To Capture A Heart (girlxgirl)

Part Twenty-Four

Although Andreas and Alecia had left the castle, Avery had warned me that her parents were not going to give up on her so easily. They would be back. For now, though, I had empress duties to attend to.

I had my family to look out for.

I supposed that Avery was now a part of that, too.

She really had become so incredibly important to me.

I would do everything that I could to make sure that she was safe. That was what I had energy to do. Avery gave me a sort of strength I didn't even know I still had within me.

I had lost this part of myself after losing my mother. I had lost this feeling of strength. I got a lot of my confidence from my father and my brother but...this was different.

This was different because I knew that Avery believed in me unconditionally. This was different because I didn't want anything to come between us or cause us to drift apart. It was different because Avery allowed me to find this piece of myself that I had been missing for so long. It has always existed within me, though. 

I was Haven Amelie Starling and I was magnificently strong. 

As much as I didn't know whether I meant the same to Avery, I was willing to wait until I discovered her true feelings for me. I was sure that I meant something to her, otherwise I was unsure of why she had stuck around this long.

Regardless, I just knew that I was lucky to have her. More than anything else in the entire land of Wingacre. Somehow, some way, the two of us had come to realise that we were a lot more similar than we had ever previously expected. The two of us had a shared goal, a shared vision and a shared dream. The two of us could unite the empires together. That was a strength that we shared now that the two of us were rebels. 

The next main phase of our plan would be to gain people's vote of confidence. I knew already that we had my friends' and my brother's. That was a start. 

The key issue laid in Andreas and Alecia working with us, too. At present, it was hard for either one of us to know what their plan was given that they weren't talking to either one of us. I think Avery was putting up a bit of a front. She was trying to convince me that she was just fine but I could tell that she had been struggling. Her parents had been gone for a while and now that they were suddenly back, it was understandable that she was confused and hurt, especially after how her father had spoken to both of us. 

I put those thoughts out of my mind, for a moment. We still had another concern to prioritise, and that was ensuring that no bandits entered the castle again. Fortunately, Avery had been amazing and fought them all off the last time that they had appeared. However, we didn't know that we would always be that lucky. 

As much as my father didn't want to admit it, he was growing older and so weaker. 

Despite that, he was still willing to join me atop the castle towers overlooking the grasslands of our empire. 

I was currently holding my bow and arrow, ready to strike anyone that was wearing the bandits armour. We couldn't take any chances. They knew who I was. They knew I was the daughter of an emperor, and they knew that I was one of my father's most beloved people. 

They knew that they could get through to him through harming me. 

"I see one!" I exclaimed. 

My father rushed over to me then. 

I watched as the bandit tried to sneak into the castle, but I swiftly pulled back my arrow against the bow, and fired it right into the bandit's forehead.