The Keys: A Tale of a Beginning and End

Chapter twenty six

It really shouldn't have been the first thing I asked him but I really was curious to know what he thought. "If I'm gonna be entirely honest I don't know, from what my squadron has been doing I think it's thriving!" Collin said with a smile on his face which quickly disappeared as soon as he noticed Zander's death glare, which wasn't really scary in my opinion. "HE ROBS PEOPLE OF THEIR WELL EARNED MONEY, AND WHEN THEY TRY TO DEFEND WHAT IS RIGHT HE ALLOWS THE SOLDIERS, THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT THEM, TO MURDER THEM IN COLD BLOOD." Zander let that sink in and then stormed off.

"That's... that's not true..." Collin said to Rosalind and I, trying to defend himself. "We've been imprisoning tractors and thieves!" He got up and started pacing back and forth tangling his hands in his golden locks, which seemed oddly familiar. "Then why were you going after us? We have done nothing wrong." He stopped pacing and turned to me, "You and your companions are conspiring against the king, what are we supposed to do, let you remain free and possibly kill him?" "Funny you say that, cause that's exactly what happened to the last one."

Collin turned to me with a confused look on his face, "The last what?" I scoffed of course he didn't know "The last king was my father, his murderer didn't go to prison instead, he became king himself." His jaw nearly fell to the floor in shock, but then he closed it and started shaking his head in disbelief. "I was told the royal family died due to disease!" "That was a lie, why do you think the kings special soldiers aren't actually protecting him." It took him a moment and then he shrugged his shoulders, "Because they have special missions?" I rolled my eyes "Yeah obviously, but their "special" mission is to capture me." Rosalind yelled after me as I stormed off in the same direction of Zander.

After walking a quarter of a mile, I found Zander crouching down behind some bushes. "What are you doing?" He whipped his head around and told me to keep my voice down, then he motioned for me to come closer. When I was by his side he pointed to something below, it appeared to be a small village, but I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. "Over there." When I looked I noticed soldiers dragging people out to a wagon with bars.

I ran back to camp as fast as I could, hoping to bring Collin back to show him the true nature of the king. "Collin, Rosalind, come quickly I need to show you something! It's really important!" I came out of the woods and into the clearing where our camp was, I looked around and didn't see them, and what's worse is that the horses were gone too.

"Zander we have a problem!" "Yeah I know, look." He pointed back down to the village where I noticed two small figures, one of them seemed to be being dragged there by a rope.