Chapter 13

When I wake up, it's mid afternoon. I head into the dining hall to find something to eat. When I get there, the cook makes me a sandwich. I gobble it down and decide to find the other knights.

I find them in the archery range, practicing there shooting. I approach an exhausted prince.

"Did you even sleep this morning?"

The prince grins sheepishly at me and responds, "I got about an hour."

I just shake my head. "So what do you want me to do?"

He waves at the targets and says, "Go ahead."

I feel like I'm at home when I stand in front of a target, bow and arrow ready. I can feel my surroundings as I take a deep breath and release. The arrow flies through the air, straight into the center of the target. I do this again and again until I run out of arrows.

When I look away from the target, I see the prince and a few others watching me. Ignoring them, I grab more arrows and continue.

This goes on for a few hours. Finally, the prince stops us and we head back to the castle. I'm in the back of the group with the prince.

"You should get some sleep tonight," I say softly.

"I can't," the prince responds with a shake of his head.

"Why not?"

"I have to go after those men. My mother would never allow me so I have to do it behind her back. I really need that antidote."

"Then I'm coming with you?"

The prince stops. "You actually agree with what I'm doing?"

"I believe in what is right. You shouldn't go alone, so I'll come with."

At dinner, we sit down next to Zander. An idea comes to me.

"Zander should come along."

They both look at me with surprised expressions.

"Come along?" Zander asks, confused.

"The prince and I are going after the men in the forest tonight," I respond.

"That's actually not a bad idea," the prince says.

"Hold on," Zander starts. "You're doing something your own mother told you not to do? I'm not so sure that that's the right thing to do."

"But he's doing it to save her," I argue.

Zander thinks about it and sighs. "Fine. I'll come along."

As we finish our dinner, we make plans to meet in the prince's room around midnight.

When I get back in my room, I pack a few changes of clothes. The prince said that we could be gone for awhile. I throw on a fresh shirt, boots, and a long black cloak that has a hood.

I peek my head out the door to make sure that no one is loitering around. Quickly, I begin running silently in the direction the prince told me to go. Every time I hear footsteps, I stop and catch my breath. Once they pass, I start again.

Finally, I make it to what I assume is the prince's room. I knock five times like he told me too. Silently, the door opens.

I walk in and find that Zander isn't there yet. The prince is pacing and I look around. The room is huge with a large bed and several closets and mirrors. There are swords, bows, and arrows lying around everywhere. Vases are filled with flowers in every corner. The prince stops pacing and faces me.

"Are you ready?" He asks.

I nod and right as I do, there's one. knock on the door, not five knocks. The prince looks at me and motions to the bed. I dive under it with my stuff just as the door opens.

"Mother!"the prince says, surprised. "You should be in bed."

"Don't worry, I'll go back in a few minutes. I just wanted to-" the queen breaks into a cough.

From where I am, I see two drops of blood drip onto the floor.

"You need to get back to bed now," the prince says.

I hear her leave the room and wait for the prince to tell me it's okay. Once he does, I wriggle out from underneath the bed and sit down on the bed. The prince sits down next to me and the look in his eyes makes my heart break. We need to get this antidote. If the queen dies, the prince will die inside with her.

"Are you okay?" I whisper.

He nods and I don't bother him any more.

Five knocks on the door bring us back to reality. We jump up from where we are sitting and I open the door.

"What took you so long?" I ask Zander.

"I got lost," he says breathing heavily.

He also has a bag similar in size to mine that is packed and is also wearing a black cloak. After going through our plan once more, we decided that it's time to leave. The prince leads us out of the room and out to the stables. There we saddle up three horses. As we're doing this I ask, "Where are all of the guards?"

"I sent them to do tasks at certain times so that they wouldn't be there when we needed to be."

We hop up onto out horses and gallop away. When we arrive at where the camp was, we find hoof prints from their horses. We follow these for miles until we need to stop to rest for the rest of the night.

As I'm sitting by the fire, I fiddle with the necklace around my neck. I miss home. There I had less problems.

"What's that?" The prince asks as he sits down next to me.

"Something a good friend of mine gave me."

Seeing the sadness in my eyes, he doesn't respond. My head aches from when I hit it so it turn in for the night and lay down, using my pack as a pillow. I close my eyes and fall asleep.