Chapter 12: The Guardians
There was a tap on my window that brought me back to reality, I had only been standing there for a few minutes after Xander left. I went over to my window, and once there I opened it. There was nothing there. The cool air felt nice. Then someone put a hand over my mouth and spun me around. “ You hhhmm souhm hum buhm!”
The boy chuckled, “Good thing I can’t understand you, because that didn’t sound too nice.” I recognized this person.
I pulled his hand off my mouth. “You’re from the woods.”
He nodded. “Yes, my name is Foster.”
“I’m Boyce” I jumped, then looked behind me, there stood the other two boys that were at the river.
“And I’m Holt.”
“I thought you weren’t from here.” the first boy accused.
I glared at him, “I’m not.” They all gestured to the fancy ball gown. “It’s not like I had a choice in the matter.” I said defensively.
“Of course you had a choice. You chose to marry someone from the family as horrible as this one.” Said Holt.
“What’s so bad about the royal family?” I said, genuinely curious.
“It is all a scam, how nice they treat everyone, how all of their people are so happy, how it was so convenient that your kingdom was starving, and being married to this family would bring them more land, which in turn is more power.” Said Foster.
“How do you know it is all a scam, what if they really are nice people, and the kingdoms is happy, and how is it their fault that my kingdom is failing?”
“You know how big their entire land is right?” said Boyce.
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen the three portraits in this palace?”
“Yeah, I was wondering about those.”
“They were three siblings, Two brothers, and one sister. Above the Portraits are the initials K.O.B., K.O.D.H., and K.O.A.C. They stand for Kingdom of Berbecees, Kingdom of Depore Hontes, and Kingdom of Aqui Canndlip.”
“But wait, Depore Hontes, our kingdom is Kingdom of the Rose.”
“It was renamed that about 40 years ago.” said Boyce.
“Why?”
“Because Bergecees asked them to.” Foster said with a shrug.
“And how would you know that? Your not old enough to have lived back then.”
“You’re wrong.” said Boyce
“We have lived back then.” Holt said.
“And we will be here for years to come.” Foster said. And seeing the confused look on my face, Foster continued, “We are called the Guardians.”
“We’ve been around a while, and the guardians were there when they asked your kingdom to change their name.”
“We believe that they were trying to hide something, but we aren’t supposed to be inside the castle to find out, if we were to get caught, well we would be imprisoned.” Holt explained.
“But with you here, we were hoping that you could help us.” Boyce stated.
I shook my head, “What do you mean you were there 40 years ago?” and then I continued “What do you want me to do?”
“We want you to find out as much as you can about these three kingdoms, we figure there wouldn’t be much in the public part of the library, but you could ask your prince if he could take you to the private one.” Foster said.
I thought about it, “Well there is no harm in just learning more about it right?”
“No harm at all.” Holt said.
“Tomorrow, I’ll ask him to take me to the library. Oh and you didn’t answer my question.”
Foster smiled, and they all jumped out the window. I make a little shriek sound because this was not the first floor. But when I ran to the window and looked out, the were all running into the woods.
******
I woke up not able to think of anything. So much went on yesterday. These “Guardians” as they called themselves seem pretty set that The Royal Family is bad, but I can’t see it. I just can’t see someone like Xander being part of something like that. There was a knock on my door. “Come in.” I called
It was a maid. “Are you ready to get ready?” she asked in a polite tone.
“Sure,” I said hoping out of bed.
“Okay, which dress do you want to wear today?” I glanced at my now full closet, the ruby red dress the newest edition.
“The plain green and lavender one.” After all I was only going to go to the library today.
She picked it out of my over-stuffed closet, “tsk tsk tsk, we’ll need someone to build you a new closet.” I made no remark. “Would you like help?” she asked me.
“No, thank you, I can get dressed by myself.” I answered politely.
She left and I got dressed, I put my long hair into a simple side braid. There was a knock at my door, again. This time I went and opened it up. It was Xander. “Hello.” I said sort of shyly.
“Hi.” He said with equal shyness. “I was wondering if you wanted to go down to breakfast with me.”
I smiled, “Yeah.” The library could wait I thought to myself.
“Alright then, lets go.” I walked out of the room, “I like you dress.” he said with a smirk.
I rolled my eyes. When we arrived at the breakfast buffet, I was surprised, there was hardly anyone there. “Where is everyone?”
“They are probably still sleeping, many people get drunk at balls.”
I chose a fruit salad this morning. “After we’re done here, can we go to the private library?”
“Sure, though I don’t know why you would want to go there, all that is there is boring old history books.”
“I like history.” I said confidently.
“Alright, as soon as we finish, we’ll go to the library.” he paused, “And read about history.” He wrinkled his nose at the last sentence.
