A crown of flames

Chapter 21

At 7 pm I arrive at the Princess' door.

I cringe at the memory of the last time I was here.

Not that I was conscious for half of it.

Her servants open the door and invite me in. She's sat in her office room writing something down on her navy desk.

She looks up to  me with a smile that i find hard to return.

She takes in the scratches on my neck and the bruises from the past few days.

I find it difficult to believe I'd only been here less than a week , yet I'd gone through so much that i could hardly recognise my self.

I have :

-Been served a rat's head

-Been pushed into a frozen lake

-pushed someone into a frozen lake

-Put rats in a prince's food

-Been drugged twice

-Stabbed someone in the leg

-Almost got thrown of a tower

-framed 4 people for treason

-Discovered a demonic cult

I remember princess Alana's promise to me on the first night.

"You said the rest of my stay at Yorthendon wouldn't be like this"

Her face dropped "They're gone now" she said.

Because i took matters into my own hands.

"Alex will leave you alone "She said "He doesn't have his friends to encourage him"

She was saying it wasn't his fault.

That's when i realised whatever friendship I'd formed with Alana had shattered.

She will always choose him.

I stay silent as I take a seat at her desk "Where have you been?" I ask.

She gulped as she put her writing in a file"I was reaching out to an old friend of Alex , he's one of the only people my brother used to listen to , i was hoping he could help with your situation"

"Conner" I say , that's what he'd been doing with Alex this morning.

She nodded "Me and my brother were so close ,I didn't have to resort to Conner before , he granted my every wish and respected my every opinion until-"

"Me?"I ask

"Not exactly"She shook her head and took a deep breath.

"Lady Willow used to be my best friend but the summer of last year she started sleeping with my brother"

"They're not dating?Just sleeping together?"I gawk

She nodded and gave me a "seriously did you have to go into detail about my brother's sex life" look before she continued.

"But eventually she started seeing him more than me,she was a barraged by it i think , and she went from rarely seeing me to never seeing me"

"He spoke to her but she said our lost friendship had nothing to do with him but it defiantly did"

"I got mad at him for continuing to see her after she stopped being my friend but it was only when I declared my self Dondarian a few months ago that we really grew apart , that's when he stopped dining with us in the royal dining room"

She sighed "our feud over you seemed to be the last straw"

"You're not missing out on much"I say "i wish he was a stranger to me"