Fire & Flowers

Chapter 1

   It was a usual morning at Summerton. I woke up bright and early, a sleeping Cal next to me and, while it was still early, sunlight streaming through the terribly drawn curtains. I checked the clock next to me, 6:30 AM. I groaned, knowing I had to get up and go get ready for the day. Unfortunately, I had to start work bright and early. I was a servant to the royal family due to the color of my blood. The way things worked in our country was that if you had silver blood, you were elite. Every silver family, or high house, had its own unique ability. That's what made them think they were so special. Those of us with red blood didn't have any abilities. At least that's what the silvers thought until I was about fifteen. I had been a servant since I was around thirteen or fourteen. I don't exactly know why they asked me of all people to work there, but it had been worth it. Of course, I had to leave my family behind, but it was better than leaving them for conscription. If I had left them for conscription, there was a very slim chance I would come back. While I did not go to the Stilts to visit them, I would be able to see them as I was not condemned to death as those who had been conscripted were. That was the one thing I actually was appreciative about when it came to my job.

   At fifteen years old, I found out about that I had my own ability. The ability that I had seemed to be more powerful than any Silvers. This sparked a whole debate between the queen and her husband on how to keep it hidden from the public. She thought it would cause outrage and things would change because of it, so they decided to hide me as a normal red servant. Her husband, though, had decided to have someone train me. I had two people train me in reality. Moondance trained me as much as she could, but Cal trained me the most out of the two. I knew that Moondance had purposely left the two of us alone at some points, but I didn't mind to be honest. This allowed Cal and I to get rather cozy in those sessions and even though many would argue that Cal had to be nice to servants, I never believed that was the case. Cal was very fiery, almost as fiery as the bright red hair that fell down my back. In the end, I wasn't wrong. Moondance had been the first to notice that this was more than just friendly encounters between trainer and trainee. Now, Cal and I had been together for a little bit.

   I shut the door to Cal's room, softly. The hallways seemed deserted and silent. That was a good thing for me as I needed to make sure I wasn't caught. If I was caught by a sentinel or Elara it could mean severe consequences. After all, I was simply a servant who had just snuck out of a prince's room. I stepped through the halls lightly, my footsteps as silent as the rest of my surrounding environment. A peaceful hush had fallen over Summerton and it was only a matter of time before that was over. Usually the halls were chaos throughout the day and it was nice to be able to experience peace and quiet. I took it in and smiled as I neared my room. I had nearly made it without anyone noticing me when I ran into someone. My mind raced as I thought that it could be Elara. In reality, it was just Miriam, another servant in the palace.

   "Good morning, Fleur, you're up bright and early," she noted, a smile on her face. She was always rather pleasant. If she was silently suspicious of why I was out here early, she didn't show it. "I usually never see you up this early," she said. She wasn't wrong. I was only up this early to sneak out of Cal's room and it was very rare that I ran into anybody while doing so.

   I gave her a small smile. "Just figured I'd maybe get an early start," I told her. "I figured I'd go for a little walk to wake me up." She gave me a look, but just nodded and headed off. And there was the look of suspicion. I shrugged it off before finally arriving at the door to my room.

   I headed inside my room before going to get ready. I needed to get out there as soon as possible. I had some Queenstrial things to attend to as it was only days away. I was essentially in charge of planning a lot of things at the palace or having something to do with the planning of each of them. We still had tons of stuff to do and the event was only getting closer by the day. I was meeting with some of the other servants in a little bit in order to finish it up.