“Well, well sister. I guess all your night-time conversations about guard schedules have turned into a blossoming romance.”

  “Plinius go away,” my eyes were brimming with tears.

  “Go away,” Alvar said, with a strong accent in the High Tongue.

  Plinius had practically sprinted up the stairs to catch us on our way down from the turret.

  “Oh and isn’t he the most darling thing. He can almost speak,” Plinius chuckled. “Sure I’ll go away. I can go and talk to my brother about what I just saw.”

  I paused.

  “Actually why don’t you? What do you want Plinius?”

  “I want you, dear sister.”

  Darkness was falling. The st thing I could see before the tower went completely dark was a devilish glint in his dark eyes.

  “You could have any woman in this kingdom, what do you want me for anyway?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you that I’m in love with you.”

  In the darkness, Plinius’s voice sounded even more smarmy.

  “No,” I didn’t think he could love anyone.

  “Well you’re right. I don’t love you. I don’t even really want you. But I want something only you can give me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When I was a little boy, I was always so jealous of my brother, the heir. I wanted to be king, to rule. Now soon the mourning bells will ring for the death of my dear father, and my brother will be king.”

  “I’m not helping you kill Virtus!” I blurted out.

  Plinius chuckled.

  “I may not be in love with you, but I do like that you’re feisty. Let me finish. I won’t hurt my brother, anyway I don’t want to be king any more. It’s too much work and anyway I’m more forward-thinking now. I don’t care if I am king any more, but I would like my son to be king one day.”

  Alvar grabbed me as he spoke.

  “That’s disgusting!” he yelled at Plinius.

  I didn’t understand what he meant. Plinius didn’t have a son.

  “Hush,” Plinius told me. “Yes, little sister your guard has figured out what I mean before I even say it. I don’t have a son… yet. I want you to bear my son and tell everyone he’s Virtus’s child. That way the future king of Medora will actually be my son.”

  “What, you want me to bed you… until I’m pregnant?” I was repulsed.

  “You make it sound like such a chore!” Plinius chortled. “And of course longer if you bear a girl.”

  I shuddered. Somehow that was an even nastier motive. But what choice did I have? If Plinius would tell on us, we might have our heads chopped off, like Reena. And anyway, I wouldn’t have his child. I would take the potion from Adora every day.

  Then, Alvar and I would devise a pn where it would seem like I died accidentally, so that I could escape Medora without implicating my home country. Then Plinius would think me dead just like everyone else and they would find another wife for Virtus from one of our allied countries. Maybe from Edelin. It hurt to think of it, but now there really was no other choice.

  “Should I kill him, Your Highness?” Alvar whispered in Haverish.

  “No, don’t bother, we’ll be gone soon enough anyway,” I whispered back.

  “Oh don’t speak in your little dog nguage, just tell me. Yes or no?”

  “Yes,” I swallowed the bile that was rising in my throat.

  “Now obviously for both our sakes, we can’t have anyone finding out. I’ll find a time and pce for us to meet, sweet thing. And remember, if you don’t come when I call you, then I’ll tell everyone about your little pymate. You’ve both got such beautiful heads, I’m sure they would look great above the castle gates.”

  ***

  “Right, so now all I have to do is get a drop of the king’s blood today, even though no-one will let me see him, pn an escape with Alvar where everyone will believe that I have died, and in the meantime I’ll have to drop everything to sleep with that rat Plinius every time he asks.”

  I was pacing in circles in my room, whispering to myself. It was two days after that fateful night. The second day I had focused all day on trying to find a pn to get the king’s blood. I couldn’t think of anything. The king’s bedchamber was filled with medics all the time. If we did not get the king’s blood before early the next morning, then he would get better, and we wouldn't be able to try the same hex on him again.

  Alvar was out. He was speaking to Adora about our troubles. He had promised to ask her if there was a way she could help us get the blood and if she knew any magic that would help with making me appear dead. He also needed to get more of the liquid that prevents pregnancy.

  This was all getting to be too much.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” I called.

  I thought it must be Virtus or one of my dies-in-waiting.

  “Your Highness, I have a note for you.”

  It was that greasy cockroach Titius, with the scar. He handed me a folded piece of paper and winked. I wanted to smack him, but blessedly he was out of my room quickly enough. I unfolded the note.

