Marrying The King Was Never Her Dream | Book 2

Prologue

She can faintly hear Halif telling her mother that no one knows the situation her father, brothers and all those in attendance of the meeting. She hears him say that the guards of Runaria have surrounded all areas of the meeting and their guards are trying to go pass them and rescue their leaders.

"Wait for me," her mother calls out and she halts. "My fellow people, fear not, for it is not war. I shall find the King myself and all of this shall hopefully be resolved as easily as it started. Our army will crush the enemy and we will again emerge victorious," she can hear the lie in her mother's voice who desperately wanted to believe what she had just said. It is the same voice she uses when she lies about the location of the king.    

The people cheer as she finishes her small speech of reassurance.

"What are your orders, your highness?" he asks, bowing slightly.    

"Whatever do you mean, Halif?" she asks, desperately wanting to find her husband and son.    

He explains, "Again, forgive me for saying, but with the King in unknown whereabouts, the fate of the Kingdom lies in your hand. The army is awaiting your command. What are they to do?"    

Just the way she has been preparing for this her whole life, she stands up and stands tall, letting her gaze sweep across the room before taking a deep sigh. "Tell them to do whatever they can to make sure that they get the King out of that meeting room whilst the rest of them go out and surround the kingdom. I want every inch of this kingdom to be protected by as many guards as possible, and find out how the hell they even got to the palace in the first place," she says to Halif and turns to look at the woman that had been with her throughout her journey in the palace. "Kande, make sure everyone is safe while I'm gone; I'm going to go look for the King myself."     

She points at two guards, gesturing for them to follow her and makes her way to where her daughter is standing. Looking at her with determination, she clasps her hand and together they make their way out of the harem. Once out of the comfort of the harem, the girl and her mother start sprinting, while her mother takes some paths that weren't likely followed by people.    

They pass corridor upon corridor until they reach the King's chambers — the largest in the palace — and her mother instead of taking the way in, she turns another corner, but the girl is stuck in place.

The guards had red, blazing uniforms and she couldn't for the life of her take her eyes away from. There were so many of them; and they were there to hurt her father, the one person she'll do anything for.   

"Come along, my dear," her mother says in hushed tones, grabbing her.  She couldn't stop looking at them till they turned the corridor, and she knew for a fact that she will never get the color of the blazing red and interwoven green fire out of her mind.    

Passing her father's eating chambers, where she had her dinner just hours before with her mother and the two most important male figures in her life, her mother feels up a wall (the same wall she had been facing, the one with all the paintings) and removes one of the paintings. It leads to a hole in the wall which her mother tells her to go into. She is quick to grab a candle and lit the passage for her little girl.    

The hole in the wall turns out to be a labyrinth with too many twists and turns to make her dizzy if she tries to recollect. Her mother finally stops and looks down at her daughter. "This must be it," she says. "If something happens to me or your father, or both, I want you to run. Run as fast as you can and don't stop. I want you to go and find either Halif or Kande, one of them would lead you to safety."    

"But, Mama, why?" the girl asks, tears starting to brim in her innocent eyes. Whatever could happen to her Mama and Baba.    

"Just promise me!" her mother insists.