Chapter one: The night
Today was an odd day, to start I woke up early, it was way before the sun had risen from its own slumber. Then I figured it was way too noisy to go back to sleep, I was not sure what the noise was, but it sounded like the scraping metal of the swords when the new guards would train out in the secondary courtyard. Mother and Father told me to stay clear of the courtyard when the new guards were training, so, therefore, I thought going to look outside my room to see what was happening was not a good idea, instead I stayed inside my room and played with some of my dolls, I didn’t know what time it was, but if it was early enough for the new guards to be training that meant one of my maids was probably already on her way to come help me get ready this morning.
Not even a few minutes later my door was opened, which startled me a lot, usually my maids would knock lightly before coming in and open my window curtains to fully get me awake, another thing I noticed was that the sun still hadn’t began to shine in my window, which made me wonder if the sun forgot to wake up. I was expecting one of my maids like Mary or Abuary to be in my doorway, but it was a man I had never seen before. He had long brown hair that reached his shoulders, and a soiled hat that looked quite silly, nothing like I have seen before, he also had a sword, it looked almost bent, nothing like what the guards carried around, it was smaller and dirty, I figured maybe the guard’s budget was cut and they couldn’t afford nice weapons anymore. Before I could start feeling bad about the budget cut, the man ran over, I straightened myself and set down my doll, I wasn’t sure who this man was, but Father always told me to do what the guards said if we were ever in danger.
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“Princess Annabel” the man started, “please follow me as I quickly escort you out of the castle, we need you as soon as possible”
As my morning maids still hadn’t shown up for the day, I would have had to get dressed out of my dressing gown myself, it is very nonprofessional to walk around in a nightgown, but before I could even fully stand up, the man had grabbed my wrist and started dashing to the door. This was very informal of him and made me question if we should really be hiring guys like this. Before I knew it, I had been dragged into the north hallway and down the left corridor, both of my personal guards from the third shift were laying on the floor, General Ara Durant and General Ram Padilla, they didn’t seem harmed, but they were definitely sleeping on the job. I tried to stop and turn back at them, but the man’s grip on my wrist tightened. He was not grabbing me hard, but it was enough that I could not get away. After a few more turns in back hallways we made our way outside, I had no idea where we were, but I knew it was out a back door some of the housekeepers used sometimes. It wasn’t pitch-black dark as the local street lanterns were on, but I realized it was nowhere near morning; we ran across old back bridges and went along dark alleys, I never really left the palace to begin with, but when I did it was always with Mother or Father, and I never went near the backways. I tried talking to the man multiple times to ask where we were going, but he never answered.
“Where are you taking me!” I demanded again, the man looked back at me without saying a word. Soon after, I saw our destination, the docks; no guard would take me there.
