Royalty comes with Pride

Chapter 6

Her headscarf had fallen. The guards were in the doorway, well one of them was. The other was passed out on the floor from the surprise. "I'll make a deal here and now. You don't tell anyone and say you buried the body and let her go in the village and I'll pay you 4 times your usual wage." The singular guard looked interested but knew he couldn't disobey the King and Queen's orders. He left and the twins didn't know if the guard had made up his mind or if he needed time to think.

A few minutes later, the headscarf was back over Yumiko and Spencer was pacing outside the door. Soon enough, the guard returned but with him was another and the two were holding a retainment stretcher. Spencer had heard of them but never in his life had he seen one, they looked horrible. It was a wooden plank with unkempt ropes to hold down the unfortunate soul who had to be retained with this device. He tried to block them from entering but was held to one side by yet another guard who had either been there for a while or materialised out of the dark corridor. It pained him to hear screams, shouts and thuds from the room, but after what seemed like hours the guards eventually emerged with a struggling Yumiko on the retainment stretcher. "Get me off of here! At least let me walk to wherever you're taking me! I AM NOT A CRIMINAL OR A CHILD!" The princess' voice was already breaking and as they went past her brother was the tears streaming down her face as he followed her and the guards, Spencer wasn't leaving her with these guards after what supposedly happened last time.

The four walked up and down staircases, round and round corridors turning left and right and left again through dark, damp passageways. Yumiko's cries had subsided after a small beating that her brother couldn't prevent and she's stopped struggling. When they emerged from the passages and into the castle halls there were a few seconds of blindness from the contrast of black and gloomy to spotlessly white. The guards took the two into the library, where the King and Queen sat waiting. Her Majesty looked as if she were about to burst with relief, anger or even sadness but her husband wore the same, emotionless expression he always had. "Your Majesties, may we present the girl in question of identity." It wasn't so much of a request as a statement or note of a fulfilled deal side.

Spencer couldn't help a small chuckle as when the guards placed the stretcher vertically her head flopped downwards, she'd fallen asleep. 'Ahem' the king had made her stir and got an unnoticed scowl from his son. "Madam, please state your identity for their Majesties, the King and Queen." The first guard poked her in the side rather violently waking her, earning the guard an even heavier scowl from Spencer. "Spencer, darling, please don't scowl like that you'll crease yourself forehead from a young age." The Queen seemed more concerned about her son getting forehead lines than her potential daughter who had been missing for months. "Mother I cannot not scowl at the person who just rather violently poked my sister in the side of her stomach."

That caught everyone's attention, the guard had mentioned the person looked rather similar to the princess but nobody had expected it to actually be her. One of the guards made a movement towards Yumiko and reached a hand out to remove the headscarf to reveal the identity but suddenly his eyes widened and after a hitched breath the guard fell to the floor. The Queen screeched with horror as blood started to pool from his back. As everyone in the room was trying to come to terms with what just happened another guard ran in, panting and out of breath. "Your Majesties, someone has broken into the castle. They killed an on duty guard and took the weapon, we would recommend you leave to your safety areas immediately." A break in, this had never happened before. The castle was full of hidden corridors and rooms for this kind of emergency but most of them were forgotten.

The remaining guards escorted the King and Queen out of the room, "Do not leave my son in this danger! Someone go and bring him to a safer area!" The Queen was practically screaming but was ignored, Spencer was not a priority for the guards in their safety escort manual. But with all the distractions he managed to swipe the key from the head guard to free his sister. After she was loose the two ran, unlike their parents they knew every hidden room in the castle and had made small dens, libraries and even left a few of their playrooms that they had made out of forgotten rooms. And the two knew which were forgotten by hearing their parents ordering servants to clean the other rooms. They went through the one in the library as it was the closest and smiles were painted onto the twins' faces when they saw the room.

It was the playroom they'd kept tidy and clean for as long as they could remember, it had all their old favourite toys and books, a small stash of food that used to be a stolen sweets box had been recently replenished by Spencer who kept this room useable while Yumiko was away. "You remembered to clean it, oh how much I have missed this place." The princess had tears beginning to leak from her eyelids as she took in the surroundings of the place she'd grown to love regardless of how childish it was. She had rope burns from the struggling of the retainment stretcher but knew they'd heal with time. The two sat having a quiet catch-up and conversation about random things which popped into mind until they heard a voice calling "I'll find you eventually Yumiko, Luna and Zoë have said a lot about recent events."

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Word count: 1020

Who is the person? How to they know Zoë and Luna and what are the intentions?

Well, we'll have to wait for me to figure that out because I don't plan my books