  “Meet me in the gardener’s house at midnight tonight, or I will tell everyone your little secret. -Love P”

  He really did have timing. Alvar was supposed to be my guard that night. He had switched his shifts with Sir Sigisbert yet again. I think my guards were starting to suspect something, but I hoped that they were loyal enough to me and too afraid of another war to say anything.

  I waited in my room, pacing like a lion in a cage until Alvar was back for his evening shift. I took dinner in my room, saying that I was ill, that I might have caught something from the king.

  He knocked gently on my door when the other guard had left. I opened it and asked him through the half open door.

  “How did it go with Adora?”

  “She sent someone to help us.”

  “Who?”

  “Just look.”

  I opened the door fully and looked into the hallway. It was just Alvar and me there. Then one of the shadows moved. It was that mousy girl, whose name I had even forgotten, Adora’s assistant.

  “Your Highness,” she bowed.

  She was wearing a pin brown dress, that made her bnd features blend even more effortlessly with the castle walls. She was a very unobtrusive girl by nature, but I suspected that on top of that Adora had taught her some of her tricks.

  “Very impressive,” I told her.

  “We’ve made a pn, that we think will let us get the final ingredient,” Alvar smiled.

  “That’s great,” I said. “But Alvar there’s something I need to show you first.”

  I showed him that horrible note and told him about Titius’s visit. Alvar frowned. Then he was weirdly… calm.

  “Let’s worry about that ter, and execute the pn now.”

  He expined the pn to me, and with the help of the girl, who he reminded me was called Izzy, we set it into motion.

  ***

  I walked slowly towards the kings room, it was pced between my room and Virtus’s, on the same floor as Virtus’s. Mine was a floor lower, and usually I took the other stairs just so that I wouldn't have to pass the king’s room. Now I was passing straight in front of it, wearing my night-gown and robe as I always did when I went to my husband at night.

  I keeled over.

  “Oh no, oh no it hurts!” I yelled as loud as I could.

  I bit into a pill that Adora had prepared. Blood gushed out of my mouth. The guards in front of the king’s door came running to me. I made myself fall to the floor.

  “I think I’m dying! Help! Get the medics, help!”

  One of the guards rushed in to the king’s room, and called to the people inside. The three acolytes of the Mother of Medicine that had been attending him came out to tend to me.

  They rushed to my side. Hovering over me in their green mantles.

  “Your Highness, what’s happening to you?” a young woman asked.

  “Get a pillow from the king’s bedchamber,” an older woman commanded.

  The young woman rushed in to the bedchamber to get a pillow. On the wall I saw the outline of Izzy, that was the servant girl’s name. She had reminded us when we were making the pn. The young priestess did not see her at all. I decided not to look at her, so that I wouldn't draw attention to her, and as soon as I looked away I didn’t notice her either.

  The priestess came out with a big fluffy pillow and id it under my head. I tried to look dazed.

  From the bedchamber I could hear the king saying something incomprehensible:

  “There are fishes, fishes everywhere get them away!”

  The third medic, an old priest, completely bald, with the leaf of the Mother of Medicine tattooed on his scalp spoke to me:

  “Can you hear us, Your Highness?”

  The guards were sort of awkwardly milling about, going back to their positions.

  I screamed as loudly as I could.

  “The pain, the pain!!!”

  The guards turned their eyes towards me, and took a few steps in my direction.

  A slight brown shadow slipped into the king’s room.

  Then he yelled. I thought the guards would rush to him, but in stead only one of them walked slowly into the room. The medics stayed bowed over me.

  He must have been yelling a lot since he lost his mind.

  “Can I help you, Your Majesty?” I heard the guard saying from the bedchamber.

  “There’s a girl stealing my blood! She’s stealing it!”

  The brown shadow slipped out again, without being noticed even by the guard that went to check on the king.

  “There’s no girl in here Your Majesty,” the guard said in an almost condescending tone. “Just me.”

  I blinked a few times. Now I could go back to my room.

  “Oh my,” I said in a slow, dazed tone. “Oh, I don’t know what came over me.”

  The medics looked confused.

  “Your Highness?” the old woman said.

