Chapter l62

Chapter 0062

11

The next morning. when I woke up, I headed straight for the window to look at the sky. Fortunately, there

was no cloud in sight. Today, it seemed, I would escape my punishment.

One of these days, however, my luck would run out and I would be forced to kneel in the storm and hope

my b*dy was strong enough to take it.

Elva and I dressed for the day, and hand in hand, we exited our room to head down to breakfast. Just

outside of the room, we were greeted by Mark.

“Piper, Elva.” He turned toward the two guards standing behind him. “From now on, these two will be

personally assigned to you.”

Their uniforms were more or less similar to other guards I’d seen, except these ones had green trim

around their cuffs.

“They are a part of Prince Nicholas’s personal guard,” Mark explained. “You will also find that others on

this floor have been replaced, though these two will be outside your door at all times if you need them.”

The two gave me soft nods. They seemed nice enough, much nicer than my previous guards. And if they

were personally vetted by Nicholas, then I had little reason to mistrust them.

Despite our tumultuous past, Nicholas seemed fond of Elva. I believed him when he said he would keep

her safe. Really, that was all I could ask.

Then, Mark dropped to one knee to talk to Elva.

“I’m sorry for the things that happened to you, Elva. But I can vow to you that it will never happen again.

From now on, you have my reassurances.”

Elva didn’t reply, just looked at him with wide eyes.

Mark’s smile wavered. “If you are ever scared, and your mom or Prince Nicholas aren’t around, you can

ask for me, okay? Do you know my name?”

Eles shifted to look up at me. At my nod, she gave him her attention again. “Mark.”

That’s right,” he said, smile restored. He rose to his feet. “Are you both headed down to breakfast? May

cort your

would be sick, wouldn’t it, Elva?”

Though she had calmed down a lot since the day before, she still seemed nervous, especially around the

guards, Mark included.

The subtler differences in their outfits were lost on her. She saw them all as the one who chased her

around and pushed her out of a window.

‘Hopefully, in time, she would come to trust them again. At least, the right ones.

During breakfast, the girls were loudly chatting about the previous day’s events.

The cameras had been banned from the gardens before I had gone out there. The Queen, it seemed, like

to do all of her punishing in private.

This meant that none of Elva’s endangerment made it onto television, thank goodness. However, just

because the cameras didn’t catch it, did not mean the other girls had not heard of it.

Nicholas’s date from yesterday – who wasn’t Lilliana, much to her obvious irritation was loudly

regaling the story once again, about Nicholas’s daring rescue. The story became more elaborate with

each telling.

By the end of the fourth telling, even Elva, who I had hoped was distracted with the waffles on her plate,

corrected her.

“We didn’t fall,” Elva said, matter–of-factly. “Nick–lass carried me. Mommy, what’s a summer… a summer

“A somersault?” I asked.

She nodded.

“It’s when you tumble roll.”

Well, we didn’t do that either.”

Some of the other girls snickered at the storyteller’s expense. She herself became much quieter after

that

Instead the topic of conversation switched to the girls‘ individual motivations for the games. Most of

the girls could be split into three main camps..

camp one, the girls were after a specific prince. Nicholas, Julian, and even Joyce to a lesser extent, had their own little fan clubs. Their attractions to the boys was mostly based on appearances, but as the

family had been in hiding for so long, I couldn’t fault them for not knowing more yet.