"Right, let’s take fifteen," Caled gets up from the ground after I had just swept him off his feet.

I’m just so charming.

I help him up and nod. "Yes, Chief."

I notice Anastasia sitting on the Court’s Edge. I grab my water bottle and walk over to her with a smile. "You checking me out, princess?" I tease and open my bottle, leaning against the wall beside her.

Anastasia rolls her eyes with a small smile. "I got bored."

"Yeah," I nod. "I can see life would be pretty boring when your own fiance doesn’t speak to you."

She buries her face into her hands and groans. "Don’t remind me."

I chuckle, "Sorry, Princess."

She lifts her head from her hands. "Let’s talk about you."

"What about me?" I sit besides her on the brick off-white wall.

She turns her face to me. "Like your training, how’s that going?"

I turn my face away from her to watch Caled rest on one of the garden benches. "He’s actually a good trainer actually for someone who hasn’t trained someone in the last three years. Bit strict though."

Anastasia shrugs. "Wouldn’t expect anything else."

I chuckle. "Neither."

A comfortable silence falls over us as we watch him.

Okay, this is creepy.

Anastasia speaks up, "I have a question."

"Yeah?" I look at her.

"How come my father chose you out of all the guards to come over to Numix and guard me?"

I pause for a moment before putting on a teasing grin. "Wow, Princess. Are you saying that I’m not good enough?"

She rolls her eyes but she has an amused smile on her face. "You know that’s not what I meant. Let’s not pretend you have years less experience than the other guards. Guarding the crown princess requires a lot of experience. I’m going to assume you don’t have as much experience watching you train with Caled."

"Come on, I wasn’t that bad, was I?"

"You were kind of sloppy."

"I’m working on it."

"That’s the thing though — my father wouldn’t have chosen someone that needs working on!"

I sigh. "You really want to know the truth, Princess?"

She nods and leans forward. This girl is far too curious for her own good.

"I’m from Pryla," I say slowly.

"Oh."

"There’s more."

"Okay," she nods and rests her chin on her hand.

"My mother and sister were Neuros."

"Oh."

I inhale. "Me and my father are obviously Pyros, so we were safe, technically speaking. But of course they’re family. So we all planned to escape together."

She smiles slightly. "And you escaped!"

This poor optimist..

"Yeah, princess. I escaped. They didn’t."

Her smile dies down. "Oh, Ade.."

"Yeah," I chuckle sadly, staring down at my black joggers. "First it was my father, then my mother, then my little sister."

"How old was she?"

"Twelve. Same age as yours." I glance at her. "I guess your father knew that having my whole family die in front of my eyes — including a little sister the same age as yours — wouldn’t make me try even more harder than any other guard. So I could save someone I care about in this life." I glance at her again and smirk. "Are you crying?" I laugh.

She fans her eyes. "No! Someone is cutting onions or something."

"Uh huh. Sure, Princess."

(Based off of my WOF series)