"Matthew, I swear to god—"

 "You swear to god what?"

 I rolled my eyes playfully as Matthew fell back in laughter on my bed. His tie flopped over his face and his perfectly shaped hair was beginning to get messed up. 

"Get out of my room so I can get ready, you goon." I fired back with giggles as Matthew sat up on my bed. His large hands were firmly holding the edges and he had a soft smile on his face. That was before he winked and opened his big mouth. 

"Ah, but I'm your goon, my dear." I couldn't help the escaping giggles now as I used my crutches to move over to my piano. It had been so long since I had last played anything; this had been my record time away from the keys. I glided my fingers across the keys and began to play anything that my fingers wanted. 

"You stupid boy," I sang out and pressed multiple keys to let out a peppy, yet not sour noise. "Can't you see. I want to be alone. Just a party of three. The party of three is me, myself, and I; so get out of my room Matthew... goodbye, goodbye, GOODBYE." I sang loudly and heard Matthew's laughter over the music. I glanced over my shoulder to see Matthew pushing himself off of my bed and using his golden crutches to catch him. He hobbled toward me and stopped moving once he stood behind me.

 "Fine, I'll go," He said before he placed a gentle kiss on the top of my head. "But you have to sign my cast first." 

Matthew reached for a black marker that was sitting in a tin cup on the top of the piano, which really should't have been there. In the process, however, Matthew knocked over the cup, spilling its contents of markers, pencils, and pens, and sent all the sheet music on top of the piano flying across the room. Matthew and I just stared at the mess as it descended slowly to the floor, then at each other before cracking up. Never had I had this much fun making a mess of things. 

"Give me the marker so I can call my maids and they can clean your mess Prince Matthew." I giggled and grabbed the only marker not rolling around somewhere on the floor. Matthew laughed and cocked an eyebrow as he put his casted foot on top of the bench beside me. He looked like he was in a lounging position. 

"My mess? Oh no my dear Lady Sol, I think you are mistaken there." I laughed while shaking my head and uncapped the marker. Sticking the cap between my teeth, I leaned forward and began to scribble my name onto the bumpy, yet hard exterior of the cast. I felt Matthew's right hand fall into my hair, his fingers twisting the tangled baby hair at the nape of my neck. His other hand, however, had picked up a piece of paper. And though I couldn't see his expression, I felt his body stiffen underneath my moving hand. With the last flick of my wrist, I grabbed the cap from my teeth and put it back on the marker, looking up at Matthew with a satisfied smile. 

"There you go, Your Highness." 

But he wasn't smiling. Instead, a concerned frown resided on his face. I tilted my head and muddled my eyebrows in confusion; Matthew flipped the sheet of paper that he held in a death grip so I could see its contents. My eyes began to scroll across the words, and I self consciously began to read the words aloud.

 "Truth looks at me, I fake a smile so he won't..." I felt myself gasp and my eyes immediately shifted to Matthew's. He looked at me as if I were insane. 

"What are you reading Sol?" He asked, his tone slightly frantic. I held my palms face up to the ceiling and shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know, maybe the words—"

 "I don't care what's on the paper. I already know that you wrote this, and I know who it was for. I don't care." So Matthew did know that this song was about Fabian. And he didn't care. Which reminded me, where has Fabian been the past few days. Blinking back to reality, I saw snapping fingers in front of my eyes and shot a scowl up to Matthew. His frown slowly altered into a sheepish grin and his cheeks lit up rose pink. 

"Sorry," he said and went to move his hand to rub the back of his neck. However, he only got half way there before he began to topple over . He was lucky that I caught him. Matthew was now leaning against my body, our faces only inches apart. When he looked up into me eyes, his blush turned to a red rose and spread to his neck and ears. I giggled and poked his nose. 

"Like you've told me before, red is a great color on you." Matthew's blush deepened and he laughed. 

"Well, you look way better in red than I do, my darling." I smiled a closed lip smile and Matthew held up the paper once again as he sat up, now on the bench with me. "Read the bottom corner." He instructed me and I did as he said. He would be a good king, if he happened to be the heir. No one in the country knew who the heir was; it was something I had to constantly remind myself when I was here. But back to Matthew and being a good king; he was gentle, yet firm when he was authoritative. It was commanding, it showed leadership; it was very attractive. 

