Betrothed to a Monster

  *Vivian POV*     BONG!                 “This princess has escaped! Princess Vivian has escaped her chambers! All men she’s still in the castle grounds! Find her before she escapes!” High above me, the watchman raises the alarm. I look around me to see men scurrying around me as I hide in the shadows.     BONG!                 The guards are in a frenzy, confused on where to go to find me. This time of year, the Captain takes in new promising recruits to train. Luckily for me, they haven’t memorized the castle layout. I hear awkward shuffles leaving as men nervously take their posts. There’s my chance. I sneak past hiding in the grooved arches in the stairway and rush out the corridor. Just before I sneak out of the door way toward the stables I’m grabbed and pushed against a wall.                 A hand is pushed against my face to stifle my scream. I look down to see white hair and salmon color eyes. I grunt and try to push her, but to my surprise she gets off me.                 I feel so much shock seeing her here in front of me. Lilith, my friend and companion, the only one I told of my plans to escape, has sabotaged me. “Lilith why would yo -” She puts her hand back on my face and shushes me.                 I’m sure she saw the confusion on my face because she rolled her eyes and pointed out of the door way. Two guards are pacing outside the stables.                 A leaner man with dirty blonde hair stands straight and alert. He has a crossbow strapped to him signifying he is a junior archer. “What was that?”                 “What are you talking about?” The other man was a tall and dark and had a Green uniform with clubs on it. He must be our new Clubs recruit. We recruited him from the kingdom of Clubs from the South so he could learn how to protect the heirs there. His weapon of choice was a Shashka. The long-curved sword shows he is skilled at using a sword and his muscular build says that he has worked a long time to gain that skill. This might be harder than I thought.                 The leaner one shuffles his feet nervously and looks around. “Didn’t you hear that voice.”                 His partner scoffs “Never mind that, it’s probably just the maids gossiping again. The princess was last seen leaving the west tower." He yawns and leans against the stable doors looking bored.                 “So, someone would have intercepted her before she made it to the east courtyard then.”                 “Exactly, but we were warned to be on guard. Captain said the Princess is sneaky. So we need to remain vigilant.”                 I slump against the wall, knowing that this is going to be the big roadblock.My face distorts to agitated frown, similarly to the one I make when I know I’m about to lose a game of chess. Lilith looks at me with irritation and reaches for something under her cloak. She pulls out her composite bow. It is made from an ancient aspen tree that grew from her ancestors home land. There are silver vines engraved in it with emeralds, merelani mint garnets, tsavorite, and jade gemstones .Each stone is made to look like green leaves on the aspen tree along the silver vines on the pale wood. On the upper limb back there is a pink zircon that is the same color of her eyes, declaring that she is the heir to the Laveau bloodline, a right passed down from her father, and his father’s father. She grabs one of her arrows, places it on the silver thread and pulls it back. She sets her sights, and calms her breathing. She takes one more steady breath and releases the arrow.                 It goes whisking into the tree line. I look at her gapping in disbelief. She has never, NEVER missed a shot before. Maybe she is trying to sabotage me. She looks at me and with an eyebrow raised and mouths, “just wait.”                 Then we hear a long clang in the distance, the sound or buckets tumbling over themselves. “D-di-d-did ya hear that?” The lean guard raised his crossbow with shaking hands and aimed at the source of the noise.                 The dark guard who was slumping stood up and was completely alert. “Shhhh. Be quite so I can hear” And just like that, Lilith released a second arrow into the distance, ripping a bag of grain. The falling grain was faint because it was a good 30 yards past the trees. But the trained ears of the guards would be able to pick it up, and maybe mistake it for shuffling feet. The only thing that’s missing is-                 Snap! I look over to see Lilith with a satisfactory grin. It seems while I was deep in thought she released a third and final arrow. The sound of the twig snapping will surely give the guard a reason to check now. “Caleb, let’s go.”                 “O-okay Simon.” Mm Simon, I’ll have to remember that name. Maybe he’ll be at the tournament. The two guards walk over into the woods giving me and Lilith the perfect opportunity to get into the stables.                 I turn to Lilith and smile. “Okay ready? Let’s go.” We dash into the stable ad are met with a chorus of hooves clattering on the hard floor. The stable is a large building, housing many of the guard’s horses. But I had planned this escape for weeks and had my horse moved to this stable for “a change of scenery”. 1,2,3, …. I run my hand along the beams to count the stalls. The moonlight does not give proper lighting in the stable and it is too hard to see I practiced and paced myself. 12, 13, and 14! I turn and open the latch and step in.                 I’m met with a loud neigh and I’m lightly pushing into the wall by Knight’s Muzzle. I’m aware that Knight isn’t a creative name, but I got him 10 years ago when I was 7. That day he wore iron armor, and on his grey body. I didn’t know it, but he was an Arabian Appaloosa mix. His grey body and black and white freckled croup were so beautiful to me that that was all I wanted. My 7-year-old self didn’t know that he’d be the fastest horse in the kingdom.                 He sniffs the pocket on my cloak, hoping I have brought him treats. I reach in my pocket and hand him 3 sugar cubes, which he excitingly eats. I try my best to wiggle past him and reach up on the shelf to grab his saddle and reigns. It takes me a long time to strap him in the dark, and I fear the guards are back. I unhook the latch and walk him out by the reigns. The sound of multiple hooves clicking near the back entrance tells me that Lilith has gotten Clover ready. Once she opens that door and gives the signal we ride for the main entrance.                 I grab Knight and swing my leg to mount him. We trot to where Lilith is holding Clover. “Are you ready your highness?” She grabs her hood and pull sit over her head, and I follow suite. A simple nod of my head is all she needed from me to open the doors.                 The loud creaking of the spruce doors is enough to alert the two guards, Lilith knows it too and mounts her Akhal-Teke too easily while wearing a dress. “HYAA!” We ride off through the Stables and toward the East gate.                 On the left shoulder of the trail Simon steps out bearing his sword. “Halt, in the name of the King.” But he was too late, we had already ridden past him before he finished his sentence. “Caleb, blow the horn!” HOOOOOOM! “The East! She’s in the east courtyard!” BONG!                 “Close the gate, she’s coming” What idiots, maybe they should’ve thought to close the gate when they heard I was missing.                 “Lilith kick it up a notch!” We push our horses to the limit as they run towards a closing gate. “Come on Knight, faster! Faster!”                 “Your Highness we’re not going to make it!”                 I guess I have no other choice. I grab A whistle from my satchel and but it to my lips. Taking the deepest breath, I can I blow into the whistle. It has such a high frequency that not even dogs can hear it. But the only creature I know that can is- ROOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR!                 -a dragon.                 Storm clouds gather as another ravenous shriek comes from the sky above. Flashes of blue and white dance in the sky until it strikes. CRACK! CABOOM!                 Blue lightning comes crashing towards the gate scaring the guards and causing them to panic, forgetting about the gate. We ride under it put of the castle walls and only the open road. In the distance I can hear the guards shrieking in terror from the idea of a monster descending on them. Lucky for them, that monster had no intention of doing that. And with another puff of air, I blow into the whistle sweetly. Up above me, the clouds dissipate leaving the starry sky in all its glory.                 I say a prayer of thanks before riding off towards the capital of the Kingdom of Spades. Where true monsters live.