Author's Note: Thank you to all the people who have reviewed, favourited and/or are following this story. While I haven't really be writing much for this story, I will be trying to make a conscious effect to updating this story with all the chapters that I do have written and which have been written for about five years, hopefully they will see the light of the internet shortly.

Chapter XIV

Jane's heart raced as she snuck up one of the servant's many, many back staircases that were all around the Castle. Every so often a great ball of fire flashed by the windows of the Castle followed by Dragon's roaring and the sound of many men yelling from the ground below.

She ran quickly on silent feet towards the little majesties nursery only slowing when she heard frantic whispers from within the chamber.

Her heart beat calmed the moment she heard her mother's voice from within the nursery.

"Mother?" Jane called softly as she pushed her way into the room, easily pushing aside the furniture that had been pressed against the door of the nursery. She could only hope that those hidden inside the nursery had been planning to add more to the barricade against the door before she had arrived, otherwise the enemy knights would have faced no issue with entry the nursery.

"Oh, Jane!" Her mother rushed to her side, pulling tightly against. Without hesitation, Jane returned her mother's frantic hug, noting that it wasn't just her mother who was shaking terribly as they held each other.

"Mother, mother, please calm down." Jane urged as she gently, but firmly pried herself out of her mother's arms. "Mother we have to get out of here. We must leave now!"

"We can't." Sara the nursemaid sobbed, her face bleached white with fear.

"Why? Why not?" Jane demanded before looking around the nursery and seeing immediately what, or rather, who was missing.

"Where is the Princess? Where is Lavinia?"

"She heard the fighting and ran off to find Mother." Prince Cuthbert answered her. For one so young and usually quite the scaredy-cat the little prince was showing far more composure than most of the adults standing around the room, certainly more his Mother's ladies-in-waiting who were clustered in a corner of the room sobbing.

"Right." Jane said, forcing herself to remain calm as she tried to force her panicking mind to formulate a plan that would get everyone out of the castle safely AND finding the lost princess at the same time.

There were many Shadow Knights moving freely around the Castle now, those weren't involved in the battle and to get a group consisting largely of weeping, near hysterical women around them without being detected was no easy feat. Especially when said group also contained the prince and heir to the throne, which if they were spotted by the enemy, it would most likely bring every enemy knight within shouting range onto them to try and capture the prince. So protecting him was of highest priority.

As was finding Lavinia! And Jane was, aside from the Queen herself, the person most likely to be able to bring the Princess out from wherever she was hiding.

"We're going to have to leave here." Jane spoke louder than she wished to over the noise of sobbing women, rolling her eyes as her words were met with the predicable wails of horror.

"Shut up! We have to!" She barked over the noise. She was a little taken back when the wailing abruptly stopped and that she had the attention of all who stood in the royal nursery. It was a little, unnerving, to have people listen to her after so many years of being face with scorn and sniffs of disapproval from these very women before her.

"If we stay here, they will find us and they will…" she didn't finish her sentence allowing the women around her to finish it themselves inside their heads.

"So where will we go? How do we get out?" It was Sara who asked her, the only person aside from her mother and the little prince who seemed to have gained some control over their emotions and was not allowing their fear to run away from them.

"Through the Servant's gate… if," and her voice faltered a little as she thinks of all the soldiers she has seen all over the castle and that, when she last looked out the window, they had been out in the courtyard, heading in the direction of said gate, "if it has not been blocked by enemy soldiers already." She swallows back her own terror as she forces her frightened brain to think up, yet again, another back-up plan. All great knights have more than one; their minds always open to all possibilities and ever changing circumstances and Jane was determined to be a great knight even if she was still only just a squire herself.

She knew there were several other gates that led out of the Castle, most of which were well-known and were well-used, the Servant's gate being a prime example, but there were others, others that were not so familiar to the general gentry and were only used by those who knew of them. And one of those said gates was the one in Royal Gardens, at the far back, half hidden by well cared for climbing vines and trees, a gate used solely by the royal gardeners. And they were far closer to it than they were to the Servant's gate

"We should leave now." She says once she was certain of their course of action, "If we can't get through the Servant's Gate, go through the gate at the far end of the Royal Garden's."

"What about the Princess?" Her mother asked.

"Don't worry about her, I'll go and look for her now, just get yourselves and his little majesty out of the Castle."

"I'm not leaving without my family!" Cuthbert cried out angrily, shoving his way to angrily stand before Jane.

"Little Prince, you must." Jane replied gently, laying a hand upon his young shoulder, "I promise I will bring your family to you but you must leave with my mother now. Do you understand?" the young prince glared up at her for a moment before sighing heavily.

"Alright. But you must promise to bring them to me"

"Thank you little highness. And I do so promise. Now, we must leave." Jane said, her sharp ears picking up the sounds of running feet heading in their general direction.

"We must be very quick and quiet, so stop all your snivelling, it will do you no good." Jane ordered gesturing for the women and the little prince to gather behind her as drew her sword from where she had strapped it to her back. Her still wounded arm ached from the weight of her dragon's blade but she ignored it as she started moving out of the nursery and creeping down the dark corridor.

