My Princess

Chapter 44

In a kingdom far, far away

As winter ravaged the Black Kingdom, tension only continued to grow amongst the royals and their subjects. With the King otherwise occupied with the growing threat outside the walls the villagers were starving and growing angrier at their leaders by the second.

Those that had been conscripted were collected from their houses each morning for training, just adding to their hatred, and while the men and boys that needed the extra strength received the rare, extra rations of food they still burned right through it from the excess exercise and snowy conditions leaving them thin, under muscled, and in no condition to fight. Those not eligible to become soldiers were even worse off, fighting sickness and starvation making this winter an exceptionally hard one even without the threat of war hanging over everyone's heads.

No one outside of the castle even knew that the sickness that was plaguing the town, the sickness sending even the healthiest of children to the grave, had also ravaged the Black castle and taken the Queen hostage. Queen Druella had taken ill nearly a week ago and had been bed ridden since, the only ones in and out of her isolation room two of the lowliest servants to care for her and bring her meals.

No one was certain of the Queen's fate, not even the private doctor that had been called in from the South. The sickness showed no rhyme or reason as to who it would pick to take to an early grave and who it let live. It would show no mercy on the dear ruler and her family could only pray to any God that would listen that she was strong enough to fight it.

The king spent most of his time ensconced in his office desperately trying to think of a way to avoid a war with the Malfoy kingdom even if he knew it to be inevitable. King Cygnus had even gone so far as to consider trying to contact his disowned daughter, not that he had any way of finding out her location or if she was even still amongst the living.

The elder two princess's had kept to themselves locked away in the other side of the castle, keeping their distance from their plague riddled mother and war angry father. In a time where the family could not afford to distant themselves from each other they continued to draw further and further apart as they also did with their subjects.

As the snow rained down on the ancient castle atop the hill and the villagers raged at the locked gates below, Bellatrix crept down the icy hallway between her bedroom and her middle sister's. Bare feet padded silently against the freezing cold floor and she wrapped her arms across her torso for warmth as the eldest princess glanced behind her for the 100th time to ensure no one had seen her, not that they could say anything about her being out of bed now that she was an adult anyways, it was just something about being back in her childhood home that made her feel like she was 6 years old again.

Princess Bellatrix slipped into Andromeda's room without bothering to knock, silently letting the door fall closed behind her. The room was just as dark and cold as her own, the other girl curled up beneath her heavy winter quilts and fast asleep, oblivious to her older sister creeping up behind her.

Bellatrix slipped underneath the warm blankets next to her younger sister, already feeling safer with another person in the room. As children the 3 of them had often all ended up in the same room when they were afraid or their parent's were fighting, just needing the safety and familiarity of their sisters.

As Bellatrix got comfortable and closed her eyes in an attempt to go back to sleep despite the yelling and occasional musket shots resounding outside, she felt Andromeda shift just a little bit closer with a contented sigh as if even in sleep she knew her sister was there. Feeling like a child cuddling with her sister again, Bellatrix finally relaxed into the comfortable bed and allowed herself to drift off into an uneasy sleep, imagining her baby sister was just on the other side of the bed with them.