The Crystal Ball

Chapter Three: Bow and Arrow

Stepping through the portal felt bizarre. Maybe it was because we went from the warmth of the Inn to a chill that was all too recognizable.

It was a chill that chipped away at your skin until all you felt was numb. But for me, this chill was normal. A coldness that I felt for the entire 17 years I have been alive.

"Erandite..." I said slowly. A wide smile spread across my face. Home. I was home. The sky above was still and cloudless. Full of beautiful twinkling stars and a crescent moon. I looked around, without seeing much because it was night and we had not yet lit our torch.

"Mitchell, is the torch in your bag? I can't seem to find it in mine." I squinted through the darkness looking inside of my bag. Rumbling over clothes and a notebook, in which I placed my deepest thoughts. A cloak and a pouch of coins, but no torch. "Mitch? Do you see the torch?" No answer. I felt my heart drop slightly, he always answers when I call... Now instead of looking in my bag for a torch, I was looking around the field our portal dropped us in, for Mitchell.

Where is he? We walked through together I know that. He was just holding my hand. "Mitchell!?" My voice came out a little more strangled and jumpy than I anticipated. Is it possible that the portal dropped us in two different locations? It wouldn't be the first time, when I was younger, my father and I went to the kingdom of Gosha. I was teleported to the kingdom gates while my father, David, was teleported to the bathing stalls in the Inn. It was a story that made me laugh even now in the later years of my childhood. He would tell the story at parties and my friends would surround me and giggle as it was told. The king, in a public bath? Preposterous.

The rustling of bushes near by snapped me out of my thoughts and back to reality. I was alone, in an open field. "Mitchell is that you?" The rustling became louder but no reply came. "Please Mitch if its you than this is not funny." More rustling, still no talking. I stepped forward, walking up to the bushes that lined the front of what appeared to be a roofed forest. "Whoever it is... Please state your name." There was silence for a moment. Eerily quiet for no more the 5 seconds, and then it happened.

One moment I was staring into darkness, the next second there was a bright flash of light so blinding that I stumbled backwards and fell. I grunted loudly as I hit the frozen ground.

"State your name!" A deep voice boomed out of the bushes. "Now!"

"I-I" I cleared my throat trying to formulate words but none would come. I felt my heart beating a thousand time a minute and my breathing start to accelerate.

"Name now or you will be taken in for questioning!" It boomed again causing me to jump slightly. Taken in? No they can't. I need to get away.

"Theo, I think you're scaring her.." A softer voice came out from the same direction, two attackers.

"She deserves to be scared. She is out past curfew, at the site where the flashes of light came." Theo said.

"Just put out the light and let me-" as they stood there debating over whether I was scared or just rebellious, I took the chance to scramble to my feet and run in the opposite direction away from the two men. "Hey, wait!"

I heard them start to run after me, they were fast but between the adrenaline and the horrible thoughts of what would happen if they caught up to me, I was faster. Easily I made my way through the field to the other side of the clearing. Behind me I could hear the men yelling for me to wait but I continued. I broke through the bushes and started rushing through the trees, looking around every corner for Mitchell who had to be close by.

After another minute or two I heard my two chasers slow down, possibly stopping and so I decided to rest a bit too. I slowed to a jog, still looking frantically for Mitch. I heard another rustle coming from the right side of me and I came to a stop. "Mitchell?" This time it was a rabbit who dashed past me in the direction I was running. In the time I took to stop I forgot to listen for my attackers, it was a horrible mistake.

A sharp piercing feeling in the back of my leg. A pain so excruciating that I immediately toppled to the floor of the woods and began to convulse. They were on me before I realized what it was. "Theo... You shouldn't have." The soft voice came from close beside me. He must've knelt down to check my wound.

"Oh shut up she broke the law, she deserves worse." The deeper voice of Theo came out as indifferent. As if shooting a person with an arrow was no big deal.

"That is not your call to make. Its the Kings." The softer voice sounded closer than I anticipated. The king? My father? No it can't be, King Daniel would never allow such compulsive idiots to guard his precious kingdom. I flinched slightly as I was lifted off of the floor and into one of the men's muscular arms. The softer voiced one. "Lets get her back before infection sets in."

We started to make out way out of the forest as I began losing consciousness. "Whats your name?" His voice was a whisper as if speaking any louder would break me.

"Amillee." I grunted out. "Princess Amillee of Errandite."

There was an abrupt stop. "Theo?"

"What?" Theo sounded annoyed at the sudden halt in movement.

He cleared his throat, his voice slightly shaky as he turned to face his companion. "The princess, the one who disappeared three months ago, what was her name?"

Theo scoffed as if the question was as stupid as a jester. "Are you an idiot? Her name was Amillee."

I felt his arms tighten around my body." Y-you just shot the princess."