I looked up at that. How did he know me? How could he know me? Questions raced through my brain quicker than I could perceive. I looked over to Durion for support. I can't deal with another strange man in my life that I am meant to know. This is too much. Durion was looking at his desk, leaving me and this strange man to speak. So he thought. Without saying a word, or looking at either of them I stood up and left.

I felt the man staring at my retreating form, trying to burn through my giu and I heard Durion chuckle behind him.

I went back to my room and grabbed my throwing knives. I strapped them along my arm guard and decided to go out and practise on the tree I had climbed earlier. I checked my watch, it was about 30 minutes to dinner, of which I had no intention to attend, and about 18 hours to my meeting with Ash.

Bastard. I didn't want anyone, Durion, coming to find me this time so I decided to climb out of the window again.

Once my feet hit the floor I decided to sprint the short 100 feet to the tree and once I was there, I created a target by lightly carving three circles into the tree. Each smaller than the last, the first about 5 inches in diameter and the last about 1.

I stood about 30 feet from the tree and raised my first knife. I took a deep breath and as I exhaled, released the knife. It flew strong and straight, hitting the outside ring exactly on the line.

My next knife hit between the outer and middle ring, my third hit the middle ring, fourth between the middle and centre, fifth on the centre ring and my final knife speared the bull's-eye.

I admired my handy work, the knives had created a row going from far right to the centre of the target. I walked over to the tree and realised that each knife had been buried at least an inch into the now mutilated oak. I had underestimated my throwing strength, by a lot. I carefully removed the rest of my 8 inch blades and re-attached them to my arm guard. I didn't want to go back to the castle just yet so I decided to go back down to the lake. The lake was behind the tree somewhere, I couldn't see all the way down like I had before because of the evening mist that had started to coat the ground. I decided to walk because the grass would be slippery thanks to the evening haze.

I reached the lake just as the final rays of sunlight were setting behind me.

I sat down on the pebbled shore and watched the ripples radiated out over the water. I heard someone approach and come to stand behind me. I had crossed my arms earlier so I was in the perfect position to stealthily remove one of my throwing knives. I did exactly that and in one fluid movement stood, pivoted and threw a knife directly at the centre of the man from Durion's offices' forehead.

I gasped as I realised who I'd just thrown a very sharp 8 inch knife at. I closed my eyes and waited for the knife to bury itself in his forehead, ultimately inviting my death along with it. But the thud never came. I gingerly opened my eyes, he was twirling the knife in one hand.

I chuckled, of course he would pick it out of the air.

"Nice throw" He commented, while handing the knife back to me.

I returned it to my arm sheath.

"Thanks."

I sat down again and kept staring out over the lake.

"you're not very entertaining are you."

"Well if you'd had two sets of parents killed, and probably now your brother, been kidnapped by your best friend and your old crush who now is literally a controlling asshole, who you were by the way almost killed by, oh yeah and you found out that you're meant to be this weird, magical lost princess being interesting wouldn't really be your first priority."

"Touché, young Thia, touché."

His little nickname for me was really starting to grate on my nerves.

"Don't call me that."

He ignored my comment and carried on absently scratching designs into a pebble he'd picked up.

"Since you now practically know my whole story, can I at least learn your name?"

"Korvon"