Holy cow. Its been like three years since I last looked at this story, so I want to say thanks to all the people who have reviewed my story and put this story on their following list. I hate it when there are long author notes at the beginning of a chapter but with a three year break it seems appropriate. So to any new readers welcome and I hope you enjoy. To all of the original readers thanks for reading this story. Now lets see if junior me can write better than the eighth grade version.

Oh and because of how big of a nerd I am I am going to put a quote at the beginning of every chapter just for the fun of it, so quote number 1:

"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic." ~Anonymous

I stood in the shadows of the halls watching my parents try to salvage what ever relationship there was with the visiting family. Joshua and his parents had left after their son had told his parents that I was "not fit" to be his bride. Now my parents were upset by that and the royal family of France have all but been thrown out.

My mother tossed her curled dark hair behind her after the door had been closed. She looked at my father before saying, "Is there no hope for our daughter?"

"Mother I am right here." I said as I stepped out from the shadows, "He was not worthy to be my husband in any form of the word. This has just been a huge waste of time. Can we just pretend like it never happened and eat supper please?"

My father jumped to my rescue, "Yes Rachel we will worry about this another day. Right now let us enjoy our meal."

We all followed him into the dining hall and took our place at the table. The servants brought out the food serving my father before everyone else at the table. Our board of royal advisors turned to my father waiting for him to start discussing the news of the kingdom.

"Well," my father began, "what news do you have for me?"

Our families most trusted knight stood up, "The rebellion is growing sire. Another village has fallen, soon these monsters will be knocking on the castle door. We should make this castle the safest place for you and your family the number one priority right now in these difficult times."

My god-father snorted into the pea soup that we were all enjoying, "Sit down you silly man. Protecting the people of this kingdom is our first goal. If we can stop this rebellion by helping the people then we will not worry about the castle. Yes the royal family needs protection but this is a stone castle. This will be the last goal of the rebellion to capture."

Father nodded towards my god-father, "As Joe has said, my safety comes after that of my peoples. We will stock food and water but we need to stop the fighting before it reaches the castle."

All the men at the table looked around uneasily at each other. I had always made a game out of noticing the small changes our advisors had. As a lady growing up in the castle I was treated as fragile, but I was anything but that. My god-father Joseph "Joe" Solomon had made sure I knew how to defend myself if anything should ever happen. I could use most weapons including my fists. My parents did not support this in the full but it just became Joe's and my little secret.

The advisors always got this look when Joe suggested something because normally my father would follow it without question. It was scary at times but also nice as he never liked me being showed off to men like a horse to be bought. He said I was too much of a wild child to ever have a man tame me.

I was silent for the rest of dinner listening to what was being talked about but not really hearing. Wondering if just maybe I could beat Joe's prediction of my never finding a husband. Maybe I could find someone who did not have a second motive for making me fall in love with them. Like that could ever happen, I am a princess for crying out loud.

So please tell me what you think after three years of not working on this. If you have any ideas please tell me either in a review or in a PM. I don't are I love getting other peoples thoughts on this stuff because I know where I want this story to go but I'm not the one whose reading it so if you have something that you think should happen, let me know and I will see if I can make it work.

Thanks again to everyone who reads this story. I'm not going to be one of those writers who demands to have a certain number of reviews or anything like that. So I hope you enjoyed and I know for a fact that the next chapter is going to be in Zach's POV. OH! real quick, if anyone can give me a reason for the rebellion that's going on that would be great because my ideas are getting me no where except for rambling at midnight as I finish this up. So that's all for now :)