I'm really really sorry about not updating, but apparently school's having fun giving out extra homework, and then there's the flu that's been going around, and I bought a life off of E-Bay, and…

…I should stop making up excuses and get on with writing. XD

R&R

I jump, startled, craning my neck about, peering as the harsh wind blew against my face, stinging my eyes. A dead leaf is blown away; the trees branches shake, but nothing else moves. Nervously and unsteadily, I walk into the castle, greatly disturbed. "It's your imagination, Kellyn," I tell myself wryly, attempting to reassure myself, despite my own knowledge of knowing I would not succeed. "There's nothing out there. You saw for yourself. There's no one. No one."

I wring my hands, biting my lip. I was always the odd one out; the eldest, the cleverest, but I had fallen out of place in line with my sisters. I had no one in which I could confide into. The only sister to whom I was close at all to was Katrina, and of her, I could never bear to pour my burdens onto. My other sisters were either outrageously silly or much too studious, keeping a little life all to their own. Father will no longer listen to me, and my maid is dead.

A small smile makes its way to my lips. I had forgotten Mother. Mother, who always seems to know everything, as she stands royally in the back of the ballroom, quiet, seemingly blending in with the shadows. She never likes the attention she is forced to have as queen as she stays in her solitude. I make my way to Mother's bedchambers. They are so familiar to me, a flourishing red and gold that seems to make the place enchanted.

"Mother!" I say laughingly as I enter into her bedroom, smiling. She, however, does not respond to my pleasant greeting, her eyes weary and exhausted. I have rarely seen her as such before; if at all, I cannot remember it. "Mother?" I ask, concerned. "What has happened?"

"Murder has happened," she replies, her voice quiet, her eyes distant and burdened. "Surely you must have noticed, Kellyn, of all that has happened so far? Your father will not listen to me. I have mentioned it to him once in the past, but he has purposely ignored me. I am worried, Kellyn."

My smile slips away completely. "I have noticed," I say lightly in reply, though my expression was dark and uncomfortable. "Katrina has gone missing, my own maid killed, as well as the head nurse. I have had illusions as well, whispers of the wind, bloodied of the water." I held back the words of my own self being frightened. I must stand strong for Mother, who is so weak and frail a person, despite however strong her mind of knowledge is.

"You've noticed," she says, somewhat relieved, a smile caressing her lips, "I knew you would. You're my Kellyn; of course you would notice. Of course." She hesitates. "Your father has always favored you. Perhaps you can change his mind."

I shake my head. "He does not love me much. He prefers Abigail to the rest of his daughters, and Abigail is enthralled already by Prince Daray. Besides that, I have already tried; he will not listen to me, either."

Mother lets out a quivering sigh of terror and shock as all hope faded away from her eyes and expression. "No," she whispers unbelievingly. "I have always told him, continuously, that you were far better than all the other children. He must surely trust your judgment!"

"But he does not," I say quietly. I look at the velvet carpeted floor; I dare not look up to meet Mother's eyes, for fear of what I will see. After moments of silence, I can no longer bear the aching pain that my heart is experiencing. I tear my eyes away from the ground and stare intently at Mother. "You must've surely noticed," I say, "of the pattern of the rises and falls of the kingdom. No plan has ever succeeded, but the people who attempt murder get crueler and crueler as generations pass. This is the fourteenth year, Mother. What if they were to succeed this time?"

"Don't fill your head with nonsense, child," Mother says. She attempts to be snappish, but her fear and weariness instead make her sound weak. "Of course nothing of that sort will ever happen." But she is terrified inside. I know. Mother begins to shake her head, her voice growing frantic. "I told them so, many years ago. I warned them, but they didn't listen." I am lost as of what Mother is referring to now, but she seems to have forgotten me. "Hark, Helen! Do you not feel the pain now?" She appears to be in a memory she has long been stressed out upon. I chose to stay silent. "Do you not see what your insolent decisions have caused? They have wrecked me! They have caused havoc in me!" Mother burst to tears. I awkwardly leave the room, confused as of the situation.

I wonder of what has happened in the past few days. So many events have troubled me, so much more than what has happened in all my previous days in life. I hope that this clumped area of forced struggle will soon come to an end, but I highly doubt it; Father, I can no longer relate to; my sisters I fear, are lost; my maid is killed; Mother has lost her sanity.

What was I? Was I lost as well to the eyes of others?

And what of Prince Daray? Who is he? He is evil, obviously, but an evil that I cannot comprehend; he seems to be… alluring, almost, in a mysterious fashion that is unfamiliar to me. I am aware that evil does exist in this world as well as any other, as in any other fairy tale, but not all stories hold happy endings. What would be my story?

