Blood King

Chapter Two (Edited)

Chapter Two

A number of days had passed since Xavier had sent the messenger Halfling into the forest. Celina knew that it was for asking for permission to enter parts of the forest which had been deemed as sacred land, and those who did not have the rights would be killed instantly for going against the law that had been given from the beings who resided deep within the forest.

But it seemed that children were given the exception to this rule, for they were young and innocent and did not know better when it came to some rules in life. They could not be blamed for slight curiosity and wanting to see the beings of the forest for themselves, but on many occasions the child’s memories of seeing them would be erased.

That is, unless, that child was a Halfling- half human half forest folk. The way to tell was by looking at their ears. Though now, after a number of hundreds of years, a treaty had been made so that anyone who has the blood of a forest being was allowed to walk freely in the forest and could choose to live either with the humans or in the forest.

A number of times when Celina was younger she wished she could go and walk around in the forest, but her brother would not have it. Too dangerous he said, which was very much the truth. It was not always safe to wander around a forest without another person.

Celina watched as her brother paced back and forth in the study.  He looked on edge, as if he were about to jump completely out of his skin.

“Brother, if you keeping going like that you’ll leave a dent in the wooden floor.”

Xavier stopped dead in his tracks before joining his sister on the couch and let out a breath of exhaustion. “It must bother you, watching me doing that over and over again.”

“It’s not that bad, I just think many of the servants would be rather concerned about you doing something like this. After all you’re not the kind of person that becomes bothered by just sending a letter to someone.”

“Yes,” He agreed, acting like this was very out of character for him. “However, this is a very important letter and the longer I must wait for a response, I feel like something terrible will happen soon.”

Celina did not respond. She knew that her brother was going through a great deal; in a month’s time, after his twentieth birthday,  he would be crowned king of all Valdoria, and would then have a greater responsibility to uphold afterwards. She on the other hand knew that she would one day be married off to someone else to carry on the family bloodline. She had caught wind of rumors that many of the nobles where beginning to look into having her marry one of their sons, but Xavier would not have it and told them promptly.

“If any of you even try to force my sister in to choosing one of your sons, you will be banished from these lands and have your title stripped from you. It is my sister’s choice when and whom she wishes to marry. But she is still a child, so leave it at that.” His eyes then turned dark as he looked at his ministers. “Do I make myself clear?”

Her brother was protective; there was no denying that much, though Celina did find it odd to which extremes her brother would go to. They had no family of which to speak of. Their father’s brother had also died on that night, killing their father, stepmother and anyone else with a blood connection to the royal family… and yet left the sixteen year old son and the nine year old sister alone with not even a scratch on either of them.

The people of the land found it to be a miracle that they lived, and many believed that it was an assassination done by the feuding lands of Labadier. The king of those lands wanted to have Josephine, Xavier and Celina’s birth mother, marry him, but when she chose the King of Valdoria instead, a war broke out because of it.