The Annex

Chapter 1

I closed my eyes and pressed the palm of my hand against the cool copper sundial. The thorn of a single pink rose dug into my palm as I clenched my fist, trying to hold back the tears. I laid the flower on the dirt in the middle of the sundial as I knelt down in front of it. As children, we had all heard legends of Old Magic. The rose bush that used to grow here had supposedly been full of Old Magic, but when the Old Magic had died out, so did the rose bush. The gardeners still fertilized the soil, in hopes that it would come back. A gentle breeze danced through my hair as I closed my eyes, replaying my last memory of my father. I could feel his arms around me as his steps had lulled me to sleep.

"I will be here when you wake."

His last words to me had been a lie. A cruel lie. When I had awakened that day, I had woken to sudden gasps and sobbing. I had clambered down the stairs to find a grim faced Palace guard holding my sobbing mother. He had died of a heart attack during some committee meeting or other. Life had never been the same. Mother was strong and determined, and after that day, I had not seen her shed a single tear. She moved us away from the Palace and the Court, into a house nestled on the outskirts of the East City. She wanted nothing to do with the Palace, with Father's Royal lineage. It was all just a painful reminder of what we had lost. Grandfather had moved with us, insisting it was wrong for us to live alone, no one to take care of his grand daughter and daughter in law.

Mother had thrown out all of Father's books and writings on his work to make a better monarchy, to end poverty, to improve education. She took to blaming his heart failure on his tireless work. Until recently, I hadn't known that most of his time was dedicated to trying to make the Kingdom a better place.

Every year, we traveled to the Palace just once; Father's ashes had been scattered in the garden. This year was the twelfth anniversary of his death. Gathering my composure, I climbed to my feet as I heard shouts crying out throughout the Palace. I stood and followed the line of sight through the gardens that my father had shown me years ago. Palace guards raced to the Palace entrances and I heard the sound of a bell, ringing out throughout the courtyard and throughout the Palace. The Citadel's bells began to ring as well. Something bad had happened. I trained my vision on the East Palace Gate and sprinted toward it. I had to make sure that Mother and Grandfather were safe. As I neared, I saw the gate coming down.

"No," I yelled, "I need to get to my mother." I turned to the frenzy of Palace guards.

"We can't open it, the Palace is being locked down," one of the Palace guards shouted to me as he ran past.

"What happened," I turned in an attempt to find another guard, but my voice was drowning in the commotion. Behind me a scramble of men were grabbing and checking weapons as one of the Senior guards shouted out directions.

"Secure the central Palace!"

"Faster," roared another Senior guard, his voice booming through the bustle. I suddenly became aware that I was caught in the middle of the guards, barely avoiding a trampling. A fresh faced soldier gently grabbed my arm.

"Come this way, miss," his voice barely reached me over the rumble of feet, the unsheathing of swords and the rattle of arrows in quivers. "There is another way out." I followed him to the edge of the calamity. He led me along the Palace walls until we reached a door, guarded by three Palace guards. "She needs to get to her mother," he explained.

"We can't let her out, the Commander has ordered that we carry out a complete lockdown, no one in and no one out," one of the gruff men moved to further block the door.

"Come on, she's just a girl," the guard that had brought me tried to reason with the other guard as he lowered his voice.

"That doesn't mean she didn't have anything to do with it."