The Strings in the Shadows

Chapter One- In Which Jack and Kaira get rudely awoken

"Just tell her a criminal 'escaped' the dungeon and found his way into your room. You killed him and dumped his body out your window into the pond." Weirdly enough, this had actually happened before. Kaira and Luke's father, Lord Craion Wellington, often gave the foulest prisoners who faced the hangman's noose a choice: they could die by hanging, or they could try to win their freedom by killing Kaira, Luke, their older sister, Starlina, or their mother, Hannaly. Their father thought it would liven up palace life a little. Luke, the only son of Craion, had certainly gotten his father's sense of humor.

"Oh, wait, there was a reason I came in here, sister dearest," Luke said, halfway through her bed chamber doorway. Kaira paused and looked at him questionably. "Ed wants to talk to you."

"And you couldn't wait to tell me that why?" asked Kaira curiously.

" He said it was urgent. He told me this morning. He's been... distracted as of late. I think it's something serious. He asked for you."

Well, I'd better hurry up and see what this is all about, Kaira thought as her brother slipped quietly out of her rooms. After all, when the Crown Prince summons his cousin at four thirty in the morning, it must be important.

Kaira wasted no time. She jerked the doors of one of her wardrobes open and immediantly cast her eyes about for something easily put on. Since the Queen degreed corsets to no longer be required of any lady at the start of Her Majesty's reign, Kaira had opted out of wearing such a painful and tedious garment, as had many in her generation, and instead bound her chest with comfortable chest cloths. This not only denied Kaira the pain of corsets, but also insured that, should she ever be in a hurry, as she was now, she could dress herself, by herself.

After throwing on a pair of leggings and a tunic, Kaira practically ripped her black hair from her head as she pulled the mass of slightly curled hair into a horsetail.

"That's no way to see a Prince," her mother and Hyda's voices echoed in her mind, but she paid them no heed. Ed has summoned her at 4: 30 in the morning, so he was going to get a messily dressed, prone to be rude after-such-an-awakening cousin.

Kaira slipped two more knives in her boots as she exited her chambers; she was now carrying seven. No Shadow worth her salt, Kaira remembered from her father's lessons, could ever be found without three weapons on her, and that wasn't supposed to count the visable ones. For Shadows are the ultimate, limited few who had survived the brutal training and had taken three oaths upon becoming the secretive bodyguards: to protect and advise the royal family, particularly their Royal Primary (referred to as 'Prime' to shorten conversation), which is decided at the Prime and Shadow's birth, if two such individuals are born within five years of each other; to carry out any order given by that Prime; and to never allow actions to take place that would threaten the Rightful Passing of the Crown.

Kaira arrived at Prince Edward's door soundlessly after a steady run to her and her brother's Royal Primary suite. She stood there for a full ten seconds before deciding to knock. The door slid open immediantly, and Kaira found herself looking at the next in line for the throne.

She hadn't seen her cousin in just a few days, but in that short time she could see heavy bags had developed under his normally sparkling green eyes, so much like her own, which were now filled with utter despair. His handsome black curls drooped, unbrushed, and while he normally stood a good half of a foot taller than her own 5'6", he seemed to be stooped, so much so he appeared to be falling over. His clothes were rumpled, like he'd been wearing them for days, and his skin was so ghostly pale that for a fleeting, terrified moment Kaira thought her cousin was dead.