Page 113 of Quest for her Knights
“Not so fast,” King Ian says, stopping him. He doesn’t say anything else, and Arrow looks around at us in confusion. Like me, he’s wondering why we’re still here if we’ve been fired.
A noise has me looking toward the door as the queen returns with no less than a dozen knights with her, all in full armor.
“What’s going on here?” Blaze asks, taking a step back in worry.
“I’m really sorry about this, boys. You’ve been exemplary at your jobs up to this point.” My stomach sinks as the knights move into the room, surrounding us. “But Elora must marry lords. It’s for the good of the people.”
“What are you doing?” Arrow asks as Marrick, one of his friends, places a hand on his shoulder from behind.
“Please understand, this is for what’s best,” the queen says, finally looking a little guilty. Someone places their hand on my shoulder and I yank myself out of their grip, turning to glare at the knights who were on our side moments ago.
“We’re just going to detain you until she’s married, then you’ll be free to leave. We’ll even give you some funds so you can start over somewhere new.”
“We don’t care about your money,” Blaze says angrily as he’s grabbed by both arms.
But what’s bothering me most is how she said they’re going to detain us.
“Let us at least say goodbye,” I beg as three guards suddenly grab me from behind, holding me firmly.
The queen shakes her head. “We’ll tell her you’ve left. It’s the only way we can get her to move on.”
“You can’t do this! It’s wrong!” Arrow yells. A cloth is placed around my mouth at the same time I see it done to the others. I struggle and try to rip myself out of their grip, but multiple knights are holding me firmly, forcing my arms behind my back, and quickly, shackles are attached to my wrists as we’re led into the hall.
“Elora!” I try to yell through the mask as we pass the stairs leading up to her room, but it’s no use. We’re quickly marched toward the other set of stairs, the ones that go down to the dungeon.
We’re all shoved into separate cells and the doors are pulled shut behind us.
“Turn around and give me your hands,” Marrick tells me. I see him holding a key, so I do as he says and he releases my cuffs through the bars. I quickly pull the cloth from my mouth ashe moves to unshackle the other three. He ends at Arrow, who turns around and glares at him.
“Don’t blame me, man. What were you thinking, sleeping with the princess?”
“You don’t understand. I love her.”
“You’re a knight. It doesn’t matter.”
“It should.”
“I’m sorry this happened. I’ll personally make sure you get decent meals while you’re down here.”
He shakes his head and walks away. Blaze is in the cell beside me, Arrow is across from me, and Ranger is beside him. I grip the bars tightly as we all stare at one another, letting our new reality sink in.
“Fuck,” I curse, realizing how screwed we are.
“The only way that could have gone worse is if they executed us,” Blaze mumbles, leaning his forehead against the bars.
“They’re gonna force her to marry someone else. I’d almost rather die than have to watch that,” Arrow says angrily.
What will she think happened to us? The queen said Elora would be told we’d left.
“She’ll never believe it,” I tell them.
“What?” Ranger asks, frowning at me.
“Elora. She’ll never believe we just left her.”
“I don’t know,” he says, looking down at the dirty ground. “It’s not like we haven’t confused her with pulling back before.”
“But that was before we all went fully in,” Blaze tells him. “Draven’s right. She’ll never believe them.”
