Her Hero

Chapter 9

*Mamrie's P.O.V*

As I rode down the dirt rode with the princess at my side, I noticed that she had been oddly quiet and I wanted to know what was wrong.

"You okay, princess?"
It seemed as though I had aroused her from very deep thought. Her expression was blank and slightly confused.

"Sorry, did you say something, Mames?"

"I asked if you were okay."

She gave me a half smile.

"Yeah, I'm fine."
I scoffed and kept my eyes on the road.

"What was that for?"
She asked.

"I have known you for quite a long time Grace. Long enough to know when something is up with you. Now you can tell me what it is, or we can ride in awkward silence. It's your choice."

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

"Ok, fine. It's about Hannah. I'm worried about her. And.. "

Her voice trailed off.

"And what, Gracie? What is it?"

She sighed again and averted her gaze.

"Nothing Mamrie. Can we just leave it alone?"

I laughed. This stubborn princess wasn't getting off that easily.

"No. Not when it seems to be bothering you so much. Tell me. I promise I won't say anything to anyone. It will stay between us."

She sighed once more, conflicting emotions played across her features.

"Fine. You PROMISE that this will stay between us? "

I nodded.

"Ok. I might also be developing feelings for Hannah... "

That was it. Grace's biggest and by far the most forbidden secret was out in the open. The question now was,  what do we do about it?

"Just forget it, it doesn't matter. She probably doesn't have any feelings for me anyway. What would she care? She thinks I'm engaged to someone else. She thinks I love someone else. There's no point in telling her my feelings."

I looked at her and smiled.

" Grace. You have every reason to tell her your feelings, even if you think she doesn't feel them back. You still have to tell her. It will be better to get these feelings out in the open instead of bottling them up. I definitely don't have all the answers, but I can promise you this, that girl's got some strong feelings for you. Whether it's love or not. There are strong feelings."

Her eyes lit up.

"You really think so?"

"Yeah, I do."

We didn't speak the rest of the way,  but everytime I would glance back at her, she was smiling like an idiot.

*Hannah's P.O.V*

I entered the arena and was met with at least forty over fifty men beating each other senseless. I looked around to see if I could find one of Joshua's friends, luckily, I was able to spot Chester. Yeah, I wasn't a big fan of the guy, but he might know something.
I walked up to him as he was taking a sword and slamming it into the chest of a practice dummy.

"Hey Chester, can I talk to you for a minute?"

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. It was obvious that he wasn't happy to see me, but I didn't care.
He sighed with frustration and put his sword back into its sheath.

"What do you want?"
I took a deep breath and used every ounce of strength I had to not punch him in the face.

"I wanted to ask you a few questions about Joshua."

He was looking me in the eye now. I had obviously caught his attention.

"Uh.. Like what?"

"Just if you noticed him acting strangely in the weeks before his death?"
He ran a nervous hand through his hair. It was a tick I had noticed he did whenever he was with Grace. But what did he have to be nervous about now?

"Uh yeah... Yeah he had been acting kind of strange. We would go through our normal training routine, but recently, he wasn't preforming the way he usually did. In fact, he didn't seem to be into it at all."

That was odd. Josh loved being in the Royal guard. He took it more seriously than anything else in the world. If he wasn't working, something must have been up.

"Did you ever confront him about the way he was acting?"

He ran his hand through his hair once again. This was leading me to believe that he was hiding something.

"Of course. In fact, on the day he died,  that was when I talked to him. I told him that if he wasn't going to shape up, I was going to have to let him go. When I told him that, he got really angry. He was yelling something about doing what had to be done. I had no idea what that meant, I just figured he was crazy and let him go. I had no idea I would never see him again."

I was a little suspicious of his story. I was with Joshua that same night and he hadn't mentioned anything about a fight between him and Chester.
As I was mulling over these thoughts,  a familiar voice interrupted.

"I told you she would be here!"

It was Mamrie, but the figure behind her was what caught my attention. She pulled off her hood and I recognized her instantly.

"Mamrie, Grace? What are you guys doing here?"

Mamrie laughed and pulled me into a hug.

"We came to help, ya dumb."
I looked over at Grace.

"We?"
She nodded.

"We thought with the way you were fighting this morning, we couldn't let you come and do this alone."

I was about to give the princess and appreciative hug, but was pushed out of the way by Chester.

"Grace, what were you thinking? Do you realize how dangerous it is out here? You are so I lucky that nothing happened."

He caressed her face with both hands and placed a kiss on her lips. I quickly turned away. I couldn't watch. She obviously loved him.
Mamrie put a sympathetic arm around my shoulder and tried to comfort me. I looked back over at the two an noticed that Grace had pushed him away.

"Ches... We really need to talk."

He scoffed and turned away, going back to what he we was doing.

"I bet we do, princess, but I'm a little busy at the moment. Now, if you three don't mind, I have told you everything I know about Josh and want to get back to my practice."

And with that, he was back to smacking the crap out of another dummy.
The other two girls and I walked off in silence. That is, except for the occasional question from Mamrie.

"Did you get any leads on that guys murder?"

I sighed and nodded. Which was true. I had a suspect, but there was no way I was going to say it in front of the princess.

"Yeah I did."
I leaned closer to Mamrie to ensure that the princess couldn't hear us.

"But let's wait until we get back to the palace to talk."

She nodded in understanding. I always knew there was a reason I didn't trust Chester.  I just hoped, for the princess's sake, murder wasn't that reason.

A/N:

*gasp* Two updates in a row? Yup! I was on a roll and I decided I would give you guys another update. Enjoy😃

- LIZ