As I looked around the corner of the stairs, I noticed guards were standing watch at the entrance. The odds were in my favor, they were facing the windows. I quietly rolled over and snuck past them, precisely like how my father had trained me.

I stood up and faced the pitch black hallway. Luckily for me, my senses didn't require any lights to work. I looked around and felt there was nothing here except for darkness. Step by step, I came closer to the intersection. When I reached it, I took a quick peak around. Again, all the lights were off and it was completely abandoned.

And they seriously claimed the palace was well protected? 

I pressed on and looked out the windows on both sides of the hallway. To the right, you could see the big, illuminated courtyard Foxglove was talking about earlier and to the left? Well there wasn't really much to see, but I knew you were supposed to see the gardens there. Ironically, there were guards standing watch in the courtyard, but unless they could see my eyes, which they couldn't, they weren't able to notice me because all the fucking lights were off.

I couldn't help but laugh a little at their stupidity, but quickly remembered I was here to find the shadowy figure, making me walk further into the hallway. At the end of it, there was another intersection, making you go either left or right. I stood there, overthinking which side to pick when I suddenly felt myself being drawn to the right. 

For some reason, this side of the hallway was lit poorly, whereas the left side was completely dark. Two guards were standing in front of a large black door. The prickling feeling flew through my body again and suddenly, the shadowy figure appeared at the end of the hallway, pointing his finger towards the door.

I needed to enter that room.

In a swift but silent motion, I snuck up to the guards and knocked both of them out at the same time, dragging their bodies to an even darker part of the hallway afterwards.

"Sorry." I whispered before slowly opening the door.

While squeezing myself through the small opening I created in order to not catch the attention from the guards in the courtyard, I kept my eyes on them. When I was completely through it, I quickly closed the door before turning around. Shivers ran through my whole body and I gulped as I realized where I was.

A throne room. 

The throne room. 

The one I saw in my strange dream only a couple nights ago. The scenery was almost exactly the same, with some more chairs and statues here and there, but that throne still stood solemnly at the end of it. Only this time, the blood was absent.

It had a pull to it like a magnet, drawing me near. Even though I could resist it, I didn't, and made my way over there instead while summoning my Seregsword, because I knew someone intended for me to come here. 

As I stood before it, only a staircase away, I turned around and grabbed the figure that had been silently walking behind me by the neck, pushing my sword against its throat.

"What do you want." I hissed.

Instead of answering, the figure removed the black fog covering it, revealing itself as the marked man from my dreams.

"Why the hell were you in my dream? And how?" I growled at him.

"I am here to guide you on your journey." He spoke without opening his mouth.

"What journey?" I said, pressing the sword harder into his skin.

"All will be discovered in time." He said before disappearing into thin air.

"So much for being a guide." I mumbled angrily.

I looked around, trying to see if he was still hiding somewhere, but my senses already told me that he was gone. 

What the actual fuck just happened?

A random guard walked in from an adjacent room. "Hey, who are you talking to?" 

"Myself, apparently." I sighed.

He gave me a weird look before he answered. "I'll escort you to your chamber ma'am. It's not safe out here, two guards were taken out close by."

I looked at him frightened and gave him a small smile. "Oh my, I had no idea. Thank you so much."

If only he knew.

"Wake up, Sunshine." A familiar voice said as the curtains in my room were yanked open with an  angry motion.

I let out a loud groan as the light hit my eyes. "Dude, what time is it?"

"It's 7:15 am, the meeting is about to resume and everyone is already there, so get your butt out of bed, dude." Foxglove said annoyed.

Great, a whopping 45 minutes of sleep. Now the time to hide the vases had truly arrived.

"I'm still allowed to go there?" I leaned up on my forearms surprised and Foxglove immediately started to laugh in the fakest way possible.

"No, you're not. From now, all the meetings are classified." His serious expression appeared again.

"Then why didn't you let me sleep?" I groaned while stuffing my face in a pillow.

Snickering could be heard from the end of my bed. "Because we can't have you sneaking around, knocking out guards and entering guarded rooms. So, I'm locking you up in my office until we're done."

"Wasn't me." I mumbled from under my pillow.

He scratched his chin, pretending to think really hard, even though the amusement radiated off him. "Right, I guess there's another purple eyed girl in this world. Now get dressed and come with me."

