The Choosers and the Chosen: Chapter 1

The Choosers and the Chosen

Part 1: Chapter 1 - The Chosen One

Luciara

Princess Luciara Eden woke up with a shiver. She'd just dreamt about him again: the red-eyed killer who was after her. She'd seen him stabbing Sir Alfrick Laydes in the neck in those dreams, those nightmares, and every time she felt as if it was her who was dying. In reality, she was told that the Protector of the Chosen had killed the assassin in return, but in her dreams he was very much alive; alive and coming for her.

Sir Alfrick had been so brave; sacrificing himself so that she could get away. He was so noble...

And now he was dead.

She stifled a sob. She’d cried too much this night, after hearing of his death. She didn’t want to cry any more. But it was too difficult to stop herself.

He’d always listened to her, even when she was angry. He would stand there silently, dark stubble on his jaw, smiling when she was happy herself and frowning when she was upset. I trusted him, and now he’s gone...

The guards let him die. Lucy was certain of it. They weren’t quick enough. They could’ve saved him, like he saved me, but instead they let him die...

They all hated her, she could tell. They were jealous of her power, envious of her beauty over their daughters’. She had told her mad father many times before. And all he did, every time, was smile at her under that big, stupid moustache of his and say, “Well, my dear, I’m sure they wouldn’t be so very jealous if they knew how you felt, would they?” That fool, Lucy seethed in her mind, that moron, that utter buffoon! I hate him, that madman! She was telling Alfrick so, until...Oh, Gods...

She rubbed the tears from her eyes, and tried to think of something else.

She looked around her bedroom. She couldn't see anything, of course, with the night being a particularly dark one. Still, she felt that something was wrong. She wasn't alone.

And that soon became abundantly clear.

A flame lit up near her, and she gasped. Or, at least, she felt herself gasp. She couldn't hear any sound coming from her lips. The flame's source was a hand, she realised, and an entire body was attached to that hand. It must've been another assassin. Lucy's eyes widened, and she instinctively called for help. She couldn’t hear anything. She screamed. No sound came.

“I'm afraid nobody can hear your screams,” the assassin said, before smiling and adding, “though I didn't mean it in quite the sinister way it sounded.” His smile came easy to him, as if he’d practiced it for centuries, though it gave Lucy no comfort. His eyes were the lightest blue she had ever seen, making her feel even more uneasy. The other assassin had strange eyes, too.

“Who are you?” Lucy asked, almost surprised to actually hear her voice this time.

“I'm just passing through,” the assassin said, “and to give you my name or life story would be…a waste of your beauty sleep, I observe.”

“What are you ‘observing’, exactly?” Lucy sat up and crossed her arms. If she was to die, she would not die insulted by this...foul man! Especially not by such an unremarkable person at that, which he was in spite of those almost luminescent blue eyes. The assassin's hair was dull and brown, his beard unkempt and unshaven, covering his jaw and around his mouth. He was nothing special as far as height was concerned, decidedly neither tall nor short, and he didn't seem thin as a weed or big and muscled like a bull, but just…average. Mediocre. And as for his clothes: the less said about those brown, travel-stained rags the better. He had an old-looking belt around his waist that sported a sword but no dagger, and the sword was a simple-looking thing at that. Suddenly, Lucy didn't see any threat in this man at all, despite the flame flickering in the palm of his hand.

“I meant no slight,” the mediocre man said with a shrug of his ordinary shoulders.

Lucy scowled at him. “It sounded like one.”

The man shook his head. “Well, no, it is simply a statement of fact, as far as I am concerned. I observe that you're quite spoiled, and that you need your sleep more than anyone to prevent you from becoming a more insufferable child than you already are.”

The last words repeated themselves in Lucy’s head for a few moments, and she felt herself flush with anger.

“How dare you?!” she retorted, feeling a vein pulse in her forehead. She felt her face heat up. “That was an insult, right there!”

“No,” the man said, still smiling, “I'm afraid it was merely an observation. A harsh observation, but an observation nonetheless.”

