Crowned

Chapter One

Adelaide's POV

Here I am again, walking down the same hallways, up the same stairs, surrounded by the same scents and smells. I'm like a bird stuck in a cage, my wings forced to stay out of commision when I should be flying through the sky, searching the world that has no end. Instead I sit perched up in my luxurious cage, learning how to talk the language of liars and deceivers. The bird learns to love the sheltered life and grows attached to the saviours that keeps it fed, clean and cosy. However the bird eventually forgets the reason it was born - to fly free. The cage should be the bird's worst nightmare but it becomes a sanctuary of sorts, safe from harm, and what horrors the world has to offer. I refuse to be that bird, I will escape, I simply can't live a sheltered life no matter how terrifying the world outside these walls might be and no matter how much I love my family. I'm an orphan but I was raised by loving parents and my older brother. We may not be blood related but I consider them family non the less. They took me in when my real father and mother decided they couldn't care for a child. I don't know much about my birth mother and father, all I was told is that they had no other choice but to give me up, it was for my safety - whatever that means. I don't understand how a new born baby could be in life threatening danger, I have no other explanations that make sense other then my parents being involved in dangerous work like, assassins or part of the mafia or even in immense debt, so they had to go on the run away from the person wanting to collect, from there inability to pay the amount required. Whatever they were running from is clearly the reason my foster family keeps such a tight hold on my security in this house, but that doesn't make me want to leave this God forsaken place any less. Surely it's been long enough that I've been forgotten about by anyone that might've possibly known of my existence, surely I wasn't that important to whoever wanted my birth parents. It's been 20 years since the day they just dropped me off with the Adalwen family. My Mother Melenie Adelwen, My Father Tony Adalwen and the heir to the family, my older brother Percy Adalwen. I may not be part of their family as I still hold the Xander family name but I still call myself Adelaide Adalwen instead of Adelaide Xander. I personally think it fits better as my name is supposedly from Germanic origin and so is my foster family's surname - All too fitting in my opinion. Anyway I'm just going off the topic here, so back to the present, as I walk down the hallway towards the kitchen from my bedroom, I'm just going over my escape plan for the last time. I've been planning this meticulously for the past year, even losing out on sleep most nights to learn the changing routine of my guards that are posted outside my room day and night. Well technically it's just two guards one that does the night shift and makes sure my room is secure at all times and that no-one suspicious enters and also makes sure I don't try and do anything stupid (like escaping again). There is also a day guard that follows me around all day, making sure I am safe - yes they stay at a distance - but it is still unnerving having their eyes on me 24/7. You'd think I was famous with my own personal bodyguards, however I'm not too stoked about having them around me all the time, I barely get any privacy. I can't even get a shower or go to the toilet without someone being outside the door. That is my own fault though with my previous attempts to leave the estate. I have unsuccessfully tried every year to at least get a glimpse of the outside world past the endless trees surrounding this house. The place is so secluded it takes about 2 hours just to breach the surface of the meadow that lies past the trees - the only reason I know about that lucious meadow is because of my brother, he tells me about his travels to the cities and the monsters he encounters outside the borders of the forest. HIs stories always sound so enchanting and story book worthy. The first story he ever told me I knew I just had to see what the world had to offer outside these four walls. Percy's adventures always sound so dangerous but fun at the same time, that's why I took up martial arts and archery in secret. Yes I have the body guards watching over me all the time but they never really question my activities, the only time i'd be in danger is if my parents found out I was practicing because they'd start asking questions, that I wouldn't be able to answer unless spilling my biggest secret - which is of course my plans to escape. I know that they will all have a heart attack when they figure out I've disappeared from my room in the morning so I made sure to write a note explaining my reasons and informing them I won't be gone for long - just long enough to experience something meaningful and enlightening, instead of only experiencing things through my imagination when reading books and real articles in history explaining many beautiful places, mountains with peaks that reach the sky; biomes covered in snow and ice; oceans as blue as the sky with coral reefs with a visible outline of its journey through the waters. I don't want to just visualise them anymore, I want to see it with my own eyes - no I WILL see all the world has to offer.