  “Oh, that was a terrible fit,” I muttered. “But suddenly I feel better.”

  “You just… feel better?” the man with the leaf tattoo asked.

  “Yes, I think I’ll go back to my room.”

  I tried to sound as nonchant as possible.

  “We should have someone watch over you tonight,” the old woman said.

  Ah! Of course they would want that. I should have known. I looked very ill, and they would need to monitor my health. But I couldn't have that since I was supposed to go see Prince Plinius at midnight.

  Maybe he would really believe I was sick and give me a pass? Better not risk it.

  The young female medic and one of the king’s guards followed me back to my room. Alvar was not there.

  Where was he? He was supposed to be still at my door. Perhaps something had gone wrong? Maybe he needed to help Izzy with something.

  I begged the young medic not to stay, and just send one of my usual guards. She stayed with me for about an hour, where I talked to her, and showed her that I was really fine.

  “What a strange case, Your Highness,” she muttered, her head tilted. “I guess you can sleep it off tonight and we will examine you again in the morning.”

  Finally the guard went to fetch one of my guards from Havermark. He came back with young Sir Sigisbert to guard me through the night. He was groggy, and a little bit tipsy. After all it had been his night off.

  Finally when Sir Sigisbert was standing at my door, the young medic and the king’s guard left.

  “Do not hesitate to have your guard call us,” she told me as she walked back to the king’s room.

  “Of course. Thank you, Priestess,” I said softly.

  It was nearing midnight when I tried to slip out of the room. As I opened the door Sir Sigisbert woke up from a light slumber where he had been sitting.

  “Your Highness, where are you going?”

  I handed him five Haverish coins of pure gold.

  “Promise me you will never tell anyone that I left this night.”

  He just nodded.

  “Sir Sigisbert, please promise me.”

  “I promise I won’t tell anyone, Your Highness,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  I slipped my cloak over my night-gown, and holding just a single candle I ventured out into the castle.

  I slipped through the corridors of the cold castle. I wanted this night to be over more than anything in the world. I hoped no-one noticed me, but I didn’t even dare look around to see if anyone saw me. In stead, I just looked straight ahead.

  I slipped out of the back door that led to the garden that you had to go through to get to the gardener’s shed. Usually there would be guards there, but they were not to be found. Plinius had pnned it all out.

  The grass in the garden was dewy, almost frozen but not quite. In summer there would be blooming flowers and full green bushes everywhere, now in the winter everything was dead and quiet. I walked the small path, aware that my candle might draw the attention of anyone that had a window facing the garden. I could only hope that those that saw it thought I was just a scullery maid going to see the gardener.

  The gravel path cracked under my feet. From outside the castle walls I could hear the hustle and bustle of the city as if coming from another world, but inside the castle wall all was silent. The sky was cloudless, the stars shone brightly down on me, like thousands of eyes staring, judging. I wanted to run under cover and hide from their gaze, but the trees were naked in winter and provided no shelter.

  I finally made it to the shed, pced in a back corner of the garden. I knocked softly on the door. It creaked open. It had not been fully closed. I stepped inside.

  There were no lights on inside the shed. Maybe Plinius wasn’t there. Maybe he had gotten distracted and gone to do something else. I would have been so relieved if that had been the case.

  “Hello?” I said, but got no reply.

  I walked around, with only the fme from my candle as guidance. The shed was only two rooms. First was the main room, which included both a kitchen and living room, with a bench that doubled for eating and for sleeping. It was silent and empty. I wondered where the gardener slept that night, if Plinius had taken use of his shed.

  I decided I would check the bedroom as well, and if Plinius wasn’t there I could breathe a sigh of relief and go back to my room and sleep.

  The door to the bedroom was closed. I opened it gently. There was something on the bed, it looked like a pile of meat and offal. The smell of blood hit my nose. It was so fresh it wasn’t even unpleasant.

  Then I saw the vishly dressed human legs coming down from the “meat”.

  ***

  Author's note: Wow this chapter took forever to write! Hope it wasn't too busy. I really hope you guys enjoyed it. If you're enjoying the story I would love a like, comment or review, but of course just having you guys reading it is reward enough. I'm really excited about where the story goes from here, so stay tuned!