“I'll have you hanged for that 'observation', you insufferable…” Damn it but she was tired! She couldn't think of how to finish the threat.

The man's smile faded. “I apologise profusely,” he said, sitting down on the bed next to Lucy's fur-covered feet, “I had the impression I was in the presence of the Chosen One herself. I didn't realise I'd taken a wrong turn and ended up with the yappiest bitch in the royal kennels.” As Lucy's jaw dropped open, and she grasped about in her weary mind to find some sort of reply to that...insufferable language, he grinned and said, “That, I observe, was an insult.”

Before Lucy could say anything in response, he carried on. “Anyway, I didn't come here to insult you. I came here because I have recently caught wind of what is currently transpiring, and I thought I'd put a word in, so that I can say that I helped. What's beginning, now, is something that is going to set a lot of change in motion. The time is coming, I observe, for a sort of...reckoning.” He rolled his eyes as he continued speaking. “And, for once, you have grasped the matter much quicker than anyone else in the entire world: it does, indeed, all revolve around you.” He sounded less than enthusiastic at that thought. It was enough to make Lucy smile.

“Jealous, are you?” she asked him. They’re all jealous of me.

He looked back at her, nonplussed. “Disappointed, more like it. But, I observe, something can be done to remedy this.”

“I’ve heard enough of your observations.” Lucy declared. “As if I’m going to listen to some ragged beggar tell me how to save the world I was brought up to rescue!”

The Observer, as Lucy decided to call him, laughed with mirthless laughter. “Indeed! As if you’re going to be the world’s saviour! As if you’ve actually been brought up to rescue an entire world from the perils of one fucking fraud. As if I am just some beggar, with no magical power, giving you a choice as to whether or not you’re going to listen to me.” He smiled again, causing the vein in Lucy’s forehead to pulse even more. She started shouting back at him, but she stopped quickly when she heard no sound come out of her mouth.

“Just listen.” the Observer commanded in a voice that brooked no further argument. He was very commanding at times, indeed, and clearly powerful in magic at least – the fire in his hand was still perfectly strong. And those eyes suggested he was much more than a regular man. He was no cretin, certainly. He was definitely no beggar, and no man of mediocrity. So she decided to listen to him. Besides, what was the worst that could happen?

“You can't save everyone, yet I observe you wish everyone to treat you as if you already have. Remember that whatever choice you make will have more consequences than most others’. It sounds obvious, but it needs to be said. Be wary of what you choose.
“However, be more mindful of what you do not choose. Often, it's not the choices we make that come back to bite us hardest, but the ones we let others make. Yet those particular choices are often a consequence of our own. Remember that. Remember that with every face you see.”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

The Observer smiled a wicked smile. “I'm not sure I care whether you understand. I'm only interested in seeing how things play out. You can learn from the experiences that are ahead of you. I'm not going to help you cheat any more than I already have.” He stood up and walked towards the bedchamber window. It was open, Lucy realised. A quiet night indeed, and a dark one. “One more thing,” the Observer added, almost as an afterthought, “two more visitors are coming to you tonight. One means to give you important news. The other intends to kill you. You'll have trouble telling who's who, I observe. Be wary of that.
“I will meet you again shortly, a little later in this long, long day. For now, goodbye.”

Lucy expected him to leap out of the window and vanish in a flash of light, but whether he actually did she would never know, as sleep suddenly hit her, washing her away to a peaceful rest.

...


Caladus

I hate my duty, Sir Caladus Dalmark thought to himself, I fucking hate it.

He looked at the body lying in front of him and sighed. Sir Alfrick Laydes would have looked as courageous in death as he was in life, were it not for his skin being so damn pale. He was lying in full armour, visor on his armet raised, gilded sword in his hands, on a stone tablet in the Funeral Hall of Eden Palace. He wouldn't be buried here, of course – that was for the leaders and tyrants that nobody chose to rule them, but somehow deserved the honour anyway. Instead, Sir Alfrick would be sent off to his family to be buried in some old tomb of theirs. Cal didn't care what happened to the corpse. He would've preferred it if his old mentor were still alive.

