Masquerade

The Masquerade Part 1

  Is half a chapter acceptable? I prefer to up smaller parts on Wattpad anyways because I think it's easier to read on the app. Anyways, next part with the actual ball is on it's way, it's almost done It's just finding the time to finish.

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  "Corona." Cassandra said with a sigh as she rode across the bridge to the island city.

Everything looked so familiar too her, this place where she had grown up. She had spent years travelling, constantly surrounded by streets she didn't know, languages she didn't speak and people who would come into her life for just mere moments. Of course with Kentaro and the mission it had been different, she'd stayed in one place for a year, but had been constantly aware that she might be found out at any moment. The life of a spy, pretending you belong somewhere when you don't. Here though, her feet would just know the way because they had waked the paths on a million occasions before, here she didn't have to pretend, they knew who she was.

She saw the guards stiffen as she trotted past them, they turned and look at each other. She didn't know them, they were not some of the old guards trained by her Father, instead these looked like they were younger than her. She remembered the days when wearing that uniform was the pinnacle of what she wanted to achieve in life, the days when she truly felt that she had been born to protect this kingdom. Then she had acted to destroy it.

"Good morning."

"Good morning Miss, can we ask what your business is in Corona today?"

"I have an invite, from the Princess Rapunzel." She answered.

The guards looked at each other, for a moment Cassandra wondered if they would stop her. They were being polite, but she guessed she just wasn't used to being questioned as she walked in and out of the city gates, not Corona city gates at least.

"Very well Miss, I assume you know the way."

"Yes, I do." Cassandra answered, she was glad to get moving again, people were starting to stop and stare at her. She could tell by the looks on their faces that she had been right, here people knew who she was, and, it turned out, remembered what she'd done .A part of her had hoped that in the last seven years some of what she had done had been forgotten, and perhaps, seeing as she wasn't being lynched the moment she entered, it had. She'd never been held accountable for her actions, she'd left quickly, she'd made herself a new person, but here, well, she couldn't hide from what she'd done all those years before. Here, nobody knew the new person, nobody except the few people she'd stay in contact with through letters anyways.

The guards nodded at her and took a step back. She clicked her tongue at Fidella and they started to move up the winding streets towards the castle.

"What's she doing here." She heard the voice call as she entered the city square. She looked around trying to find the source of the voice, but there were too many people around, and all of them were staring at her. She took a deep breath and encouraged Fidella onwards. She tried to keep looking forwards as she felt dozens of pairs of eyes turn and follow her. She could hear the cloud of muttering following behind her. Just a few more minutes she told herself, then she'd be safe in the caste walls and under the protection of the royal family. Nothing would go wrong whilst she was with her friends.

Those few minutes seemed to take her a lot longer. For weeks she had been feeling nothing but anticipation at seeing her friends. Now, so close to them, she could remember not just her childhood spent on these streets, but the dark rocks that had torn the city apart, the rocks that she herself had summoned. It seemed like a nightmare, unreal, a point of her life when her head had been full of thoughts that weren't entirely her own, she'd been manipulated and used, taken over by anger, and here she was, walking through the scenes of that nightmare.