My eyes scrolled across the sharp shaped letters in the blood red font until I got half way through the first sentence. I did a double take before re-reading that entire part again; twice. And then I screamed. Matthew immediately clamped his hand over my mouth and held his finger up to his lips while his eyebrows knit together in seriousness; he was shushing me. 

"I don tink dat now is the bes tie to be husing you lips Mafew." I said through his hand, though from the look he gave me, I could tell that whatever he had heard had sounded severely muffled. Dropping his hand from my my mouth, Matthew grabbed both of my shoulders with his hands and leaned closer to me; gazing squarely into my eyes. Reading into my soul.

 "Can you please repeat yourself, my dear?" He said gently and rather quietly. What, was he afraid that someone was lurking around the corner and would hear us? Did he not like being seen with me... anymore? Shoving my recently found insecurities into a corner of my mind, I looked at him dead on with the confidence of a soldier in combat.

 "First off, I am not your dear. And secondly, I had said, 'I don't think that now is the best time to be hushing your lips Matthew.'" After saying what I had said with such seriousness, I burst into a fit of giggles. Matthew dropped his serious look, replacing it with a relieved and happy one, and grabbed me for a hug. His strong arms wrapped around me as my uncontrollable laughter rang across the room. 

"What am I going to do with you my darling." Matthew said, nuzzling my hair with his cheek. I shrugged. 

"I don't know Matthew. Maybe stop calling me 'my darling' and we can figure something out." Chuckling, Matthew pulled away from me and I was left with a despised coldness. 

"Well, you can either be my dear or my darling—" 

"You seem to call me both of those na—" 

"Well, everyone is my dear," Matthew interrupted. This seemed to be a constant game between the two of us; The Interruption Game. "As I've probably said in the past, it's only a matter of seeing who shall end up being the dearest to me. Right now, the dearest is... well, you." Matthew let me catch a glimpse of his sheepish smile again, making me internally swoon. I don't think I had ever swooned over a guy before, had I? Before I could think about this even further, Matthew started talking again. 

"And you are the only one I call my darling. I don't know, it seems more special and romantic to me." At this I had to laugh. Who couldn't laugh at the irony? Obviously, Matthew couldn't, for his eyebrows knit together in confusion. 

"What's so funny?" He asked, causing me to laugh even louder. It probably wasn't healthy to laugh this much in such a short period of time. 

"It's just," I said, taking deep calming breaths in through my nose. "What do you call Lady Darling?" Matthew's lips morphed into a tight 'O" before he chuckled lightly. 

"Well, I hadn't really thought of that. However, I only call her Lady Darling. Just as I call all the women, with their formalities. All the women, except you. You're special Sol." Matthew said and moved his head down, his lips becoming  millimeters away from mine. I felt his cool minty breath against my lips and I wanted him to kiss me already. Slowly, I reached my hands up and traced my fingers from the sides to the back of his neck. He seemed to enjoy the touch, for he closed his eyes and leaned down a little closer. I lifted myself up a little higher, just to be able to place the whisper of a kiss on his lips. But before I could even do that, the door to my room burst open and in came Cassia, Juliana, and Starlet. Matthew and I immediately jumped apart, and I tried to hide my disappointment. My lips had barely touched his; and I could feel Matthew's own disappointment radiating off of him. It made me feel slightly better, just slightly. 

"What happened in here?" Cassia screamed as Juliana's hands flew to her mouth and Starlet moved behind her; peeking over Juliana's shoulder at the mess of paper and writing supplies. Cassia's frantic gaze turned to me, and her eyes were moving between Matthew and I so fast that you had to look close to notice the small jerks right and left. 

"We heard you scream Miss." Cassia said finally and I glanced over to look at Matthew. He simply gave me an I-don't-know look and shrugged. I sighed out of my nose and faced Cassia. Thanks for the help Matthew. 

"It was nothing, really," I said, my voice calm and even; too relaxed to be my own. "Matthew and I just accidentally knocked everything off of my piano and onto the floor. Actually, he was helping me pick up some of the supplies, but since he and I are both crippled, I told him to lay off." 

With my lie out in the open, I snatched the paper from Matthew's loose grip and he looked at me with a what-are-you-doing expression on his face and wide eyes. I raised my eyebrows and tilted my head towards my maids before facing the three of them again. 