At least he died well, or as well as choking to death on your own blood could permit, anyway. Cal could remember clearly the image of his old friend punching the Immortal assassin to death with his gauntleted fist, despite having a dagger in his throat. That was a way to die, he supposed: doing his duty to the very end. However much he may have abhorred what his duty was.

Sir Caladus felt his legs begin to ache. I shouldn't have agreed to do this, he thought dismally, though he knew that he would've, reluctantly, done it again if he had the choice. He was standing vigil over the fallen Protector of the Chosen: an honour only bestowed upon a narrow range of corpses, though usually for happening to be rich and powerful against any sense of merit. Caladus loathed this tradition, as he did many other aspects of his line of work, but he was living in reality. In reality, this was a great honour, albeit a pointless one, and Sir Alfrick Laydes deserved every honour Caladus could give him. It was a very rare thing indeed for him to know another knight in the Lion's Guard who wasn't either an opportunistic worm or a blind follower of whoever had the fortune to wear a band of gold. Cal didn't know which of the two he despised more, and that was what the other elite knights consisted of. I hate my duty, he thought to himself again.

He heard the sound of doors opening and he looked up from Sir Alfrick's body. The two large wooden doors of the Funeral Hall had given way to her. She stood for a second, silhouetted against the big bright corridor of blue and gold behind her, looking at Cal with disdain in her pale blue eyes, down at him from that upturned nose that characterised her personality so well. Princess Luciara Eden's sole regard for Caladus was to give him that self-important scowl of hers before telling her servants and guards to wait outside without even bothering to look back at them as she descended the seven stone steps into the Funeral Hall. She looked around with a frown, probably dissatisfied with the grey and white of the stone walls surrounding her, before setting her eyes on the remains of her fallen Protector.

Her frown faded, and suddenly Cal could see the princess express a feeling he didn't know she had: care for another human being.

She walked gracefully up to the deceased knight, and looked down at him with a mouth gradually curling sadly. Her eyes had lost their normal arrogance, and now they looked like the eyes of a child that had been told their father had gone to war and not come back. Or the eyes of a young woman whose just lost her lover, if those foolish rumours are true. Her eyelids flittered more and more regularly, and tears began to roll down her ivory cheeks. Caladus almost felt sympathy for her.

He was about to, but then she opened her mouth.

“The guards weren't quick enough.” she said in a thin voice. “They should've saved him.”

A sword was in Cal's right hand, rested on his armoured shoulder. The hilt received a violent throttling every time she spoke. And the Chosen One kept speaking, unaware.

“He was such a good man…and he always listened to me…and I warned them about the assassins…and they were too slow!” She had begun to gasp between breaths, then speak, hoarse with grief, in a half-chiding manner. Cal was thinking once more on whether he would've stood vigil for his friend again, had he the choice, knowing that she would come here and pour her selfish heart out. It became a harder question to answer. He’d been there, he'd seen Sir Alfrick die, and he knew there was nothing he could have done. He and the guards arrived at the Overlord just as the Immortal shoved a dagger into the Protector's neck, and then they all watched in shock as Alfrick beat his assailant to death. There wasn't anything they could've done to stop a dagger wound to the throat.

“Your Grace,” he interrupted, “you have my word that every man who came running would have risked their life for Sir Alfrick. We were all too late.”

Suddenly, she glared at him, clearly not satisfied with his answer. “You were there?!” she demanded to know.

Caladus wouldn’t deny it. Sir Alfrick had always said that he’d rather be dead than live life a liar, and Cal had found himself in agreement. “I was, Your Grace.”

“Then don’t make excuses!” the princess snapped. Cal’s sword’s hilt received a very violent throttling. “You could have run faster, or killed the assassin, or guarded the palace better in the first place! He shouldn’t even have got in!”

