Page 12 of Kingdom of Betrayal and Unknown (Kingdom of Bellhollow #1)

No rest for the wicked. I sigh and lift the heavy bucket, pouring the water in before picking up the other and doing the same thing.

I take several seconds to catch my breath and give my arms a break.

Looking over at where I came from, I search for Kieran, but I don’t see him anywhere, and I don’t feel his eyes.

He must have gotten taken away, or he realized I got home safely and left.

Emptiness fills me at the thought. I want him close to me at all times. The thought of not seeing him for days or even longer makes me ill. When will I see him next? I know he said I would, but it could be weeks or months before we do. But deep down, I have a feeling it won’t be that long.

“Come on, Adeline,” my mother lightly scolds me. “We need to get these done before your sister visits.”

“Avira is coming by?” I ask in disbelief.

I haven’t seen her in months. Avira works at the palace and now lives there.

She only comes down when she wants something, which never sits well with me.

She’s my older sister even though she doesn’t act like one.

Once she got her job, it was like she forgot all about us and only comes down when absolutely necessary.

My mother calls it her being busy with important things, but I don’t feel the same way about it. There have been several other people who have gotten jobs at the palace, and they visit their families way more often.

“Yes, she is. She told me in a letter last week that she was going to come today since she had some time off,” she explains.

“Or because she needs something and it’s not really time off,” I point out.

My mother glares at me. “Do not talk about your sister like that. She is doing good work in the palace and has been really busy.”

“Mother’s right, Adeline,” my sister sneers my name.

I turn around to see my sister behind me. I sigh and give her a forced smile. “Hello, Avira. To what do we owe the pleasure? How’s the king treating you?”

Sometimes, I wonder if she’s sleeping with the king.

She is beautiful, even I will admit that, but her personality lacks a lot.

Avira takes a step toward me, and I have to will my body not to move.

Any time she gets close to me, I get an uneasy feeling in my stomach, and I can never place what it is.

She’s never hurt me, but I’ve always felt like I’ve had to be wary around her. One wrong move and she could kill me.

But she’s my sister, and this has to be just a normal sibling rivalry going on.

“Good, like always.” My sister walks past me and hugs our mother. “How are things with you?”

“The same. Helping Mom prepare for the baby to come into this world. Prepping things for the market. Hopefully we’ll sell out this year to have more money for over the winter when the baby arrives.” I continue to talk, knowing she doesn’t care.

“A simple good would have been fine.” She stands to the side as mother and I start to clean the rest of the clothes.

Just as I predicted, and yet I can’t help but smile. I love annoying her.

“Hopefully, we’ll earn enough. While we have some money spared for emergencies, we’ll have a newborn in a couple of months and will need all the money we can get,” I point out, not looking at my mother.

“Oh, hush, Adeline,” she scolds me. “We are doing just fine.”

“Don’t lie to her, Mother.” I pin a look at her. “You know as well as I do that we’ll need every cent we can get.”

Avira narrows her eyes on me before looking at mother. “I can spare some money, but the king doesn’t like me to give away a lot, even if it’s to my family.”

That is her excuse every single time, but I think she wants all the money to herself so she can buy whatever she wants. She knows we are desperate for money, but she doesn’t care.

“It’s okay, Avira. We don’t need it. We’ll make do with what we have,” my mother gently pacifies her.

I want to tell my mom that it isn’t okay.

My sister is living in the palace with everything she could ever need, her clothes and how filled out she is speaking for it, and here we are suffering.

Suffering is a strong word, but compared to her, we are.

We have what we need, but there are things we forgo because the money is needed elsewhere.

“I’m sure you could talk to the king and tell him the reasoning. He has to understand.” I scoff, fully annoyed at my sister. “He has a family of his own. Though he hasn’t ever had to live like us, so he may not understand.”

“Adeline,” my mother scolds me. “Apologize.”

Yeah, that’s not going to happen, and Avira knows it.

Maybe I should ask the prince about it to see whether she’s telling the truth or not, but at the same time, I don’t want to talk to him and encourage anything between us.

