Darkness and Beauty (The Fated Series, #1)

Chapter 13 - Lance - Caring Brings Chaos

Day four of shadowing the Queen is as boring as you'd think. Don't get me wrong, it's all relaxing and nice to live in the most expensive type of luxury, but I so dearly wish that someone would try to make an attempt on her life just to spice things up. The days are filled with lounging around, taking walks in the Queen's Garden twice a day, waiting in the foyer for Siscilla to finish doing her daily check on the progress of the pregnancy, and staring at maps and notes of the castle staff. I resent the fact that Fauna gets to walk around and have fun and train rather than sit on her butt all day.

She's gathered information on the servants thanks to her new friend Kat. who she speaks so kindly of. Turns out my sister has managed to get someone to act somewhat normal around her. "They're more compliant if you say hello rather than saying run." I took the blow, knowing that she was talking about my "don't do this and do this instead" speech I gave the Queen's servants and guards on the first day. Her approach is working alright, but so is mine.

The brightest part of my day is playing the piano every night as a lullaby for the Queen. After that first night, I haven't been able to stay away from it. I've branched out to three more songs, and every now and then after she's long since fallen asleep, I'll let my fingers move on their own, creating my own music.

Since Fauna has been free to waltz around the castle grounds, she has a better understanding of the layout. She hasn't been into the stables, library, or the healer's tower yet, but they're not a top priority at the moment. She went onto talking about the habits of the guards and marking which ones should be put into the dungeons when she snuck into my rooms last night. I didn't ask her how she got there, the less I know, the better. Fauna then went on about how much she loved picking on everyone and scaring the others. My sister has always had a dark side when it comes to pushing people's buttons, but once you stab her back a few times, she reels it back so that it's more playful than bitter. By the sounds of it, her and Darius are acting...oh who am I kidding? They're still at each other's throats. It's the others who are still cautious but not so much verbally so anymore.

"As they should be." I told her.

After her retelling of one strongly worded warning of hers from the first night, I can't say I blame either of them for being so snippy. He shouldn't have brought up mom, not with her, but seeing as he knows nothing about what happened, I can't really fault him for it. Mary and I don't talk about mom around Fauna. Not unless we want a knife thrown at our heads. My sister still loves her just as deeply as the day we lost her. I do too, I just...I don't grieve as much anymore. She wouldn't have wanted that, and despite my sister knowing the same, she still feels it, raw and torturous.

I also can't fault Darius for asking about Will. His arguments from what my sister shared were good ones. He does have a right to know, but what he did it's...it's personal. He's our problem, not theirs. Their problem is the Cressidians. That, and their very clear opposition of just how we're trying to make sure that certain problem doesn't get through the walls.

I sent word down to my father two nights ago about the guard shifts and the ideas I had about their shifts. He took an entire day drawing up the plans and then had them sent back late the same night. I took the whole day to read through them myself. My father used every one of my alterations which made me proud, and then added his own. There are safety nets everywhere. Protocols of what to do if something goes wrong, who goes with the royals if they're moved to escape – also changing the escape route and having servants and guards posing as the royals using their current tunnel – and even the way shipments of food and other goods coming and going into the castle are checked and monitored.

No one likes it when you walk into their world and start making changes to it, but it's for the safety of the royal family, change is adamant. If my sister taking on thirteen men and getting nothing but a few minor cuts and bruises doesn't prove that, then I'd say they're all drinking a little too much. They may not know Will, nor know that he's willing to give up his own pigs to the slaughter so that he can get through easily, but if they have even a single brain cell left they won't try and resist so much to the adjustments.