Caladus assumed she was talking to him as a representative of the many guards who failed to protect her Protector, but he didn’t respond on their behalf. Each man should speak for himself, he maintained, and not have the arrogance to do so for others. “I am not responsible for the guards, Your Grace. I was an honoured guest at your birthday celebrations.” Which was a waste of food while people are starving on your father’s streets without a choice.

“I don’t remember you,” the Chosen One said bluntly as she folded her arms, “who are you?”

“Sir Caladus Dalmark, Your Grace,” Cal responded, droning his well-rehearsed reply with little enthusiasm, “Knight of the Lion’s Guard,” warrior of a tyrannical order, “Count Gouville through matrimony to Countess Alexandre Gouville,” a vile, vapid viper if ever there was one, “and King’s First Swordsman.” And therefore favourite to be the next victim under Your Grace’s service. I’m the best...

“I remember your name,” the princess mused with a tightly-clenched jaw, “I believe Sir Alfrick mentioned you once or twice.” And I’ll never be able to get him back for it, the lucky bastard.

“Perhaps he did, Your Grace,” Caladus responded, “he was a friend and mentor of mine–”

She started cutting him off before he finished speaking, to his irritation and the gradual erosion of his sword’s hilt. “I’m afraid I am finished talking about him now.” Princess Luciara declared, waving a hand as if to dismiss all of Caladus’ words. “You must stay silent or leave, Sir Caladus.”

Caladus’ answer came quickly, and seemed to be a slap in the face to her the moment he began to speak. “I am answerable to the King himself, and no other. Not even you, Your Grace.”

The Chosen One’s shocked expression became a snarling scowl of the bitterest contempt. It was surprising to Cal that such a fine face could inspire such foul feelings. “Don’t talk to me like that, you insufferable worm! I am the Chosen One! Everyone owes me something, and so everyone should be prepared to do what I tell them because I am going to save their lives from the evil that is coming!”

Caladus didn’t speak a reply. His sighing at her words was enough to provoke the mighty Chosen One to continue throwing her childish tantrum.

“I have been given a greater burden than anyone else has ever been given before me! The Prophet Achilles said so to my father when I was born! Or did you fail to listen to your history tutor about who the great Prophet is?”

Caladus bit his lip and tasted blood. He throttled his hilt so tightly he could’ve sworn he’d dented the metal. “There are some who can’t afford a history tutor,” Caladus growled, “or even a simple loaf of bread without a day’s toil. Tell them how important your burden is!”

Fuck. He’d gone too far. He realised that his face was hot and sweating with rage. His hand was starting to hurt as it gripped his sword so tightly his entire arm began to ache. The princess didn’t appear particularly amused either. Her ivory face was now more of a raging ruby red, and her fists were shaking with fury. “How...” she seethed through gritted teeth, “how...dare...you?!”

“Your Grace?” a boy’s voice piped behind her, shoving a dagger into the tightly-drawn tension. The princess turned towards the door at the top of the seven steps. A young messenger was standing there, head down, hands behind his back.

“What is it?!” the bitch barked.

The messenger gulped. “Er, two men have been, er, arrested, Your Grace. They both wish to speak with you.”

Princess Luciara’s face looked much less red as she turned back towards Caladus and her former Protector’s body. It was going pale as she stared at the dead face of Sir Alfrick Laydes. Then she looked daggers at Caladus for a brief moment before she turned without a word and walked out of the Funeral Hall.

“I hate my duty,” Sir Caladus Dalmark muttered to Sir Alfrick, “I fucking hate it. But I’m going to miss it if I end up taking yours.”

...


Luciara

The Palace’s throne room captured the very essence of majesty that had been held by the House of Eden for centuries.

