Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or places, they all belong to Tamora Pierce (lucky duck!), except for Ilane, Markel and a few others I made up.
A/N – Hey everybody. I was busy this week and wrote like 4 chapters, so I won't bore you with a long A/N at the start of each. This is probably the last for a while. Please just remember to review!
2. Disgrace
She would be more than disgraced for possibly killing Sir Keril of Meron. She would face a criminal court and fines and jail time or exile…
She started crying again. Maybe it was the curse. Because she certainly wouldn't be finishing her page training. Her mother would be furious, not to mention her father, and she had already seen the look on Markel's face… they would all, above all, be disappointed in her. Her mother hadn't said as much, but Ilane knew that she longed for her only daughter to follow in her footsteps. To be a Lady Knight of the realm of Tortall. But that would never happen know.
Ilane was the middle child of seven, and the only girl. Markel, at thirteen, was a year older than her; Nealan was sixteen and, like his namesake once had, was studying at the royal university to become a healer. Piers was nineteen and a knight of the realm, stationed at the Tyran border this season.
Josef was two years younger than Ilane, and had not decided whether he would enter page training this summer. Kieran, who felt very grown up at the grand age of seven, had already decided what he would do with his life: he was going to be a pirate and make his fortune in gold before sailing off to find new lands. No one had liked to mention to him that the rest of the family spent their lives getting rid of pirates and bandits, and repairing the damage they did. Ilane knew that was just his childish fancy, and she had a feeling that he would end up at the university. He had an amazing appetite for books. This she had quickly discovered in the two months she had spent at home between Shang training and leaving for the palace.
She had been away when both Kieran and her youngest brother Rinley, still chubby with baby fat at four, had been born. She knew Markel better than all of her siblings, and she was only just getting to know him. Piers had gone to the palace to commence page training a year before she left for Shang, when she was only three. Neal had gone to stay with his cousins on the coast when she was one. So in all, she had stayed home until she was four, and had only just returned for two months the previous summer.
It made Ilane sad to think just how little she knew her family. She had year mates who had lost their loved ones to bandit attacks, and had seen them mourn. She sometimes wondered whether she would feel anything at the loss of her family members, for she felt no real connection with anyone except Markel.
Ilane realized she didn't have much left in her life. She was beyond disgraced, with no where left to run, and no one to turn to.