Outcasts and Royals

Chapter 3

Consciousness finally returned to Katherine. However, when she tried to open her eyes again, all she could see was darkness.

"Hey, what's going on! Where am I?" Katherine asked. Someone removed her blindfold, and she looked around to see her kidnapper, along with a young man with black hair and green eyes, and a red-haired woman wearing pants. "So you were the one who kidnapped me, but who are you two?"

"Since I can't be known as 'the man who kidnapped you' for the rest of our time together, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Damien," the man who helped free Bonnie answered.

"I am Erik, and this is Sylvia," the other man added.

"Together, we are the Group of Outcasts," Sylvia declared.

"What do you mean by outcasts?" Katherine asked.

"You see, my mother died after she had me, and my father died in a fire accident when I was eight. Soon afterward, I became friends with Damien, a boy who ran away from home to escape his abusive stepfather. We've been together ever since," Erik explained.

"How about you?" Katherine asked Sylvia.

"My parents wanted me to be a proper lady. I, however, desired adventure, which is exactly what these boys gave me when I joined them after my parents' deaths," Sylvia replied as she played around with her knife.

"How did they die?" Katherine asked, concerned, hoping she wasn't sitting in a boat with a murderer.

"The plague. Luckily I didn't get it. Anyway, I heard that you didn't want to go back to the palace when Damien found you. Why is that?"

"Because I am NOT Princess Madeline," Katherine answered, annoyed that everyone was assuming she was the Princess that she had never even met before.

"But if you aren't the Princess, why do you look remarkably like her?" Damien asked.

"I don't get to choose how I look, and I ended up looking like a princess I hardly know," Katherine responded.

"There's only one way to confirm that you are not the Princess. Who were the first King and Queen of Katrela?" Erik questioned.

"Um, King Pierre and Queen Julianna?" Katherine guessed, completely unsure what the correct answer was.

"Yeah, that's not correct."

"I don't even live in Katrela and was simply going for a ride in the forest between Katrela and Ilvainya, which is where I live with my aunt," Katherine admitted.

"What about your parents?" Erik asked.

"Aunt Elizabeth told me they would be unable to raise me, so they sent me to live with her."

"Ah, we're finally at the Island of Home," Damien said once an island came into view.

"The Island of Home?" Katherine asked.

"It's the island we like to live on every now and then. We don't know anyone else who lives or visits there, so I call it the Island of Home," Damien explained.

"What are we going to do now?"

"First of all, we are going to untie you. We're miles away from the mainland, and you most likely won't be able to swim that far," Sylvia replied as she removed the ropes that were binding Katherine.

"We'll also take you around the island and teach you some of our ways of surviving in the wilderness," Erik added. "Then, we will go on a quest and try to find Princess Madeline."