Chapter 7. no flames please.

7

We sprinted towards the north wall. There was the assassin, holding one of the royals. (The royals were part of the royal family. Like me for example) I lunged for him, dagger in hand. I had misjudged my jump and I caught his robe. It made him flinch, which gave the royal time to wrestle out of his hold and run away. As she was doing this, the assassin's hood fell down. For a split second, I saw his face. It shocked me. I recognised his face. I flashed back to when I was a child.

It was a rare sunny day and I was in the outside courtyard. My mother was with me. There was someone else too. My mother was telling him off. I wandered over, to find that my mother was holding him.

"Shhh darling, night will look after you when I'm away. You will won't you, you'll look after thorn?" My mother had said.

"Yes mother, but you will come back soon won't you?" I answered.

"Yes I will darling. I just have to do some work abroad for a while" the little boy looked at me.

"You will look after me won't you sister?"

I now realise where I had seen his face. He was my brother. After zoning out, the others had chased the assassin away.

After doing a run round check of the grounds, we made our way back to our dorm rooms.

Hope was still hiding under black ride's bed, with veela trying to coax her out.

"Here, veela I'll take it from here" black ride bent down and reached his arms under. It took a while, but black ride finally managed to get hope out from under the bed. Hope was shivering.

"I'll get her some clothes" veela said, "Look at her, she's freezing!" I jumped. I had forgotten that she was still there. Once veela had gone, I spoke quietly to black ride.

"I think I know who the assassin is"

Black ride looked amazed. "Who?"

"Do you remember I had a brother?" black ride seemed to realize.

"But he died in the fire!" there had been a large fire in the castle a long time ago. Everyone was evacuated, but one of the large wooden beams had fallen on dying thorn. I couldn't save him. "He's dead!"

"Or so I thought" I reached under my bed to pull out a box. I opened it and took out something. It was an old photo. It was of my mother, my brother and I. it was taken just before my mother left. "What do you think?" black ride looked at the picture for a moment.

"Yeah. That's him" there was a knock at the door.

"Just me!" Veela's voice called from behind the door. Veela came in holding a small bundle of clothes. "Here, these were the smallest I could get" she handed the clothes to hope and sat down. Hope laid them on the floor. It was a black robe and underwear. She slipped them on and look at herself in the mirror.

"Why'd you take the black ones?" I whispered to veela.

"They were the only ones that had extra extra small." Replied veela. Just then, the queen came into the room.

"Come with me, and bring the girl." Oxanna said bristly.

We followed her to her room. There on the floor was the maid. She had two small punctures on her neck.

"How do you know there was danger in my room?" Oxanna directed the question to hope.

"I don't know, I just knew it. There was a vampire in your room." Hope said. She walked over to the maid, whose name I think was fast claw. Hope bent down and touched the blood pouring from fats claw's neck. "Her name is topaz"

"But what is topaz doing here? She should be with her sisters." The queen looked confused and thoughtful. Everyone knew that there were only ten vampires left in the world. They were sisters and they refused to make any other vampires. They usually stuck together, but they sometimes split up. Thought there were ten vampires, only nine ever showed up anywhere. We didn't know the tenth vampire's name, or where she is. We don't even know if there actually is a tenth vampire.

"I don't know, but maybe she is closer than you think" said a voice behind us. I whipped around, pulling out a dagger at the same time. I lunged forward, grabbing at the person's neck. It was then I realized who it was.

"What are you doing here topaz?" I spat.

"First, sorry about the maid, don't worry she'll live. And second, I need your help. So you can let go of me and I'll tell you why." As I let go of her, Topaz's gold eyes flickered to hope. "What's a human doing here?"

"We found her near the lake." Black ride said, grabbing onto hope's shoulder.

"So that's what I sensed! Any way as I said, I need your help.

"I think we are done here" the queen ushered us out, calling some guards to take away fast claw.

"Hey! But I never got to tell you about my little problem!"

" You can tell me about it later. Black ride, you take hope and try to find her parents, veela, you come with me to talk to topaz, and night hunter, and you go back to your human."

"Really? But what about my palace arrest?" I asked. I was so happy.

"Yes really. I think your human will need a bit of protecting. Here you'll need to wear this. You'll be able to change to your human form" the queen threw me a ring. It was made of gold, with a ruby rose in the middle. I put it on and practically skipped with joy down the hall way.