This Is My Town

Chapter Six ~ Enzo

Enzo was bored out of his brain. Since his fight with the palace swordsmen, his parents had actually acknowledged his presence, but got the guards to lock him in his bed chamber, save for supper time. So they did know he existed. Good, because Enzo was starting to wonder.

Speaking of supper time, Enzo had about ten minutes before the guards would come in and personally escort him to the dining hall, where he would have to face his parents once again. And by facings his parents, he meant facing their backs because they never looked at him.

He would just have to tell them he wasn't hungry. He didn't much fancy being in the same room as them anymore, and seeing as how they didn't care anyway, he didn't want to put up with it anymore. He had tried and tried in vain to get their attention, but nothing was working. There was no point in trying, so why hadn't he given up earlier? He would have saved himself the challenge of trying to escape the Palace and Crinya altogether, but now that he had been banished to his bed chamber with nothing but a few books he had already read a hundred times each, there were guards outside his door at all times and he wasn't allowed to leave his chambers, let alone the palace anymore. He hated it, but he couldn't do anything about it.

There was a knock on his door. A guard poked his head in; one of the guards that chatted with him occasionally. He was tall, had a crooked nose.

"Supper," he said, and Enzo sighed, rising up from his position on the floor to walk slowly and sombrely towards the door, a tight and emotionless expression plastered on his face as soon as he left the walls of his bed chamber. Two guards stood in front of him and one behind him, keeping a safe distance yet staying close in case he tried to do anything stupid. Which was stupid in itself, because Enzo wouldn't get his hands even a metre close to a sword before the guards' own weapons were pointed at him. And, no matter how skilled Enzo was with a sword, he still had the pride to admit when he was outnumbered, and these guards had been training their entire lives for this kind of thing. They weren't stupid, but neither was Enzo.

Coming into the dining hall, his parents were already seated and eating, facing each other as always, so Enzo took his place at the other end, in his rightful position as the guards retreated back to the doorway. Enzo took his seat, picked up his cutlery and began eating the food that was set out before him. The room as quiet, in an eerie kind of way, and Enzo could feel something in the air. It wasn't good, and he felt as though something were to go down soon. He didn't necessarily want to stick around, but if something bad were to happen, then it could work as a distraction to let him escape.

Then it started to register. Something was about to happen. What was going on?

Suddenly, the doors to the dining hall burst open and a woman, aged in her mid-twenties with straight, dead black hair and full braced iron armour stormed in, her red eyes full of worry. She saw the King and breathed out heavily, and it looked to be of relief. Enzo rose to his feet as soon as she entered, but now his eyes were narrowed. His parents too had arisen, and were watching this woman curiously. Her skin was ridiculously pale, even for a Vampire, and Enzo's eyes flickered down to a white bandage around the girl's knee, and she limped as if it were still causing her pain. Her dark eyebrows were creased as if something else was bothering her, however, so Enzo was curious as to why the guards let her in in the first place.

"What business do you have in the Palace of Frate?" the King asked, his voice loud, firm and booming. Enzo flinched; it was the first time he had heard it in a long, long time.

"I have come with dreadful news," the girl said, her voice shaking as if she had come a long way to deliver this message.

"What is your name, dear?" the Queen asked, and Enzo's gaze hardened even more. They speak to a stranger with more love than they show to their own son.