Your gaze is clouded with confusion as you look over at Orion, the usually good-natured man oddly silent and tense as he leads you through the woods. Though you make a few attempts at conversation, he barely answers, his grey eyes swimming with a stress he's trying and failing to hide. As your bodyguard for the past few years, you'd grown extremely close, and you could read him like a book.

Briars claw at your ankles as you walk, Orion's excuse of wanting to merely "take a stroll", seeming less and less likely as the trees become darker and denser. You supposed you should be grateful for the excuse to get away from the palace that had long since become more of a prison, your stepmother, Queen Rowena, making no attempts to hide her distaste for you. Your biological mother had died in childbirth, so you couldn't be completely surprised when your father fell in love again when you were 14, but the cruel woman was unlike what you sought in a mom figure.

When your father had passed only a few months later, she became the sole ruler, extending her cruelty upon everyone in the kingdom — including yourself. Forced to do chores, live in a sad room, and be confined behind castle walls, your life was not the luxurious existence would expect of an heir.

Orion was the only constant that extended past the tragedy that had struck your family, a steadfast presence that was always happy to protect you. Just a few years older than you, he had practically been raised in the palace as the son of a royal guard, thus becoming a close friend of yours. Walking in the forest with him now was nice, though a foreboding fog clouded the serenity.

This foreboding is confirmed when you reach a point deep in the woods, when out of nowhere, Orion reaches out to grab you, using a strong arm to pin your back to his chest. You can't see his face, unable to see the face you were so adept at reading.

"I'm so sorry, your highness."

His voice is a grave, wobbly whisper, and you suddenly feel the cool touch of a blade on your neck.