"Keep close and stay quiet." Jane hissed trying to appear calm and in control of the horrific situation that they had been forced into.

The more they moved towards the Servant's Gate via one of the Castle's many servants' corridors, the more Jane saw that it would be impossible for a group as large as theirs to get out that way.

"Jane," her mother questioned when she pulled to an abrupt stop in front of the small group of women.

"We can't get out that way." Jane groaned pointing out the many, many soldiers barring them from their goal.

"We're doomed!" one courtly lady gasped, terror filling her voice and causing others around her to start gasping and sobbing in fear all over again.

"Oh, do stop it!" Jane snapped in disgust, "We're not doomed. We simply need to change our plan, that's all."

"But you…"

"I said that we can't get out via the Servant's Gate but there are more than one way of leaving this Castle. Some that we can leave by virtually undetected."

Jane could still hear whimpers of hesitation and fear but she ignored them as she changed course and snuck back the way they had come, heading now towards the Royal Gardens, reasoning that Jester and the others, having discovered that they could not get out by the Servant's gate, would do what she was currently doing herself and alter their course and try for the more hidden and less known Gardeners gate.

Few knew of it, it being so well hidden behind trees and vines. Jane only knew of its existence because Rake had told her of it once. He had only told her of the gate because she was feeling sour towards him for winning a game of hide and seekers seven times in a row and she had demanded to know where it had been that he had hidden himself so thorough during those seven rounds. Jester had called it cheating but now Jane was a thousand times glad she had pestered her friend for the location of the gate.

She was quick to direct her mother on where exactly the gate was located, telling her and the rest of them needed to keep to shadows and stay as quiet as a mouse. At the mention of 'mouse' had several of the courtly ladies gasping out loud in disgust and horror. If the situation wasn't so dire, Jane might have laughed.

"Jane…" Her mother started, grasping her arm gently.

"I need to go and find the Princess Mother. It is my duty to protect her. And if anyone is to get her to come out of wherever she has hidden herself it will be me."

Her mother sighed and nodded her head heavily.

"Yes, this is very true. Go my darling and please," her mother whispered as she cupped her daughter's chin, "please keep yourself safe."

"I will mother, I promise." Jane replied as she pressed her pale hand against her mother's as her mother kissed her forehead and gave her a mother's blessing.

"Now, you must go before the soldiers started scouring the gardens." Jane said as she gently pushed her mother and the young princeling towards the Royal Gardens. "You must be…" She stopped there for she could hear a set of footsteps hurrying in their direction.

"Hide." Jane hissed motioning for those around her to hide behind pillars or window drapes. Jane drew her sword and stood behind the pillar closest to the source of the running feet. She counted slowly under her breath until the footsteps where right next to her pillar before she jumped out, her sword raised, ready to strike the stranger down.

"Jane!"

Jane lost her balance the moment she heard her father's voice forcing him to reach out and catch as she staggered under the weight of her misdirected strike.

"Father?"

"Jane," Lord Milton sighed out in relief, "Adeline." He added when his wife came racing to his side with a cry of 'Oh, Milly!'.

"You're both alright!"

"Yes, we are and soon we all will be, if we could just continue with the plan." Jane said. She didn't wish to sound impatient but she could hear that the battle was growing steadily worse and from up above them she could hear Dragon's roars were becoming all the more desperate.

Where was the Wizard when they needed him? Why wasn't he out there helping? Or maybe he was but so far she had seen no great displays of magic.

"Plan?" Her father asked.

"Gardener's gate." Jane replied simply trying to usher everyone to start moving once more.

"I know the one." Her father replied but Jane could hear the worry in his voice.

"What is it?" She asked him quietly.

He shook his head regretfully.

"I fear the Castle is lost…"

"Papa," Jane hissed, angry that her father could give up so easily, "don't say such things!"

"Jane, you haven't been in the main areas of the Castle, you have not seen…" He trailed off and shook his head once more.

"Where are the King and Queen?" Jane asked.

"With our Knights."

"They're trapped, aren't they?" Jane said understanding her father's facial expressions and reading what he wasn't putting into words.

"Yes."

"We have the Prince." She offered in desperation, desperate to remove the utterly defeated expression from her father's face. Her father's face shifted for a moment, a look of hope entering his eyes.

"The Princess?"

"I'm going to go and find her once I'm sure you and the rest are safely heading for the Gardener's gate."

"Jane…"

"I must. It is my duty."

She saw her father, like her mother before him, struggling to accept this but Jane was determined to fulfil her duty to her kingdom.

"Be safe." Was all her father said in the end and they fell silent as they snuck down into the Royal Gardens.

Jane watched her mother, father, the Prince and the lucky few with them running through the darkness of the gardens towards safety, safety that she prayed they would meet with open arms. She fought back the strange feeling she had that she wouldn't be seeing her mother or father again, not for a very long time. She didn't have time for such thoughts!

She looked up above her head at Dragon, still roaring and flaming above the Castle. Arrows were being shot at him, but they bounced harmlessly off his belly scales much to Jane's relief.

Once she found the Princess, she would call him down and have him carry the little girl to safety. And if she was lucky, she would have do the same thing with the King and Queen. She just had to find them all first.

Starting first with the Princess.