I rolled over and let myself fall out of the bed dramatically, before grabbing the only set of clean clothes I had with me and walking over to the bathroom. From which I appeared again 10 minutes later, clean and grumpy, with my long hair up in a messy bun, holding back a couple strands of hair with bobby pins.

"Don't worry, I'll accompany you to your house today or tomorrow to get the rest of your stuff along with your father's." His eyes roamed over my outfit while he motioned me to come with him.

"Looking forward to it already." I sighed walking past him into the hallway.

He stopped before his office, which was in the same wing as the war room, and turned around pointing to door. "This is my office. I'm going to open the door, you're going in and then I'm locking it behind you again." He held up a black key with his other hand, before he continued again. "No peeking, no destroying and most importantly no touching while you're in there." He used his fingers to emphasize the list.

"Got it, don't worry." 

He narrowed his eyes at me for a second, doubting whether or not to trust me, but decided to roll with it and opened the door. "This meeting will probably take a couple of hours, so have fun staring at the wall." 

"Oh, one more thing." He said as I walked in to the office. "Because of the threats and your father's importance for the case, we decided to assign a bodyguard to your father whenever he's off palace grounds."

I turned around to look at him and frowned. "Which one of your incredible warriors have you assigned to try and keep my father alive?"

A huge grin appeared on his face.

Oh fuck.

"You." He said right when he slammed the door in my face.

Rubbing my hands over my face, I let out a frustrated groan. That man brought out the worst in me.

I turned around to face his office, and immediately touched everything, before walking over to his big office chair to spin around in it.

After spinning like a crazy woman, my eyes fell upon his desk, right on my father's case file about the Crosslings and the murder. My father must have worked on the file in Foxglove's office last night since he didn't had his own here and forgot to clear out the desk.

The case had to be eating him alive because I could feel his frustration, anger and also fear radiate from it. My hand hovered over the file as I debated whether should I open it or fight the temptation.

I knew my father was very secretive about his work and didn't want me to open it. But then again, if I was supposed to become my father's bodyguard to protect him from the Crosslings, who apparently committed this murder, I had to know how they worked and what they were capable of.

On top of that, Foxglove told me 'no peaking' and since I wasn't one of his warriors, who was I to obey his orders? I suppressed the urge to let out evil laughter and opened the file.

Oh, I shouldn't have. I really wished that I didn't. 

I quickly browsed through most of the file, only to find a couple pages completely full of my father's scribbling. He once told me his way of cracking a case was by scribbling down all his thoughts and then connecting them together in the end. Apparently it worked, which was a miracle because it looked like an incoherent puzzle. I was surprised he could even follow it, the pages were so full it was pretty much impossible to read what had been written down.

I was about to close it when I reached the second-to-last page. A gasp escaped my mouth. On the page, multiple pictures could be seen, pictures of the bodies of the King and Queen, or what was left of them. To say they were brutally murdered would be an understatement. Both bodies were decapitated, all of their limbs were ripped off and their hearts were ripped out with something that could only be described as brute force, and weird claw and bite marks could be found all over their bodies. But what struck me most, was the almost complete absence of blood, like they were drained of it before they were ripped apart. 

Swallowing the lump that had formed in my throat, I turned the page around only to find more pictures. Close-ups of the wounds this time. My eyes widened, it was something I had never seen before. The claw marks were deep and wide, something your average person, usual dog or mountain lion couldn't have caused. And then the bite marks, or at least I thought they were, looked like these two tinnier, circular, deep wounds in the skin as if they were caused by fangs. The whole thing looked strange all together, as if it was caused by multiple, incredibly strong but smart, seriously fucked up people with an animal fetish. 

I could only come to one conclusion. This was the most gruesome murder I've ever seen.

Having seen enough, I closed the file and started pacing through the office, contemplating about what to do. A part of me wanted to stay quiet about it and let my father do his job, but another part of me wanted to barge into that meeting right now and confront them. Knowing that my father was getting death threats from the same people who committed this murder was enough to completely and utterly enrage me.

I grabbed the file, ready to storm out of the office in to the meeting, when I realized the door was locked. My eyes roamed across the room, looking for something to open the door with it. Unfortunately, there was nothing there, so I had to resort to force instead. My gaze fell upon the office chair and I tilted my head slightly, I could throw it through the door. But then again, Foxglove would probably have my head if I destroyed his office. Lowering myself against the wall, I let out a frustrated groan while I ran my hands through my hair. There I felt them, my heroes.