The room was enormous, and Lucy had seen even as much as a thousand people fit inside it before. The ceiling was painted with depictions of previous events in history, before the creation of the palace itself – of the hundred-year long civil war known as the Dragonfall, of the Battle of Chains that destroyed an entire region, of angelic beings crowning Lucidon the Legend and beginning the reign of the House of Eden. A large balcony with silver railings loomed at the back of the room, above the throne itself, where a monarch may make a grand speech to his subjects, or a great noble in his stead. Twenty marble pillars lined either side of a long, wide blue carpet that was rolled over the room’s fine marble floor. Two guards in gilded armour stood beside every pillar, eight either side of the carpet at the foot of twelve marble steps and another four either side of the throne at the top. And standing in front of that great chair was Lucy’s father: King Lucien the Second.

“Ah, my dear!” the King bellowed as Luciara entered the throne room. “How’s my lovely princess doing?”

Dressed in blue, gold and a cloth-of-silver sash, Lucy’s father had a big white moustache that covered his top lip. His platinum hair, crowned with a golden band with twelve sapphire-encrusted points, was still in abundance despite his sixty-three years of age, and fell no lower than halfway down his thick neck. His broad shoulders, long legs and stocky build helped him cast a large gloomy shadow over one of the two men before him, both bound in chains and kneeling with their heads down in his presence.

“I am well, father.” Lucy replied with icy courtesy. She hadn’t forgotten that the feast Sir Alfrick was murdered at happened due to her father’s insistence. "I won't hear another word, my dear! Three feasts I promised, and so three feasts you shall have! You'll just have to retire early from this last one, if you are so bored of the entertainment."

“These two...” King Lucien drew in a big breath of air as he addressed the kneeling men, “potentially treasonous scallywags!...have told me that they want to speak to you, and so I have sent for you.”

I could have worked that out myself, father. “Yes, father. Thank you for the summons, and I came as quickly as I could.”

“Now,” King Lucien moved on, looking at the two men kneeling before him, “which one of you claims to be the Prophet’s Apprentice?” He had a booming voice as it was, but it was even more powerful in the echoes of the large throne room.

The Prophet’s Apprentice? Lucy gulped. She’d felt sick when she heard that the Observer had been right about the visitors, but she felt terrified that they had something to do with the Prophet Achilles himself. This was too soon, surely? She wasn’t ready for this, was she?

“I am, Your Majesty.” the man covered in King Lucien’s shadow said, twiddling the thumbs of his chained-together hands, “I am the Prophet’s Appren–”

“Your Majesty?!” King Lucien roared. His boot soon came into contact with the so-called apprentice’s forehead, sending the man flailing onto his back, chains scraping the floor, eyes bulging out of his sockets. “You’re addressing a princess, not a queen!”

Lucy would’ve laughed, were it not for the fact that this was her father who was acting like a complete buffoon. “I’m sure he meant no offense, father.” she said as sweetly as she could. She just wanted this over and done with.

“Well he shouldn’t have been so bloody offensive then, my dear,” her father complained, “most people who insult you would end up with much more than a boot in their possibly lying face, now wouldn’t they, my cherub?”

“Of course father, but I would like to hear what he has to say.” My life may depend on it, if what the Observer said is true.

“Well, if you wish.” He pulled the man back up onto his knees himself, and ordered, “Now, tell her exactly what you told me.”

“Ur...” The man blinked a few times before his eyes fixed themselves on Lucy’s. “Your Grace,” he said, “are you Princess Luciara Eden, the Chosen One?”

“Yes.” One means to give you important news. The other intends to kill you.

“I have a message from my master, the Prophet Achilles. I must tell it to you in private.” He glanced at the King in shock, as if expecting he would hit him again for his lack of manners, or some other such crime. But Lucy’s father was simply listening intently without any particular reaction, so he looked back at Lucy and said, “This other man cannot be trusted. I don’t know who he is or who he’s working for, but he hasn’t come from Fort Farseer. I fear he means you harm.”

Of course he does. The Observer’s already told me. “I will like to listen to him as well.”