In short, Prince Daray frightens me. My blood runs cold and my feelings grow fierce with fear and hate of what he has done to my sisters, of what he is about to do; yet the manner in which he carries out these forces are seemingly both civil and uncivil, perhaps in a rude politeness in the way he speaks. He seems to be one, and seems to be yet the other. He is a figure that I cannot comprehend; it is strange to me.

All these items that swirl around me frighten me, and I wish to close it away. Why can't I? I am not yet queen; the responsibility is given to my mother. It would be easiest for me to slip away from it all, to be neutral, to avoid any interaction in such chaotic decisions and rash actions, where the price of a mistake may be the slip of death. And what was the prize? Was the prize merely to rise in society to look after a kingdom, to be forced onto great responsibility, only so that your future generations shall suffer?

It appears to me that this situation is beyond desperate, it is hopeless, failing. Both situations appear to me as dead-ended, but I am only a princess; of what do I know?

I run into my bedroom and shut the door, shaking. I bite my lip and force myself to be calm. I am no longer participating in such turmoil, such horrifying events that drastically continue, one after another. It is like a terrible play that Father used to have us watch, while the actors onstage pass on the experience to the audience, but that one difference between partaking in such events and watching it is that, while watching, no matter how terrified, there is a small sense of security.

That security has escaped from me now. I am lost as to where it is.

In my own desperate hopes to regain it back, I am sitting in the chair of my bedroom, staring at my reflection. My skin is pale, my dark hair untidy, my eyes weary. How terrible I look! The look I hold is the appearance of a villager. Had I worn a simpler garment than the current one that is bordered with jewels, I could easily pass for the daughter of a poor farmer.

I smile slightly. Perhaps that is what I ought to do. Perhaps, after all these years, I shall run away, into the lands that I want most of.

But would that be everything against all the moral lessons I have been taught? Would this be categorized as a selfish and imprudent act? Or was it as I think of it as, to follow my greatest desires? I remember Katrina's escape. Was she not thinking the same thing as I? In the gravest times, it would not be right for me to run away, as princess; but I was never princess through heart or will, but only through force and birth, the ranks of society that determine all, but remain the least important. It is ironic how the human society works.

Why do I bother with all this anyways? It appears that what is good and evil, is all an opinion; so whose judgment is it that shall decide what is good, and what is evil? Comprehension is a difficult, learned skill that most do not have the capability of understanding, even should they wish it.

It leads me to Prince Daray. Is he so evil? Does he mean well, but chose the wrong course in to which to show such attempts?

What people do to fulfill their actions, and the interpretation of such, are often two completely different matters. If it is that we are holding a terrible rule on ourselves and they wish to give the kingdom a better king, perhaps they are doing what is right, but would it not be better just to speak of it rather than to cause terror and murder?

But what would happen then; what would Father do? He would kill them. He would kill anyone who abuses him so.

Does that mean Father is evil?

I sigh, exasperated, trying to make sense of my thoughts that swirl in my mind. I attempt to get a hold of myself, telling myself that I have been thinking too much, and being practical, too little; that what is right, is right, and what is wrong, is wrong.

Yet I cannot help but wonder if both sides are right, or if both are wrong. Who would win in the end? Would, as historic patterns have proved, both of us be overthrown and a survivor take over?

I am not aware of where I am headed to, but before I grow aware of it, I find myself in a place I have never been to before. It is cold and damp, like the dungeons, that give me a chilling feel that creeps into my bones, with a musty scent that fills my nostrils. I peer in the dark, finding a body lying on the floor. It is one of Prince Daray's.

I freeze. Should I help him? Examining him closely, I notice that he had wounds, exactly as I had found him before he disappeared after I went and called for help. I recall the Daray I have met since then held no wounds.

I bite my lip. So perhaps Daray was good. It was too much of a complicated matter.

I immediately help him up, splashing nearby water onto his face. He groans as his dark eyes flicker open. "Are – are you all right?" I say, my voice quivering.

"Do I look it?" he mutters, wincing in pain. Looking around, he continues, "At the bottom of the well. At the bottom of the well."

"The well?" I repeat, astounded. "The bottom of the well is this?"

"This is the chamber that it leads to, at the bottom of the well," he says, his voice fading away. "Help me."

I attempt to support him, but I cannot help but think. I had met the fraud Daray by the well…

…and the well water was red with blood.

And if Daray was here, then who should the other be?