"Hear ye! Hear ye!" A winded herald stood next to the town's orator as the scroll was opened. "King Louis has ordered all available single men and women in this town to attend a grand feast at the next full moon. This includes those who are currently residing as guests. Anyone failing to attend voluntarily will be questioned heavily. Queen Ryanne has been upset by rumors of new members of the royal family in the area without presenting themselves to the palace. As only the Crown Princess is left of the royal family, the culprit responsible for the rumor will be found and dealt with."

Cael started packing as simply as possible as soon as the first reading of the proclamation was completed. Vivien, coming in to check on Esther, decided to block the path. "What's going on Cael? Does this have something to do with you actually dressing as a woman?"

"Yes, it does. Anisyble is looking to remove competition to the throne by requiring the people in this town to appear at the palace. She knows someone closely related to her has come to the area because of the wards and sigils. She'll ensure her place by selling the women who set off the alerts to other countries into political alliances and killing the men. We cannot go there on her terms."

"Anisyble? Is that the Crown Princess you're talking about?"

"Yes, that murderess." Sighing while taking a seat, Cael starts her story. "Several summers ago, I was happy. But, then Anisyble's guards arrived. I was only a child, but I remember her guards running through my father's retainers like enemy soldiers. I hid in the root cellar where even the maids had forgotten everything and watched as everyone and everything I had ever known was burned to the ground except one old butler, who taught me how to hide and pick pockets until the time came to prove I was still alive. That time may be sooner than I expected thanks to Lady Esther."

Cayle took a deep breath. "I am Micaela du Uisce, Baroness in hiding, daughter of the murdered Baron Uisce, niece of the Black Princess Anisyble. And I fear you and your sisters may be my cousins, the children of the dead prince, Prince Magne."

“Cousins?” Vivien was startled. Since mother and grandfather had never spoken of it, it was possible, but not likely. “I think you’re mistaken. Dad died when we were babies and mom would’ve said something. Even grandpa Louis never said anything during his annual visits. How could a group of people dressed in rags even be related to royalty?”

“King Louis Tumal dressed as a beggar? Now that would b e a site the entire kingdom would pay to see! We must go in secret to the ball if you want to confirm my suspicions. But we have no protection since we don’t have those three idiots hanging around anymore.” Deep in thought, Vivien remembered a basic magic lesson from her mother’s books, sadly, now burned beyond recognition. Each magician has a symbolic color and the color represents their power. Since magicians were few and far between, most people don’t associate the color automatically with magic, but with everything that has happened recently, she figured Esther was likely a fire mage; Sarabeth a water mage; and she herself a shadow mage. She knew mages had the ability to communicate over distance, so she grinned. “We can try something.”

“Oh, distance communications? Believe it or not, it’s one of the few spells Father taught me before he was killed. It’s very effective when a wind mage casts it.” Cael pulls out a gilded leaf and mutters something followed by Noh’s name thinking he was likely also a wind mage. His voice reverberated out of the leaf asking who it was. “It’s your noble travelling companions. Are you going to the Princess’ ball?”

“I thought it was thrown by the King….”

“Grandpa wouldn’t know it, but my Aunt killed almost all of his family. He thinks she’s so perfect because no one can prove otherwise. And us girls are all in her sights for the next beheading.” Cael wished she had learned the advanced form of the spell, but it was so difficult, she didn’t know of anyone capable of using it in the last century. “Before you ask, it’s because we’re her nieces – or at least I think they are and I know I am.” Cael thought a little while longer about her uncle, Prince Magne. She’d never had the chance to meet him, but she recalled her father saying something about a so called Princess of Balance being the Prince’s wife. All she knew for certain was that the woman was from a far distant kingdom and would not have been part of the Tumal or Ahnek disputes of the past several decades.

Black Princess Anisyble

‘How can any of them still be alive?’ The thought just kept running through her mind non-stop like a river through the forest. “Father! Father! We have pretenders in the land!” Of course, she recognized the signs given that would have been automatic proof to any of the royal family or the high nobility. After all, if she’d not broken the public wards and set her own, any of them could have read the enchantments on the pages of family crest book. The crests automatically appeared whenever there was pure royal blood that had finally activated their mana pools and started using magic. In pen under all but three of the old entries, she had already written deceased. It was the new three showing similarities to that pacifistic brother of hers in the fierce red of fire, tranquil blue of water, and disturbingly dark grey of shadow that worried her. Her own darker than night black of necromancy and two showing the calm yellow of earth belonging to her parents were the only ones that should be present. How that Ahnek Princess that her mother was came to be entered into the book forever irked her since she should not have Tumal blood and the marriage had sparked a war between the two countries.

Her father arrived, seemingly too alert and aware. If he stopped responding to the drugs, she may just have to kill him and wait in the shadows until these cousins were found and erased from existence. “What is wrong dear daughter?” Sighing, Anisyble began to concoct a story using the royal ball as a backdrop to expose pretenders to the family that had started spreading rumors that they were the children of her elder brother in order to play on the heart strings of a kind King and were probably sent by Ahnek in an attempt to take over their beloved Tumal.