Princess of Pandoria (Editing)

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

After stashing the manuscript and note in a desk drawer, I stumbled to my bed and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow. What felt like a minute later, I was woken by the swarm of maid sent daily by my mother. When I glanced in the mirror, my reflection had dark circles under her barely open eyes.

Luckily, I had lessons first and my tutor took pity on me. When Lady Elwin, my tutor, saw me, she sent me back to bed with the strict command to come back when I had another several hours worth of sleep. I protested that my mother would definitely not be happy; she winked at me and said,

“Let me handle the Lady General. I’m sure I can convince your mother to let you get a few more hours of sleep. You’re coming along quite well, so you can afford to miss a few lessons. Besides, lack of sleep is bad for you looks!”

With that she shooed me out the door and ordered me back to my tower. I got back to my tower and decided I could read at least a little bit more before sleeping. I did feel bad about tricking Lady Elwin like that, but not enough to convince me otherwise.

I run to the top of my tower and pull out the manuscript. Before I go any farther, I should probably explain about my tower.

The Castle of Pandoria is built in a circle and at the very center is my tower. Around my tower was a small courtyard separating it from the rest of the palace. I had no idea why the tower was built, but I had lived her as long I had been able to live in my own room. My tower had seven floors and at the very top is my bedroom. No one else lives here except for me, which means that I get quite a degree of privacy.

Anyways, I sat at my desk and started reading the manuscript, wondering what would happen next.

The next morning, the construction of our new city began. The first day passed without any major problems and the two days later was when the humans finally caught up with us.

The lookouts we had set were able to report about the humans, giving us about half an hour to hide everything.

Everyone on the ground hurried onto the pulleys, and after everyone was in the treetops, we moved the horses onto the pulleys and used them to load the horses into the trees. Mages used illusions to hide any trace of us below or above. Then, we all sat silently waiting for the humans to appear.

What felt like hours later, though it was only a few minutes, the humans led their horses into view. Apparently, their horses were not intelligent enough to traverse the forest by themselves. Glancing around, I saw parents holding hands over their children’s mouths, eyes wide with fear. The Elfin People are, at heart, a peaceful people, and the threat of violence was a looming fear.

The voices of the humans drifted up towards where we hid. The prince—now king—who had started everything was ordering his soldiers around, demanding that they find us. There were fewer soldiers than we had expected and a snippet of the conversation I heard explained why.

“—I’m sure we would have found them by now I those cowards hadn’t turned back at the plain! All of the dogs refused to cross and that slowed us even more! We had a hard enough time getting the horses to continue and that wasted several hours! It was almost like halfway across the plain was a border to another world.” I heard another voice hush them.

“Quiet! If His Majesty hears you, you know what he’ll do! Let’s just find those cursed elves so we can leave this demon-possessed forest!” With that, the voices faded away.

The humans searched around for almost an hour when the worst happened. A baby’s cry broke the anxious silence of the forest. The child was hushed a moment later but it was too late.