I landed a particularly heavy blow of the sword onto Ulric's side, signaling the end of our sparring match. I had won. My sword fighting skill had improved rapidly within the two weeks since the Winter Solstice Festival. This improvement is mostly due to my new found hatred of Ulric. It's a lot easier to fight with him when I was mad at him.

My danger awareness was also growing stronger. And I now could now sense things even if they weren't threatening. It wasn't all the time. But if someone walked up behind me, I would know they were there before they made any other indication otherwise.

For sparring lessons, like today, it made Ulric work even harder to try and fight me. We split our matches about half the time now. Ulric also wasn't pleased with being bested often. Moral of the story was our friendship was almost nonexistent now. We were both upset with one another, we hardly talked, even during our lessons. And let me tell you, having someone try to teach you something without actually saying anything is very difficult.

I left the practice facility cursing Ulric out in my mind as I marched back up to the palace. I had my eyes set on a nice long bath before my literature lesson.

As I walked through the hallways back to my room, I couldn't keep my mind from mulling over Ulric, again. I was tired of thinking about him, but I just couldn't. The insufferable man has the audacity to flirt with me and then push me away and say he doesn't like me. Nice to know I was just a toy to him while he just got money for teaching me.

Most of my anger was the sting of rejection and the realization that all this time, I truly meant nothing to him. To feel that you are insignificant in the eyes of someone you liked was one of the worst feelings I had ever experienced. And okay, yes, I'll admit it. I like Ulric, a lot, but I'll quickly have to crush those feelings now. They were stupid anyway.

I stumbled in my thoughts of Ulric when a piercing alarm sounded throughout the palace. I was horribly confused; I never even know such an alarm system existed within this building.

A young servant ran by me and I tried to ask him what was going on, but he just screamed, "Rebels!" and disappeared around the corner.

Pressure began building in my gut, the pressure of my danger intuition and that's when I knew. Rebels were attacking the palace.

I scanned my surroundings and tried to listen to any sounds, but it appeared as if I was alone. I was unarmed, but I could rely on my intuition and hand to hand combat skills if need be.

I had never been in a situation like this, but I knew standing in the middle of the hallways like a lame-duck was the worst option. I figured my safest bet would be to make it back to my room where Fenrir and Gerard were.

Beginning to creep through the hall quietly I stayed on high alert for any sign of trouble. But I didn't really need my eyes; my intuition would tell me before they could.

About halfway back to my room, the pressure blossomed quickly along my back, and I whirled around surprised to see four individuals. Three of whom wore leather armor with the rebel insignia. One had a sword, one had a pickaxe, and another had a dagger in their hand. I noticed blood on the edge of the pickaxe and cringed, wondering who it had come ; I. The fourth person was someone I recognized—the dark-skinned woman with the violet eyes from Nealon's hanging.

She was a rebel, they were all rebels, and the shadow show of the rebels slaughtering all of the guards and harming Luciana and myself was still fresh in my mind. The individual holding the pickaxe came at me first. He was an Elf, maybe in his mid 30's, and he was strong.

I moved to duck out of the way of the point of the pickaxe. As I did, I used the momentum to kick at the back of the knee causing his leg to buckle and for him to stumble.

"Not this one Sampson." The violet-eyed woman sighed. "This is the princess, our princess." She smiled at me.

"I don't really know what's going on here, but you will be arrested by the guards."

Violet eyes laughed

"The guards are all, currently occupied you could say," the woman holding the sword said.

"Well, then I'll take you myself." I held up my fists and got in a ready stance."

"She's got some fight," sword woman said. "That's good at least."

"Yes, she'll be perfect," violet eyes concluded. "We just want to talk." She said to me.

"No way in hell."

"It is vital that we speak, and in a much more private location."

The danger intuition rang again, but I didn't need it to tell me that going off to a private location with them would be a bad idea. I needed more people here, to help, to witness, so I opened my mouth and let out a scream hoping anyone with an ear nearby would come.

A large hand suddenly covered my mouth, cutting off the shrill sound, and then I was pulled into a small, dark room. The only light was from a narrow rectangular window near the ceiling, and dust was heavy on the air.

The hand was removed from my mouth. I much preferred the hand when the cold metal of a small blade was pressed against my neck. There would be no screaming now or risk cutting my own throat.

"Please just listen to what we have to say," violet eyes pressed.

"Why should I ever listen to you? Especially when you have a god damn knife to my neck." I bit out.

"Carter, release her." Violet eyes sighed.

As the knife moved from my throat, the lessons Ulric had taught me kicked in. I threw an elbow backward against the arm holding the knife, pushing it farther away from me while simultaneously kicking backward until the sole of my shoe hit the crotch of the man holding me. He immediately buckled over in pain, allowing me to grab his arm and steal the dagger from his grip.

I kicked against his side until he keeled over onto the ground and stood in a ready stance, the blade held up before me. The other soldiers held their weapons up, ready to defend if need be.

"Very nice princess, I'm glad you are learning to fight here, you will need it. Fortunately, you won't need it against us."

