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tainted promises - check my favourites stats! My horsie is a nice horsie, he doesn't kick he likes kisses on his nose. His whiskers tickle - he has very long ones! That horse who kicked you was probably in a bad mood - don't hold it against all horses!

Chapter 2 - Found, but not saved.

That night, four lives were forever changed. The life of Eve, of course - snatched from her cradle in the depths of the night. The life of Queen Ella - who wasted away and finally died, almost a year after her daughter disappeared. The life of King Charmont, who, consumed with grief for his dead wife and lost child, gave up and jumped of a cliff, onto the sharp rocks in the river below. His body was never found. And finally, the life of Mordred. More precisely, his Royal Highness, King Mordred of Kyrria.

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"Eve! Hurry up! I need those vegetables, so stop dawdling and pick them!"

Eve snapped out of her trance, hearing Coral calling. The cook was impatient at the best of times - and today she was definitely not at her best. She straightened up from where she had been kneeling and looked around. She was surprised that anything actually grew in the garden - in the bleak, desolate landscape of southern Kyrria at all, actually. Here in the south, everyone had to work hard to earn a living, and no-one was ever happy. Including Eve.

She had been found on the doorstep of the house when she was only a few days old. Anna and Colin, the Countess and Count, were only minor nobles but Colin especially made sure that everyone knew that he was worth more than them. Anna was different.

She was a poor, sickly woman who had never had any children. She had been forced to marry Colin by her father, the village headsman, who fancied having someone noble in the family. When Anna saw the tiny child, whom the made had brought in, her heart went out to her. She knew life would be hard for a motherless baby girl - who was worth nothing. So she convinced Colin to take the child in and treated her well.

All the other servants, including Coral, despised Eve because they felt she received special treatment. As Colin refused to adopt Eve, Anna made sure that the work she did was not too much for a child, and that she always had enough food.

But all that changed when Eve was seven. Anna became sicker and sicker that winter, and finally died. In Anna, Eve had lost her mother figure - and her only real friend. She had never known how hard it was to live, day in, day out, without a kind word from anybody. She received no pay - Colin being a stingy, mean man, and Eve possessed nothing but two plain dresses of good material (provided by Anna), and a baby's blanket with her name embroidered on it. Eve liked to think it was her mother who had embroidered her name - a mother she had never meet, but liked to think loved her. Then she would shake herself out of such a sentimental thought.

By the time she was sixteen, Eve had perfected an image of a tough, unapproachable girl on the outside who wasn't scared of punishment. But on the inside - well, that was another story. She often wished Anna was still alive, just to give her a kind word now and then. The others thought she thought she was special, and Eve didn't know it, but she was very pretty with her dark hair, porcelain skin and deep green eyes. Jealousy gave them another reason to hate her. When the cook and other servants whispered things about her, underneath her sharp retorts, she was crying inside. But crying got you nowhere in Eve's world - so she didn't.

After picking up her basket of vegetables, she returned to the kitchen.

"Here, Coral."

"Finally! But I can expect no less from a wench whose parents abandoned her," she said with a snide smile.

Eve bit back a sharp retort - she would only get the worst work to do if she was tempted by Coral's bait. "What next?"

"Go down to the village and get me some fresh bread. And be quick about it - you know what will happen if you are more than half an hour."

Eve shivered. She knew all to well what would happen. The scars on her back showed what the frequent beatings had done to her since she was seven. Even if she had not been sarcastic to Coral or done no jobs wrong, the cook invented reasons to get Colin to punish her. The uppity little wench, they all thought. Gives herself airs because the mistress was nice to her. Deserves everything she gets!

"Alright, alright! I'm going!"

Eve felt weak from hunger and wasn't looking forward to her walk down to the village. Oh well, she thought. At least I'll get to see Lucas.

Lucas, or Luke, was the closest thing to a friend Eve had. She had met him when she was eight, when Anna had been dead for a while and they started giving her the hardest jobs. He was three years older than her, and often took pity on her when she had to lug water all the way from the village river to the house, or other harder jobs. But when he was around his friends, Luke never paid her the slightest glance. He had told her he thought it would be better if they weren't seen together as everyone in the manor hated her and it could make life harder for him. Eve never showed it, but Lucas's attitude really hurt her and sometimes she wondered if he was her friend at all.

Today she was in luck though. None of his friends were in sight and Luke came running up to meet her as she drew near to the village.

"Hey Eve, haven't seen you for a while."

"I know you don't want to talk while your friends are about, so I don't bother trying to find you."

"No need to be like that! We both know that it's the best thing to do, right? C'mon, I'll help you with the basket. You look worn out - are you hungry? I'll get some food from our house, hang on."

Eve was grateful to Luke, she really was, but she just didn't know how she felt about him. She hated how he was so worried about his image. Would a true friend really care? She wondered. But she brushed the thought away. He's kind to you, she chided herself. He helps you with work. He gets you food if you're starving. Lately she had been wondering if she liked him as more than a friend - but she had to figure out what she thought about him as a friend before anything else happened.

"Sorry I took so long, just had to wait while mum was outside - don't want her to see where I'm going."

Eve felt a twinge of pain. He cares if his mum sees me?

"But anyway, here's some food."

"Thanks Luke, don't know what I'd do without you."

"No probs, now let's go do your shopping."

Lucas swung his arm over her shoulder and they set off - in the back alleyways of the village, of course.

After her shopping was done, Eve waited with Luke for a while, just talking about how things were going for her. She told him how Coral had been giving all the work lately since another maid had left.

"I wish I could leave too. Leave and NEVER come back. But I'd have nowhere to go - no family. But I suppose I'm lucky - no ties to family or anyone.

"You've got ties to me, Eve. I'd miss you awfully if you went," Luke said softly. He grasped her chin and pulled it up, making her look him straight in the eyes. She had never noticed how blue they were before - a deep, clear shade of blue. He pulled her closer.

But suddenly, Eve pulled out of his grasp.

"What? What did I do? Eve?"

But she was already running back up the road leading to the house. Her words floated back on the wind. "I'm sorry, Lucas."
What was I doing? Eve thought frantically. I promised myself this wouldn't happen. I don't know how I feel about Luke. I'll just end up hurting him.

Too late, she remembered Coral's warning. As she burst through the kitchen door, she saw the cook waiting.

"Well, well, well. Look what we have her. A wench who's late AGAIN. Well, Eve, you know what's going to happen."

Eve trembled, but wouldn't, couldn't break down. "Yes. And I don't care!"

"DON'T cheek me, wench! The master is waiting in there! MOVE, now!"

Eve braced herself as she walked through to the next room.

"Well hello there, Eve. Why don't you come over here?"

Eve so wanted to cower down, to protect herself, but she wouldn't. As the whip lashed out time after time, the wounds in her back reopened and ran red with blood, she didn't cry out. Not once.

Sorry about Ella and Char dying - HAD to do it, people!

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