“And you can, Your Grace, but can I tell you this message first, and then–”

“Shut up!” King Lucien's kick was only to the man’s chest this time, but it was enough to send him rolling over onto his side as he twisted in agony, chains rattling in harmony with groans of pain. “She is done speaking with you, she said!” He looked at his daughter with a smile, as if he hadn’t just bellowed in fury at a man he’d now kicked twice. “You’ll ask the other one now, will you my dear?”

“Yes, father.” Lucy said. She addressed the other kneeling man, who had been quiet up until now. “Who are you?” she asked.

“I am the Prophet’s Herald, Your Grace.” You’ll have trouble telling who’s who, I observe. “I have also come to give you an important message, but I have not been ordered to give it to you in private, as long as I am telling you the message in person.”

“Oh.” Well, this was surprisingly easy. He wouldn’t pose a threat to her life when in the presence of palace guards, would he? Not to mention he was called the ‘Prophet’s Herald’. Heralds deliver messages, didn’t they? “Well, then, I will hear you. No need to listen to this other one.”

“What?” the so-called apprentice was looking up at her, gaping in shock. There was a red mark on his forehead, probably from when the King kicked him there. His chains made a scratching sound as he rubbed the mark. Lucy noticed he looked rather old to be an apprentice, as well. He was around forty, and already there was grey stubble on his chin. He was very pale as well, and his arms were thin and long. Lucy felt a little revolted by him, truth be told. The other man was around thirty, but his age was inconsequential. Heralds could be any age: it wasn’t something that appeared to require any kind of skill.

“You can’t be an apprentice at that age,” Lucy remarked to the so-called Prophet’s Apprentice, “surely?”

“I can,” the false apprentice protested, “I can! My master is Immortal!” Lucy winced at the mere mention of the word. “He has lived for centuries! Please, you are the Chosen One, you–”

“Be quiet, you treacherous lying fiend!” King Lucien yelled, stomping on the would-be killer’s face. “How dare you come here to threaten my daughter?! Out with him! Tear his bloody balls off!”

“Er, Your Majesty,” the King’s Chambermaster, Pailes, interrupted. He seemed to come out of nowhere, before Lucy realised that he had been standing near her father the whole time. She just didn’t notice him, as usual. “I’m afraid your grandfather forbade any kind of mutilation of...that region.”

“Did he?” Lucy’s father looked disappointed. “Well, he was an old fool, my grandfather.” He seemed to have lost interest in the man completely now. “Just chop his head off, then.” he commanded wearily, waving a hand carelessly as he drifted over to his throne and sat on it.

The man whose head was in question appeared to be unconscious, so two guards dragged him unceremoniously out of the throne room, his chains scraping on the marble floor. They took him through a small door to the side of the room.

“Come here, my dear,” King Lucien beckoned to his daughter, “stand by me as we listen to this fellow.”

“Yes, father.” While a guard was unfastening the herald’s chains Lucy bowed her head and walked up to stand to her father’s left. Chambermaster Pailes was on his right, small pinch of a face sweating profusely, while several guards in gilded armour stood nearby. King Lucien sat back comfortably. His hands rested on golden armrests that were fashioned into lions’ heads with diamonds in their eyes. Over his bushy eyebrows, the stones on the points of his crown glistened like the sea on a beautiful summer’s day.

“Go on, then,” the King’s voice boomed at the Prophet’s Herald, from whom the guard was walking away with his chains, “give us the Prophet’s message.”

“The message,” the man said as he rose to his feet, a small, thin blade suddenly in his hand, “is death!”

He raised the dagger up high into the air, almost comically, despite being several metres from Lucy. But before he could take a single step, several crossbow bolts took him in the chest, and he stumbled backwards, surprise dominant on his face, before he fell to the ground spitting blood. Lucy gasped and quickly looked behind her, then above her, seeing a group of men with crossbows leaning over the silver railings of the balcony at the back of the room.

“Aha!” the King bellowed in triumph. “Thought you could fool me, eh? Don’t think I wasn’t prepared, you rotting trickster!” He sighed with content.

“Um, father?” Lucy said. She was shaking slightly after seeing a man die in front of her for the first time.