"Says the person who literally just had a knife to my throat. And who kidnapped me, and who killed all the guard the night, you kidnapped me."

"Well, for one, it was not I who did those things." Violet says, "And secondly, it appears you are horrendously misinformed. This entire time, even when you were just a babe, the resistance has been trying to protect you."

My eyebrows immediately furrowed in confusion, and the tip of the dagger wavered. "What do you mean?"

"The resistance is about protecting the people, including you. All of those notes in your room are from us, the danger that our elders saved you from as a child is still genuine and imminent."

"What danger?"

"Your death."

I gulped in fear at her words, and my voice shook when I said, "Why should I believe a thing you say. You're a rebel."

"I am Zora Hastain, greatest Sorcerer out of the royal training academies, and I help to lead to resistance. You should believe me because I've been with you ever since you stepped foot in Erivale. I helped to guide you to the way lines so you could find the power to portal home, and I have been sending you memories: the Fauns, the original unified meeting, our rebel members."

"Wait, that was you? Why? How?"

"The how is not important. But the why is to help open your eyes to everything that is going on around you: the good and the bad. The palace and you, the king and queen, hide many things from you to keep you complacent. They keep you from seeing our side of life. But we needed you to know; we needed you to help."

"So this entire time? All those memories of the war too?"

Zora's face pinched with confusion, "Vision memories of the war?"

"I, well, yes, were you not sending me the Great War too?"

"That is not my doing. I cannot think of another sorcerer of this generation powerful enough to send memories into the human realm; not even I can do that. It is a mystery to solve another day, hopefully. If you join us."

"Join you? You want me to join the resistance?" I practically shrieked at them "I can't, I'm supposed to be coronated queen and take over. I promise I'll try to make things better as queen, but I can't join you."

Zora's face became stormy, "You will be coronated, but you will not live long enough to help us all."

"Not live long enough?"

"This is the danger the resistance saved you from all those years ago, and what we have been warning you about here. The king and queen, driven by their greed for power and control, are planning the most horrendous of rituals. Magic-users can absorb the power from other things, even other creatures. To take every last piece of them, even their life force gives the user an immense amount of power. Take power and life force of an Elven princess fresh out of the Ceremony of the Gods, and they can become all-powerful."

"My parents are planning to kill me?" I asked softly.

"Yes, by stealing you away as a child and preventing their ability to conceive another child, we hoped to have averted their actions, but they simply raised your cousin to take your role. It was only coincidence that you happened to come back right before her coronation once again, putting you at risk."

"I still can't believe what you say, they're supposed to be my family," I said, but a large part of me found her words to ring true. It explained quite a bit.

"Look into my eyes, Amberleigh." I turned and stared into her purple irises. The purple began to morph and shape until a new scene was before me, another vision memory.

I felt the familiar tingle of magic as my vision was filled with the sight of a slightly younger-looking Luciana and Heinrich. They were standing in a room talking. Luciana walked over to the side of a bassinette and smiled down. A small baby stared up at her with a gurgling coo. The baby was me.

"She'll be perfect. I can already sense the power in her."

"Are you sure you want to do this, Luciana?" Heinrich asked.

"Yes, we will practically be immortal with power after we sacrifice her. No one will be able to rival us again. The power is the key to success; she is the key to our future."

The vision faded, and I felt the tears well in my eyes as the truth struck my heart like an arrow. I thought the worst feeling was feeling insignificant in the eyes of someone you liked, but the new worst was having your hope crushed. My hope for a new family, my real family, was gone. The entire reason for my existence was not to be loved by my parents; it was to be killed. I was not their child; I was a pawn in the grab for power and domination.

"What am I to do?" My voice cracked.

"I am very sorry Amberleigh, I cannot imagine your pain. But for now, you must pretend as if you don't know, act as normal as you can. Trust in no one. We are working on a way to get you out before the sacrifice, but you have to go through the Ceremony of the Gods and be coronated. I cannot stress this enough. It is imperative that this happens. Until then we, will keep an eye out on you and warn you if anything happens."

Zora's words were interrupted by the sounds of shouting in the hallways. The guards were looking for me.

She pulled me close and whispered the next few lines, "Don't forget we are always watching and always protecting."

She pushed away and waved her hand; a purple energy filled the room, and, suddenly, Zora and the other rebels disappeared.

A loud banging on the door of the room I was in made me yelp in fear.

"Princess, it is just a guard, please come out, the rebels are gone."

Trying to stuff the remnants of the conversation deep inside of me, slowly unlocked the door, shocked to see 10 or 12 guards, Luciana, Heinrich, Renatus, Soren, and Gerard looking quite flustered.

"We couldn't find you anywhere." Luciana gasped; her throat was clogged with tears. She pulled me into a tight hug, "I thought they had taken you again."

My mind wanted to throw her off of me, she wasn't just sad because I was in danger, she was sad because without me her plans were threatened. When she let me go I explained, "I was coming back from training, I saw them ahead of me and got scared so I ducked into the closet to hide. I'm fine."

But I most certainly was not fine; I had just found out my parents wanted to kill me.

Author's Note:

Did any of you see that coming? 👀