Not So Innocent (A Dark Fantasy Novel)

Phase Two

There had been a reason that Lexa had come to converse with the rebels. An intricate web of a plan, already set in motion but just needed the shove that only the rebels could provide. Everything that she needed though, she had eventually gotten. Already, she could tell that they were falling into Lexa's plan. Although their major hunter had been replaced by Bennie, the opportunities for the band of idealists and vigilantes were only diminishing. And they were desperate. Oh, so so desperate. With even more whispers between the rebel leaders and words of persuasive tendencies, everything was right where Lexa needed it to be.

Of course, there were two outliers, the two thorns stuck in her side. The first being time. Lexa had not planned on being knocked unconscious by Mortolo Hebalia, and that was a major problem. She had planned on spending a night with the rebels, only the amount of time she could stay before the sun crept up at dawn, and Lexa would have slipped back into the palace before anyone noticed her absence. But that did not happen. She did not know how long she had been here, for there were no windows to see the sun, but she did know Mortolo hebalia. She knew it's effects, and she knew that very few would have been able to escape the herbs clutches only in a matter of hours. Days, at the very least, was how long she had been here. Long enough for a palace to notice the absence of its princess. To start asking on questions on where she had gone, and why. Though Lexa doubted the circumstance that they would assume she had gone willingly, for it was quite the conclusion to leap to, it would not fare well for her if she could not convince the rebels into her plan.

And the second was standing right in front of Lexa, a frown growing there that Lexa had previously thought impossible for what Lexa had bemused as such a cheery girl.

It was turning out, though, that there was much about Adelaide's life that Lexa did not know. Too many holes in her limited depth of knowledge.

Lissa, for all her efforts, appeared to be on the verge of tears. She watched Lexa, somehow fierce and grief stricken at the same time. The way she looked at her, with that heavy weighted gaze, paralleled the way one would look at the dead. Like Adelaide was someone that had died, replaced by someone knew.

Of course, that wasn't too far from the truth.

However, that was not the meaning held behind Lissa's stare. The awkward silence between the two only grew more and more as the girl expressed that look of betrayal.

Her face was covered with shadows, but still Lexa noticed that twitch of her body before she spoke.

"You promised me, Addie. Before we left for Catala, you swore to me that you wouldn't change. You barely lasted a day before you cashed aside all of our plans for a prince and that bastard girl." Her tone curled in contempt at the mention of Cleo, resentment still lying there.

There was no point in pretending, no feasible way that Lexa could convince Lissa otherwise. Because Adelaide had changed.

If there was anything that Lexa was good at, it was lying. But even she knew that denying the evidence in front of you would only make you to be a fool.

"Plans change, Lissa. And so do people."

Lissa's head shook with refusal. "Not in a matter of only weeks."

"They do if the circumstance demands it. I did what needed to be done for Wallachia."

Lexa watched as Lissa's frustration only grew, with long angry strides as she started to pace in front of her shackled friend. "And the plan we made together wasn't good enough for that?"