“You’re safe, my dear!” said King Lucien, smiling broadly. “The damn assassin is killed. Hurrah!”

“But father–”

“No need to worry so much, my dear! All part of the game, you see! There’s always a damn enemy who wants to give you a little stabby-stabby, and the best way to thwart it is to–”

“Father!” Lucy shouted, feeling a mixture of rage and panic beginning to swell inside her. Her eyes were watering as well, and she even felt a little nauseous. “What about the other man?”

Her father stared at her blankly for a second, then nodded slowly with a smile as he remembered. “Ah, yes, that old cheat. He won’t be bothering you again, my dear, you can be sure of–”

Lucy turned, lifted her skirts and ran for the door that the guards had dragged the Prophet’s Apprentice through.

“Lucy!” she heard her father boom from behind, and echo beside and above her. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you!”

He was actually right, for once. As soon as she burst through the door, vomit gushed up her throat and flooded her mouth.

It was a small room, with a single barred window to light it. There was straw on the ground, much of it now red with blood. There was a block there too, and a basket. The head of the Prophet’s Apprentice had landed badly, it seemed: Lucy could see right up the severed neck. His body was cut around the shoulders, signifying that this execution had taken more than one swing. The only part of Lucy that could think rationally was wondering how she didn’t hear the screams he must have made before his death. The rest of her, most of her, was revolted.

She had to put a hand on her mouth to stop anything from bursting out of it, and she quickly left the room. She shivered as she swallowed the sick back down, wondering if it would have been better out than in. Fuck, was all she could think. Fuck, fuck, fuck...oh Gods...ohGodsohGodsohGods...

“I’m afraid he’s dead now, my dear.” King Lucien called to her from his throne. “The first victim – I-I mean...recipient, heh-heh-heh...of my new swift execution chamber, for all of those ‘to be carried out immediately’ sentences that I need to order constantly. At least that was a success, wasn’t it, my dear?”

Lucy’s revulsion at the sight of the beheaded apprentice was quickly being replaced with disgust at her father, certainly. “Yes,” she snapped through bared teeth, “at least that was.”

“Now don’t get all snappy with me, young lady!” the King responded disapprovingly. “There is still some way to remedy the situation.”
“What way?”

Lucien beckoned her to come closer. “Leave us,” he said to everyone else, “all of you.”

The palace guards all bowed their heads and wandered out. The crossbowmen on the balcony disappeared through a gilded door behind them. Chambermaster Pailes, wiping his sweaty face with a cloth, bowed before the King, then lowered his head in courtesy to Lucy, then hurried quickly out.

Lucy was by her father's side just as she heard the last door shut. “Now,” he said, “this whole situation has reminded me of a few things the Prophet told me concerning your future as the Chosen One.”

Seriously? “Why haven’t you told me of this already?”

“He advised me to wait for a message,” her father said, “which, until now, I had forgotten about.”

Forgotten? “What was the message, father?”

He leaned closer to tell her. Then he said, “He told me to beware of the 'Three Feasts'.”

“The Three...Feasts?”

Her father nodded.

“Like the three I had for my birthday?”

“Those probably count, I’d say.”

“Which you persuaded me to have?”

“A-now you wanted those, didn’t you?” He wagged a finger at her. “Don’t go biting the hand that feeds you, especially not with three lavish banquets. I didn’t have that when I was your age, my dear. I was out hunting on my twentieth birthday, having disguised myself as a peasant and stolen my father’s crossbow after he refused to even give me a visit to the royal forest. I was caught poaching and told I’d answer to the King for that and my-my did he get cross!”

“My Protector died yesterday!” Lucy shouted at him, stepping away. “Sir Alfrick Laydes! The kindest man, the most loyal man...”

He father looked as if he was going to interrupt, but he seemed to think better of it. Lucy began to feel the tears roll down her cheeks. “He was a friend...a good, close friend, and I...”

She ran to a different door now. Not to her father’s swift execution chamber, but to one that would eventually take her up to her bedchamber.