in his place.