I feel sick; I really just want to die. I am 21 years old and I do absolutely nothing. My father controls my entire life. Yet tonight that is all going to change… tonight me and my brothers and sisters are going to escape this prison. I oppose the war and even support some anti-war groups, very publicly which embarrassed my father greatly. Since then he has had armed guards surrounding me, and not to protect me if he could he’d have me killed himself, but he knows it would get back to him. I slipped my gown over my t-shirt and jeans just as one of my guards pounded on my door and yelled, “Hurry up your father and mother are already down their and your brothers and sisters are coming down in a few seconds!!” I jumped up and grabbed my daggers, pulled my hair up into a bun and ran out of my room. The guard frowned at me and called over to another guard to escort me down to my father’s party. He was hosting a party for the recent battle we had won near the border of our kingdom.




I got down to the party and sat down trying not to draw attention to myself. Most of the soldiers passed me and gave me dirty looks. Father and mother tried to ignore me completely, but I was used to it. I caught Destiny, my little sister, and we both walked to the bathroom. Luckily we were both able to ditch our escorts. I tore off my dress and looked for a window to get out. “Do you have the horses ready?” Destiny asked, taking off her own dress. “Yeah…” I said finding a window and trying to open it. She pulled her hair up into a pony tail and turned to me, “So are you ready for this?” she asked. I finally pried the window open and nodded. I crawled out and found the main barn.


I heard a few screams and saw people running out of the palace and heard shots. I closed my eyes silently praying that none of my siblings had been hurt. I ran into the main barn and found the four horses I had saddled up and loaded for Destiny, Daeli, Kanei, and myself. I mounted my horse, Mhiar, rounded up the other horses than galloped towards the front gate. I saw my brothers and sisters running out guards right behind them. I was alarmed since they were supposed to sneak out as quietly as possible and then meet me at the front gate. I veered the horses over to them and they jumped on. I was silent, my heart silently pounding out of my chest. Finally after what seemed like ages we reached the front gate. Daeli trotted up to it, dismounted as quickly as he could and opened the gate for us. He mounted again and rode up behind us.

We rode a few miles until we were pretty sure we had lost the guards. Just in case we rode in crooked lines for a few hours. After hours of silence Destiny finally broke it and asked, “Where are we going next?” Daeli scowled and Kanei looked a little grim. “What’s wrong?” I asked ignoring her question. “Oh, nothing really, nothing at all, just the fact that Destiny, Queen of the World decided not to go with the plan but to just run into the room grab us and run out. Now we have the entire royal guard on our tail, father will have wanted signs in every marketplace by now!!” Daeli screamed his face turning red. The plan was for Destiny to sneak out of the bathroom than steal one of the guard’s guns and shoot to create a diversion than Daeli, Destiny, and Kanei would sneak out and nobody would notice. “What did she do?” I asked sighing, we had only been gone for a few hours and we already arguing. “She stole the gun… and she was supposed to shoot it down right? Nope she decided to run into the crowd and shoot of her gun. Than the entire crowd ran screaming but the guards ran towards us.” Kanei said before Daeli could start screaming again. “Okay so she made a mistake, we need to focus on the ‘quest’ at hand. How are we going to stop the war if we can’t even stop arguing amongst ourselves?” I asked trying to be mature. Daeli was still fuming but kept quiet. “Okay so where is this gypsy you were talking about Kanei?” I asked. “It is just a couple miles North East of here. I’ll lead the way,” he replied. “What do we need to see a gypsy for?” Destiny asked. Daeli and Kanei refused to talk so I said, “We have to find out how we can get into the Great Dividend.” She nodded in understanding and we continued on in silence.

We arrived at a small cottage and we dismounted and tied our horses to a well near the side of the cottage. Daeli entered timidly and we followed. We walked into what seemed to be a living room with an old woman sitting next to a fire with several cats in her lap. “Enter children,” she said suddenly. She turned the chair around and pointed to a couch next to her. We all sat down when Kanei finally said, “We need to find out how to get into the Great Dividend.” As soon as the words left his mouth the cats jumped up from her lap and she turned from an elderly woman to a young girl in her twenties, the cats than jumped into our laps and started to purr. “Well I knew you children were coming today but I didn’t know that you would ask that. The royal Bromlin children wanting to stop the war, I never thought I’d say the day…”she shook her head than remembered our question, “Oh yes, um the Great Dividend… I have a book about that somewhere.” Than getting up she walked over to a bookshelf and pulled off a book entitled, Midnthe. She sat back down in her chair, after a few minutes she showed us a page with a woman surrounded by fishes. “Now that is Midnthe the goddess of water. She resides in the Uurthel River, she is trapped there. You see a few decades ago she killed almost everyone in a town near the river. So my grandmother, Decai, the town’s gypsy cursed her and she was forced to live in the Uurthel River. The day my grandmother died, July 3rd, was the day that the spell was weakened a bit. That day she can get above the river and has full power, she sits near the river’s edge granting wishes to those who come by. She only grants wishes to those who are polite to her though. She hates those who are rude so if you are she turns you into a shadow and forces you to reside in the river with her. I don’t have enough power to help you survive the Great Dividend but she is almost as powerful as the Great Dividend, she can give you enough power to survive it. Here is a map of the kingdoms. That red dot on the river is where she is. Now make sure you are polite and tell her about me.” she said. “What is your name?” Destiny asked. She smiled than said, “My name is Faroum.” We thanked her than left.

After a few hours of galloping we decided on a place to camp out. I made a fire while Daeli smoked meat and Destiny and Kanei passed around bread and crackers. As soon as I was done eating I took out my sleeping bag and feel asleep instantly while Daeli kept guard.
I was still angry at Destiny for what she did. It was so stupid, of course she and I had never gotten along but this was just... so ridiculous. She could’ve gotten us all killed luckily we weren’t but we still were being followed closely. I lay back on my horse Rhaki trying to calm myself down. I took the map that Faroum gave us, opened it and traced over it with my finger. We would have to go a long way to get to the point that she had marked on the map; according to the legend about 250 miles. What would happen if we didn’t get there?...