The Scarlet Lillie

Trouble

Chapter 6

Philite was amazing. The second I walked through the front entrance I was struck with beautiful architecture.

Each kingdom has layers, like that of a cake. The higher up you went, the better it was.

The lowest layer is usually reserved for the poorer of the commoners, and the highest is usually always reserved for the royals.

The deeper I walked in the city, the more of this I saw. The farther I got, the nicer people dressed and the size of houses grew.

About halfway into the kingdom, I came across a shopping market. One booth was selling flowers, but I didn't care to look because I knew the wild ones in the field were nicer than the ones the man had laid out.

The other booths had nice things too, such as jewelry and cloth, but I was more interested in the architecture.

As I rounded the corner of one building, I was met with a series of alleys and back roads. Curious as to where they would lead, I took one and started a new adventure. However, I soon realized to late that it was a bad choice to leave the crowd, because there were three men standing at the of the alley.

They were all counting money and drinking liquor- they had so much out I smell the stuff. When they heard me, the looked up at me.

One whistled. "Well hello there. You lost?"

His friend laughed. "Yeah. We can give you directions to wherever you need to get to."

I shook my head. "No thank you. I'm fine." I said. Keeping my head down, I tried to walk past them. But one of them grabbed my cloak.

"That's some mighty fine cloth." He purred. "Where'd you get it?"

One smiled evilly. "You didn't steal it, did you? You see, then it'd be only right we stole it back and returned it to its rightful owner."

I grabbed my cloak and tugged at it. "I did not steal it. Now, please remove your hands at once."

The man holding my cloak glared at me. "Excuse me? I don't take orders from no one- especially a woman."

I started to panic. These guys weren't going to leave me be and I didn't have any guards here to protect me. Not seeing another option, I did the most I lady like thing I could think of: I kicked him in the groin. He shouted and released me. I took off down the alley, taking every and any exit I found. But no matter where I went, I could here them behind me.

"You can't get away from us!" I heard them shout. Panting, I rounded another corner.

How could I get out of this one? They won't care if they found out who I was, and even if they did they would probably just kidnap me instead.

Another corner. In any other situation I knew I could have come up with something. But I was being chased by strangers in a city that was unfamiliar to me. I couldn't think of anything.

Because of the blood pumping in my ears, I didn't hear the sound of the horses coming down the next alley. So I was lucky they were just walking and not trotting when I ran straight in front of them.