Puppet to the Crown

When I woke up the next morning, I was shocked to smell the thick stench of breakfast wafting through the house. For whatever reason, it had never occurred to me that Axel might actually food. In fact it had never occurred to me that Axel could possibly be relatively normal. What did I really know about him anyway?

One. He saved my life twice I suspect.

Two. He is a wanted criminal, and I am not entirely sure for what.

Three. He is already in love with a girl named Sharada.

Dragging myself up off the bed, I was completely relieved to realize that my headache had diminished since yesterday. Where was Hannah? Slowly I trudged out the doors and let my nose lead the way. The hallways were dimly lit, not that it bothered me much. We live in a world of darkness, it would be odd to say the dark bothers us.

Over the years it had never really bothered me that I hadn’t seen the sun, but now as I wandered the dark halls, I craved to see the brother of the moon. My mind was reeling with thoughts when I entered the kitchen only to see Axel, Sharada, and Hannah all sitting clustered around the breakfast table indulging themselves in food.

“You’re up at last,” Axel commented upon seeing my entrance, “I’ll take you home in a hour, and you best give your master that letter.”

My lips ever so nearly turned back in a growl. It was really starting to piss me off that he kept referring to me as the servant girl that was sent to do her master’s bidding. He didn’t know anything. “Do you really think I’m going to leave without Nathan?” I growled at him before plopping down in the chair next to Hannah.

Sharada sent me a vicious glare obviously disliking the way I wad addressing her dearest boyfriend. “No I did not expect you to go willingly without him, so I posted a guard by the inn. Early this morning at around four, Nathan stumbled out of the inn and wandered back to the castle passageway that you ever so conveniently never mentioned,” Axel told emotionless.

“How do I know I can trust you?” I asked him narrowing my eyes the man who sat quietly eating his breakfast as if nothing had occurred.

“He’s telling the truth,” Hannah told me reassuringly. It was a different matter when Hannah said it. If Hannah said it, you can believe it. Sighing I reached out a grabbed a slice of toast before shoving it in my mouth. Suddenly the lack of food had me completely starved.

“What does the letter say?” I asked him hoping that over the past few weeks he would deem me trustworthy enough to share.

Axel evidently had not made that conclusion with me considering he just continued to glare strait through me. Were there seriously only jerks in my life? Tyrone was practically stalking me in a desperate attempt to make me like him again, and Axel was a complete jerk all the time.

“We should go,” I concluded standing up and grasping a hand around Hannah’s wrist. She sent me a confused look, which I in return kept a blank face. We received no reply from the pair as we ambled out of the kitchen and headed for the front door. They were such strange people. Hannah and I walked in silence until we exited out the front door in the familiar alleyway.

“Why did we leave?” she asked out on the street as we walked side by side towards the passage that led us back to our home.

It took me a few moments to come up with a decent response. It wouldn’t come across well if I said, ‘Because Axel doesn’t trust me’, so instead I told her, “Because I need to know what the letter says, and I couldn’t exactly pull it out and read it then and there. Now lets get back a.s.a.p.”

Twenty minutes later Hannah and I were sprawled across my bed staring at the folded up letter that said ‘Emily’ across the front in intricate, twisted letters. “Go on open it,” Hannah whispered in my ear. Something told me that this letter was going to be nothing but trouble.

“What could he possibly want with me?” I asked her.

We’d spent the entire walk back to the castle debating this very thing. Somehow my father had gone the entire night without the slightest idea that two of his children were out of the castle. How the crap does he manage that? “You’ll only know if you open it,” she told me biting her pouty lip as she stared at the paper. Her eyes were full of wonder and probably reflected mine at the current moment.

Slowly I unfolded the paper until I came face to face with a perfect scrawled letter personally addressed to Princess Emily. I read it out loud for Hannah to hear…

Princess Emily,
It has come to my attention that the lower district has peaked your interest. Who do you think you are sending a mere maid out to investigate? Why would you have someone else view what you should be seeing for yourself? If you really want to help your people and witness their pain, then come down from that castle yourself.
If you meet at midnight tonight, the I will show you things that you have never witnessed in your life. I can show you this world and the other. I can show you what they have been keeping from you your entire life. You merely have to step down from your high horse and see it all for yourself.
-Axel

My eyes were open wide with shock. He wanted to meet me. How they hell was I going to pull this off? He had already met me, how could he meet me again?

“Oh, crap…” Hannah whispered beside me as the same thoughts ran rampant through her mind.