Last Hope [VERSION I]

|02|

||Thana||

I raised my eyelids, and the dark night sky welcomed me.

I didn't remember what time it was when I left the castle, but I know it hadn't been to long. I was still by the castle walls. The evidence of my escape hung from my 3rd story bedroom window, somehow still all in one piece. With great effort, I jumped up and yanked the end of it. It fell down to the ground like a feather. I rolled it up into a ball and hit it in the bush, hoping no one would find it for a long time.

I slowly made my way to the castle gates. Locked, of course. What a fool I had been for thinking this would be easier. If I could climb over the gates, then I would be free at last.

Well, free for a few days, until the soldiers rummage through the village looking for me. Setting things on fire, shooting people, going crazy... what an idiot I was. I couldn't do that to my own kingdom. It wasn't worth it. I had to make my way back before anyone notices I'm gone.

But I realize they have as I hear screaming and shouting coming from the castle.

Panicked, I hurried towards the gates. I need to escape, and quick. I begin to climb up the gate, loosing my footing every one in a while. My arms ached and the yelling coming from the inside of the castle sent chills up my spine. I clearly wasn't thinking straight as I climbed all the way to the top of the gate, closed my eyes, jumped, and landed on the dirt pavement on my back.

I had no time to waste as I got up and limped desperately as fast as possible away from my castle, the place I've spent 19 years of my life. I don't know the outside to well, I don't know my own kingdom. Maybe I now would.

I continued running into the dark abyss. In three days time I would come back here so my kingdom doesn't have to suffer the consequences due to my actions. But for now, I was free. In pain, but free.

||Owen||

Her eyes were as black as midnight and her lips were red like an apple. Her hair was black and pin straight and without a doubt beautiful, but despite the fact she looked nothing but perfect, she wasn't fit for the throne. And taking that into consideration, she wasn't much value to me.

I rest my head on the pillow and close my eyes, readying myself for sleep. My fiancé was Thana, second daughter of Revana and heir to the throne.

'Luckiest man alive' they called me. Oh, how they were wrong. If they had known what a girl she really was, they'd let her whore of a sister take her place on the throne in a heart beat.

In short, Thana was a girl who couldn't seem to do anything right.

She always bickers at me. Not that I blame her. My intentions are to make her suffer. Every time I look into those dark lonely eyes of hers I can only see the pain I've caused, every time I put her down or physically hurt her. And I kind of like it. Every time I argue she argues back, every time I make a rude remark she says one back. I suppose that's the kind of woman I made her become. A quiet one who knows what to say when to say it.

But I wouldn't leave Tera if I had to do this all over again. This position promised me power, something that wasn't all that available in the falling kingdom of Aldema, where my father and mother ruled with not so quite an iron fist. I was sent here to hit it off with the empress and her daughters of Tera, and be arranged to marry one of them.