My bobby pins.

I swiftly removed two of them out of my hair, bent them in the right angles and used them to pick the lock, mentally thanking my father for teaching me. It took me a couple of minutes but I managed to do it. I slowly opened the door and stuck out my head discretely, to check for nearby guards. 

Two of them stood watch in front of the war room. From the looks of it, they were very bored. So it was time to provide them with some action. I grabbed the file from the desk, hid it under my sweater and walked out the door.

"Hello boys." I smiled at the guards, giving them an awkward wave.

Unfortunately, they didn't return it. 

"Grab her." One of them called out as he ran towards me.

He lashed out at me and I dodged it, giving me the opportunity to grab his shoulders and knee him hard in the groin. He squealed in pain as he fell down on the floor. The other guard grabbed me from behind and I elbowed him in the face. He lost his balance, stumbling backwards. The wall caught him and right when he found his footing again, I kicked him to the floor. Grabbing their collars before either of them got the chance to get back on their feet, I shoved their heads against each other, knocking them both out.

Adrenaline continued to rush through my body when I pushed open the huge doors to the war room, still breathing heavily. 

"Not now, lads." One of the generals waved away without bothering to look at the door. 

In fact, none of them did. They continued their meeting, not knowing I was in the room. I cleared my throat multiple times, but none of them responded. 

Time for a different approach. 

I sighed grabbing the two guards and dragged them behind me into the room. When I was closer to the table, I dropped them completely, creating a very loud noise as their steel armor clattered against the black marble floor.

Everyone at the table froze before slowly turning their heads to my direction. I grabbed the file from under my sweater and smacked it onto the table, making some Generals flinch.

"Can someone please tell me what the hell this is?" I said calmly, while smiling at each and every one of them. 

"Gentlemen, you're excused. We'll continue this later today." Foxglove turned towards the Generals. "Oh, and can someone take those guards to the infirmary?"

The nine of them stood up and made their way towards the door, grabbing the unconscious guards along the way.

As soon as the doors closed Foxglove stood up, slapping his hands on the table. "Why couldn't you do the one thing you were asked to do?" He grunted.

"Why would you hide this from me? Don't you think I need to know what I'm dealing with as my 'dad's bodyguard'?" I crossed my arms.

"Answering a question with another question? Really mature." He scoffed.

"So is locking up someone in your office." I snapped back.

My father, who was watching this conversation with much amusement, frowned at Foxglove. "Wait, you locked her up in your office?" 

Foxglove sat back into his chair, closing his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Technically, that's your office at the moment. And can't you see why?" He sighed, raising his hand towards me.

"I mean, she's definitely not one for following rules." My father said dryly, after which he smoothly gave me a wink.

"Can we get back to the reason of my rule breaking, please?" I said pointing my hands to the case.

An uncomfortable silence followed, during which nervousness and doubt radiated from both men as they thought about their answers to my question.

"We should tell her." Foxglove stated to my father.

"Do you really want to introduce her to this world so soon?" My father asked.

I rolled my eyes. "You know I can hear you, right?"

The men looked at me for a quick second before continuing with their conversation, shutting me out once again, which was the usual treatment by now. 

"I know you're trying to be protective since you're her father, but I think she can handle it." Foxglove said with a softer tone, glancing over to me.

My father's eyes dropped to the table. Fear began to rise within him. "It's not about whether or not she can handle it. It's about whether or not she should." 

Foxglove leaned a little closer to my father and whispered. "She's bound to figure it out with or without our help. She might be a fucking pain in the ass, but she's a smart one, I'll give her that." 

My fingers pointed to where I stood. "Again guys, standing right here." 

My father looked at me and attempted to give me a small smile at which he failed miserably. A ray of sunshine fell through one of the large windows in the room and shone upon his face, revealing the true toll his work had taken on him. How tired he looked and how tired he felt. The constant stress had aged him, not just physically, but mentally as well. I guess I never really noticed until now because, like most people, I secretly held on to the hope my father was invincible. Even though in the end, sunlight revealed everything that was hidden.

"Whatever it is, I can handle it." I assured him. If I could take even a little bit of the burden away to make his life a little lighter, then I would.

He gave Foxglove one more look before turning back to me. 

"Alright kiddo, you better sit down, because we have to tell you something."