"Alright, alright," Cassia said and turned to Juliana and Starlet. Juliana had a huge smile on her face as she continuously stepped to her left; an attempt to get Starlet out of her shadow. And Starlet, she wanted to be Juliana's shadow, continuously hiding behind Juliana and stepping to her left just after Juliana did. "Starlet, start running Lady Sol's bath. We need to start preparing her for the Report. Juliana, help me clean up this mess and once we're done, go and finish the dress for tonight." Both Juliana and Starlet nodded before disbursing in their own directions; Starlet bolting to my bathroom and Juliana picking up paper by the entrance to my room. 

"And I," Cassia said, bringing my attention back to her, "must ask you to leave, Your Highness." My eyes shifted to Matthew, whose face was now stern and confident; leader-like.

 "Alright miss." Matthew said and I felt him rest something on my palm before standing up with the help of his crutches. Looking down at my hand, I noticed that it was the sheet of music paper with the blood red note on it. I looked up at him in a slight panic, but Matthew wasn't looking at me. He was talking directly to Cassia, and I could tell the intense gaze of his eyes made her want to shrink down. I wanted to thank Matthew in that moment; maybe Cassia will change with a taste of her own medicine. 

Juliana and Starlet were just kneeling on the floor, collecting the many blank sheets of music paper. I intended to fill the empty lines with many words and melodies. And good news for me, my experience here so far has provided me with many ideas for songs. 

"I just need to tell Lady Sol one more thing and I will take my leave." Matthew said and Cassia nodded her head once, firmly, before swooping down to her knees and collecting paper. Matthew turned to me fast and it was then that I realized how intense his gaze was.

 "Listen," Matthew whispered and moved closer to me, cupping his hand firmly around my ear so none of my maids would hear what we were whispering about. "I know you, and I know that you would't want me to take this music from you because the lyrics are beautiful. However, I need to take this letter with me. So here's what I'll do. I'm going to let you temporarily keep this piece of sheet music. What I want you to do is copy the lyrics and keys of your song onto a another sheet of music paper. Then, I want you to copy the note from this paper to a blank, smaller one. You will need to hide it, but I want you to have the note. You deserve to have it." Matthew stopped talking and took in a deep inhale; I could feel the receding air tickling my ear. "Just before the Report tonight, I will meet you outside of the Report Room and retrieve the the sole piece of sheet music with the note on it from you. Did you get all of that?" I nodded my head silently and Matthew pulled his hands and lips away from my ear. He smiled lightly before placing a butterfly kiss on the center of my forehead.

 "Good girl." He said with a smile before turning around and walking out the door. My maids just stared at me, jaws dropped, and looked at Matthew's receding body as he left my room.

 "I'll run the bath." Starlet said meekly and stood from the floor to walk to the bathroom. 

Juliana and Cassia just start at me. I sighed and picked up the sheet music, holding the paper at an appropriate reading level. 

"I'll come help you girls as soon as I finish reading this." I said in a serious tone and I heard a giggle. Glancing upward from the paper, I noticed that it was in fact not Juliana giggling, but Cassia.

 "Ms. Silvia giving you loads of Elite work already?" she asked in a rather teasing tone. I smirked and held the paper a little closer to my mouth. 

"Something like that," I said, then lowered the paper a little so Cassia could see my smirking smile. "and I'm a Pre-Elite. There are no Elites yet." This time, Juliana giggled aloud. 

"Nothing to worry about Miss. The princes would be stupid to not make you an Elite." 

It didn't matter how much she or anyone else assured me that I would be an Elite, for we were still in the Pre-Elite stage and it was truly anyone's game. However, just the thought of how far I've come in this competition gave me butterflies in my stomach; butterflies that hadn't been there over a month ago.

 I was a Pre-Elite.

 Returning my attention to the paper, I finally let my eyes scroll across the bloody red words. About half way down the note, I covered my mouth with my hand to conceal my gasp. And upon finishing the letter, I had flipped it upside-down on top of the piano. I didn't even want to look at the accursed words written. For they gave me the worst type of goose bumps that anyone could get.

Lady Sol,

It has come to our attention that you have a secret. A secret that you don't even know about. A very old secret that no one knows about. A secret that could change history as we know it. And guess what, we know what it is. Get ready, Lady Sol, for it won't be hidden for much longer. You will be ours.

The Southern Rebels