Hidden Heirs and Fallen Crowns (Complete)

Chapter 16

Remember that thing I told you waaay back about telling me when you see those oh so horrible mistakes in my work? Still applies, people!! Don't think I hath forgotten, for I See All ... o_O

Anywho, enjoy the latest chapter!!

XD

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Chapter 16

He did. We spent day after day, repeating and repeating, going up a staircase or down a corridor. After a month was over, I knew my way around a palace billions of miles away, which I thought was pretty cool.

"Tell me how to get from the main cook's kitchen to the throne room," Zed randomly said one morning while switching the TV on.

"Go out of the main door, up three flights of stairs, turn right towards the main hallway, second door on the right," I recited.

He smiled. "Excellent."

During that month, I had finally started Karate. I found it a lot harder than sword-fighting, but still much easier than I normally would have without my speed talent. The first time I had done the punch-as-much-as-you-can exercise, I had got fifty seven. The second time, and Jasmine just about managed to keep count, I hit it a one-thousand-two-hundred and seventy-six times.

"You're lucky my eyesight's more advanced that most," she had told me, "or I wouldn't even have been able to see your hands."

No new talents had appeared since the day I learned I was a 'Climber', but I've had time to develop all the ones I did know I had. Except for the tree-climbing; I didn't set my foot near a tree since that day when I nearly had a heart attack.

I looked at the TV as Zed randomly flicked through the channels.

"Wait!" I suddenly called out. He looked at me expectantly. "Go back a few channels."

He did, going back one at a time. I shook my head at each one, until the one that had caught my attention appeared on the massive screen.

"The attacker, however," the female reporter was saying to the camera, "still hasn't been found. The police force has been searching high and low for him during the past three weeks, but it seems that he has disappeared off the face of the Earth. Still missing is fourteen-year-old Suzanne Levee, who was a patient at Jays Hospital and has gone missing since the incident. Her mother has refused to meet us for an interview, but ..."

My heart froze at the mention of Mum.

Zed suddenly switched the TV off.

"Hey, put it back on!" I protested. "What are you doing?"

"Time for dinner," he growled.

"What? No! I want to see what they ..."

"I said," he repeated. "Time for dinner." And with that he put the remote down and stalked out of the room.

As soon as he was out, I rushed for the remote, but it flew out of reach as soon as I came near it. Furious, I tried to grab it from where it was suspended just above my reach, but I wasn't high enough.

The remote suddenly followed him out of the room, and I was left standing, seething with anger. I inspected the TV, but there was no way of turning it on without the damn remote. I cursed, and ran after him.

***

"Aren't you hungry?" Jasmine asked.

"No." I pushed the small roast potatoes around with my fork, but I wasn't hungry. No amount of negotiation had persuaded Zed to turn the TV on. I had begged Jasmine to let me watch for ten minutes, but she had stared at her fork and didn't say anything.