The Blood Of Silver And Gold

Chapter III

It's been almost two years since we started training. I learned more advance fighting techniques than Chris and mastered sword fighting before he did. We sometimes duel and most of the time he would lose. I always tease him about it, but he takes his loses good naturedly. He even trains extra hard these days.

Sometimes, the older princes would come visit the manor and we would have an opportunity to show off our newly acquired skills to them and in return, they would also show us their gifts. Prince Sebastian's gift is invisibility, Prince Zach's is controlling water, and Prince Mikael's is speed. They always make me feel like I belong as their little sister. They even help me make fun of Chris, especially that he has not discovered his own gift yet. I feel bad for him sometimes but the older princes influence me. However, Mikael and I are still not that close and we would fight with each other over petty reasons sometimes.

The queen now goes back to the castle a few weeks each month. She said it's because there are court affairs she needs to attend to. I heard from the older princes that there's discontent going on in some parts of the kingdom. I don't understand much about it yet, but I know it's not good, especially since I've never seen the queen as restless as this before.

That's why Chris and I try our best to make things lighter in the manor by showing her how well we grow in her care.

Days before my twelfth birthday, the queen asked me what presents I would like to have. When I couldn't answer her for certain, she told me I can think about it until the day of my birthday. I've been pondering about it and I even tried asking Chris for suggestions.

"Maybe you can just ask for a new dress? I don't know. I don't really think there's anything you're missing right now, or am I wrong?" he told me as we're cooling down from today's training.

"Actually, you're not wrong. But I want to think of something special, you know. Something that would make my birthday this year unforgettable," I replied as I remove my leather armor.

He wiped his face with the towel before answering me, "I'm sorry I can't help you with deciding about that though. It's your birthday, so.." he trailed off, but I know what he meant.

"Maybe I should walk around the town tomorrow? See if I can find something that catches my eye?" I said, thinking about how fast can I finish in training so I would have enough time to go there.

"Do you want me to come with you? We can tell our trainer to postpone tomorrow's session considering that the day after is your birthday," he suggested as he stack the daggers in its box.

"That would be nice, actually. But can we do that?" I asked him.

"Of course! Come on, let's tell Mr. Grey," he said as he dragged me by the hand.

Mr. Grey is nice enough to let us have the afternoon off tomorrow. We informed the queen about it and she has no problem with it. She just reminded us to never forget to bring a weapon wherever we go if we do not want a guardian to follow us around.

The next day, I was so excited to go to the town since we barely have a chance to go there. The queen's carriage can take us there faster, but I told Chris that it's a nice exercise to walk seeing that we missed training for today. We reached the town after almost half an hour but I didn't hear a single complaint from him. And of course, we didn't forget to bring our sheathed swords with us. We had it tied across our back.

When we reached the town square, Chris immediately went in a candy shop. I reluctantly followed him inside.

"What are we doing in here?" I asked him and saw him picking up a lollipop.