Bad Blood

Chapter 21: Hope

"Morning." Felicity sat down at her regular seat at the dining table.

"How did you sleep?" Louisa asked, rather quietly. It was clear that Louisa still wasn't over the shocking news they learned yesterday.

Felicity nodded. "Better than I expected."

"Did you hear anything from Prince Vincent?" Alden asked, now also gaining Louisa's attention.

Felicity shook her head. "I think he's too busy at the castle now," She sighed. "They have to rearrange everything yet again."

"I can't believe that idiot's getting what he stole from Cassandra and Amelia," Louisa groaned. "It's so unfair!" She exclaimed, rather loudly.

"I know," Alden took his wife's hand in his. "We'll have to figure something out to get justice for Cassandra and Amelia."

Meanwhile, Carl and Chandler were walking around, serving the drinks. Carl could see that this news was really upsetting the King, Queen and Princess. And he knew why.

Chandler was making sure he'd put on a small smile so the King, Queen and Princess wouldn't be surrounded by sad people.

When they had served everything, Chandler and Carl went back to the kitchen, helping out the kitchen staff get organized. 

Suddenly, a nurse entered the kitchen. She was huffing and puffing.

"Already tired?" Carl chuckled a bit. "And it's only the start of your day."

"The start?" The nurse huffed. "We've been working all night!"

Chandler looked up. "What do you mean?"

The nurse took a cup of coffee and took a sip. She seemed satisfied afterwards. "Well," She looked at Chandler and Carl. "Last night a farmer brought in a girl. The girl had a huge stab wound in her lower abdomen and several other cuts and infections."

"Wow..." Carl shook his head. "Poor girl."

"Do they know what happened?" Chandler asked. He was interested in cases like this, especially if the victim survived. He wondered about the fear and horrors the victim went through.

"Nope," The nurse finished her drink. "She's not awake yet."

Carl and Chandler nodded.

"But you two should be happy, shouldn't you?"

They both raised their eyebrows.

"Now that Amelia's not dead, as we all thought so."

Carl and Chandler's jaws dropped.

The nurse seemed weirded out by the reactions and so left the kitchen.

"Wait," Chandler ran after her. "Are you sure?"

"100%," The nurse smiled. "We wanted to tell the royal family, but we figured that was something for you two." She then left.

Chandler smiled as he looked at Carl. Carl was overwhelmed by his feelings. He just came from feeling very down and heartbroken to feeling overjoyed and relieved.

"Let's go tell them," Chandler smiled at Carl. "Come on."

They hurried back to the dining room, where the royal family had just finished breakfast. Felicity was about to leave but Chandler pushed her back down.

"Chandler, what is this?" Louisa asked, rather loudly.

"I'm sorry, my Queen," He went to stand right next to Carl. "But we have to tell you something."

"Something important," Carl added, to which Chandler nodded at him. Carl took a deep breath before saying. "Last night, a farmer brought in a girl with a stab wound and several other wounds and infections."

"The nurses took care of the girl the whole night, they tried patching her up."

Louisa, Alden and Felicity were all nodding. It was visibly clear that they felt bad for the girl, though Carl was about to change their moods drastically. "That girl was Amelia."

"What?" Felicity got up immediately. "Where is she?"

"At the nurse's room, be careful though, she's asleep." Chandler said to which Felicity and her parents ran away, hurrying to the nurse's room.

When they arrived, they saw that there were two soldiers in front of the room, seemingly guarding the room.

"What are you two doing?" Alden asked.

The soldiers bowed first before saying: "Guarding the princess, Your Grace."

Felicity's heart made a little jump. Amelia, her love, was in there. "Let me through." She said and literally pushed past them. She entered and then saw the nurses surrounding a bed.

She walked closer, slowly, and then the nurses looked up at her. "Princess." They made room for Felicity to sit next to Amelia. 

Felicity smiled as tears filled her eyes. She was so happy to see the love of her life be here. She sat down next to the bed and immediately reached for Amelia's hand. She held it in hers, feeling Amelia's skin to hers. She felt Amelia's temperature wasn't as it was supposed to be, so she asked: "Will she be alright?"

The nurses nodded. "She's been fighting to survive," The nurse said as Louisa and Alden sat down at the other side of the bed. "She's been very lucky."

"She has an angel watching over her." Louisa said as Alden smiled and nodded.

Felicity looked back at Amelia then she noticed the bandages around Amelia's abdomen. She pulled the sheets down a bit to have a better look.

"That's the stab wound," A nurse informed them. Alden and Louisa immediately looked as well. "It was badly infected but we managed to clean it and treat it."

Felicity looked at the nurse. "Where did the farmer find her?"

"In the Middledes Woods, closer to our kingdom than hers. She was crawling on the ground, apparently trying to crawl towards our kingdom."

Felicity sighed as she caressed Amelia's cheek. "Your government and family will pay for what they did to you, I promise." She leaned in to kiss her forehead. She caressed her cheek again before planting yet another soft kiss on Amelia's forehead.

____________________________

"Now that Princess Amelia is gone, we have to point out our new ruler." Lord Ernest said to all the Lords, Prince Piers, Prince Vincent and Princess Lorena. He looked at Prince Piers. "You are the rightful heir to the throne now."

Prince Piers smiled victoriously. He nodded. "I'm honored to get the throne and I promise I'll do my best to be a great ruler." He then got up and walked to the throne, the seat of the ruler. He smiled even bigger as he felt the throne. This was what he always wanted and, finally, he had it.

"We'll tighten your security so nothing will happen to you." Lord Robert said to which the other lords agreed.

"Why didn't you tighten Amelia's security?" Vincent suddenly spoke up. He couldn't keep quiet, he couldn't sit there and watch his dad fake like that. "Her mom was murdered, Amelia should've gotten tightener security but she got none. In fact, none of you even considered her to be our queen when she was the rightful heir!"

"Vincent, sit down," Prince Piers said, he was getting annoyed by his son's outbursts. "What happened to Amelia is upsetting, but we can't change anything about that anymore."

"All of you wanted her gone," He sniffled. "I wonder what Queen Cassandra would've said if she knew how badly you all treated her only child!" He then got up and left the council room.