"Wasn't the ball fun last night?" Kally asked the morning after the ball as we prepared our horses. I nodded. "So, what happened with you and that Joren fellow?" she giggled.
"None of your business!" I snapped. She only laughed again.
"Ooo, sure Lark. Did he kiss you?" asked Shauni, walking into the stable where the Princess's Elite were tacking their horses.
"I'm not telling you that!" I said angrily.
"He did! I knew it, it was so obvious, the way he was looking at you!" she taunted.
"He kissed you?" inquired Meliora of Mandash, walking her horse forward.
"Who?" Jelena of Irenroha wanted to know.
"What are you guys talking about?" asked Regan of Nicoline and her best friend Bailey of Tasride.
Soon, all the girls had gathered around me, chattering wildly and demanding details. They had all been cooped up in finishing and convent schools and had little contact with boys. I knew they wouldn't relent until I told.
"Let's get on our way and I'll tell you everything." I compromised.
As we rode through the Royal Forrest in the early morning light, the girls went back to the subject of my interaction with Joren.
"Tell Lark! You said!" Meliora reminded me.
"Okay, okay. But I promise you'll be let down," I conceded. The other girls' groaned.
"Something is better than nothing! Have any of you guys ever been kissed, by someone other than a family member?" Allyrianne, the youngest of us, asked the others. Only Serena of Darroch and Shana of Josu's Dirk, the two eldest at 18, could say that they had. "So? Answer." Allyrianne commanded.
"Fine. He kissed me." I admitted, while the girls squealed happily.
"What was it like?" said Regan.
"What do you mean? It was like a kiss," I didn't want to give them the details!
Regan rolled her eyes. "You know what I meant!"
"I don't know. It was nice, I guess. I kinda liked it." I allowed.
"When? Where? How?" they all wanted to know.
"In the garden after the ball was over. We were walking along and he stopped, grabbed my hand and leaned down to kiss me." I explained. They shrieked with delight.
"That's the most romantic thing I've ever heard!" sighed Lydian of Hannalof.
"I almost got kissed once," said Kally, I was glad to be out of the limelight. All attention focused on the princess.
"By who?" I asked, truly interested.
"His name was Ryan of Groten. He was a squire of my father's when I was 12," Kally answered.
"How can someone almost kiss you?" said Jelena.
"Well, we were both in my father's office. We had become friends since he was in the service of my father. We were just about to kiss…. When my father walked in. Needless to say, he avoided me after that."
"Awww!" the girls sighed sympathetically.
"Did your father know you were about to kiss?"
"His lips were like, this far away," Kally demonstrated with her hand almost touching her lips, "My father's not as dumb as you'd think. He knew, and I think he told Ryan to stay away from me."
The conversation went from kisses, to boys in general, to marriage and children and back to kisses in the course of the day. We arrived at the inn at dusk and had dinner before retiring exhausted to bed.
Our journey continued with the same ritual of traveling by day, and when there were no inns, we used tents. The girls were all in good spirits, though the weather was quite cold as we got further north. Finally, after 2 weeks of travel, we were on the outskirts of Fief Glen Echo. We found ourselves in worse spirits because of the heavy snow and thick forests that surrounded Castle Glen Echo.
The castle itself was intimidating enough to make us want to turn around the moment we broke through the heavy trees to get a glance at it. It was extremely old and well defended, seemingly impenetrable. The walls were dense stone and atop the curtain wall men-at-arms prowled, always on the lookout. We had to be extremely careful so as not to be seen. The first night that we camped in the woods, Kally called a meeting.
"So. Now we're here, how do we do this?" she asked the assembled girls. They mumbled and shrugged, as baffled as their leader. "Lark? Any ideas?" Kally turned to me as her second in command.
She assumed that as the granddaughter to the famed general, I would know how to do this sort of thing. The truth was, I was just as clueless as them. Grandfather Emry had explained all this battle strategic and logic stuff to my brothers, but now I regret sitting idly and not paying attention. They were all depending on me, I couldn't let them see that I didn't know what I was doing. It couldn't be that hard, could it?
"First, we should, umm, scope out the location. Find the weakest place in their defense. We should find out when the guard changes, oh, and we have to find out where this heir is being held," I made up as I went along.
"How do we do that?" asked Jelena.
"We have to get an inside source, someone who works in the castle and knows where he is," I replied, as if that helped.
"Help! Help!" a shrill voice interrupted our meeting. We turned to say a ragged girl running up to us, a servant girl by the looks of it. She ran up to me and frantically grabbed my hands, fear obvious in her eyes.
"It's okay! Here, sit down. Lydi, get her some food," I ordered. She was completely out of breath and it took her a few minutes before she was able to talk to us. "What happened? Who are you?" I asked.
She gulped. "My name is Millicent. I'm a maid at Castle Glen Echo, have you come to help Master Kenton?" she answered.
"Seems our prayers have been answered." I said, she looked at me, confused. "You are exactly what we need to uh, help Master Kenton. Can you do that?"
"What do I have to do?"
Author's Note- not much of a cliffhanger, even if I hadn't written this it would be obvious what's going to happen next.