As much as I want to ask him about his father and employees sending money to family, I don’t want him anywhere near me if he remembers what he asked me to do.

“It’s okay, Mother,” Avira calmly says. “Adeline can have opinions of her own, but they should be kept to herself. You don’t know who’s listening and who will tell a guard or even the king what you’ve said.”

Normally, I’m good about keeping them to myself, but when it comes to my sister, it’s so much harder. I just want to yell at her and tell her how selfish she is for not thinking about us.

“It’s not okay.” My mother starts hanging up wet clothes. “Adeline knows better. We have this conversation every single time you visit.”

“And we’ll continue to have it,” I mutter under my breath.

Silence fills the space as I rinse the clothes and my mother hangs them up. Avira doesn’t even offer to help us. Typical. I know she’s my sister and I should love her, but she makes it so difficult.

“Has anything interesting happened since the last time I visited?” Avira asks, looking between me and my mom.

I shake my head. “No,” I lie.

I’m itching to tell someone about Kieran and how we met, how attracted I feel to him, and everything that has happened.

How I want to spend more time with him and do things with him I’ve never wanted to do with any man before.

How he makes me tingle in places and feel all these emotions I never thought I would experience.

But the last person I’m going to tell is Avira.

She asks this question every single time she comes to visit, like she doesn’t get a report about what’s going on in town when she’s with the king every single day.

Maybe she’s curious about the little details the guards overlook.

Maybe this is her way of showing she has missed living here.

“Tell Avira about the prince.” My mother smiles.

I groan and close my eyes, taking a deep breath. This is the last thing I wanted to talk about. I look at my sister and see her eyes narrowed on me.

“What about Prince Archie?” she asks.

I grind my teeth together, hating that she’s taking an interest in our lives right now. Normally, we tell her there is nothing new or something small, and she leaves soon after.

“It’s nothing,” I reply, not looking at her.

“Adeline, it’s not nothing,” my mother scolds me once again. “Why are you being so difficult?”

“Avira doesn’t want to hear about this. She wants to see if anything is happening in the town that doesn’t relate to us. She wants the juicy details that the guards probably didn’t tell the king and his son,” I exaggerate and look at my sister, hoping she’ll back me up.

But her eyes are trained on me, searching my face. I take a step back and scrunch my nose. What is she doing? She may be a bitch, but she has never looked at me like that before.

“I want to know,” Avira finally says. “I want to know about your life. I may live in the palace and can’t visit very often, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

I scoff and get back to rinsing the clothes.

There is so much I could say, but I hold my tongue, not wanting to get another mouthful from mother.

There is only so much I’m willing to take while she’s pregnant.

Any more and she’ll most likely start stressing about it after my sister leaves and interrogate me.

“Tell her, Adeline,” my mother urges me.

“The prince may have taken an interest in me, but I don’t think it’s going to last. I haven’t seen him since he broke his arm,” I point out.

“Did he say anything to you when you were last with him?” Avira asks, a look of interest flashing across her face.

“I haven’t done anything with him if that’s what you’re asking. Gross.” I balk as I think about it. “He wants me to come to the palace once a week to take lessons in being a lady. I don’t know why he wants me to do that.”

It’s a lie, but I’m not going to tell my sister he wants me to marry him. I have to figure out a way to get away from all of this.

Maybe I should do what Skylar suggested and talk about nature and the forest. Maybe when he realizes I’m not going to stop talking about walking in the forest he’ll get annoyed and find someone else to marry. He could marry Skylar.

“For you to be the future queen and princess,” my mother chimes in. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

I hold my tongue, not wanting to lash out and have everyone staring at us. It’s not great. It’s anything but. I don’t know how Mom thinks it’s something so wonderful when she knows I don’t want anything to do with the prince.

“I’m far from princess and queen material,” I softly say.

“You can’t go against him,” Avira says.

“Why? If he gives me a choice, I’m not going to marry him.” I scoff at the end. “Not everyone gets what they want, even the prince. He didn’t want that injury. He didn’t want to be carried by the guards through the town and back to the palace, but he did.”

Avira laughs, gaining the attention of the people around us. I look down at the clothes I’m rinsing, pulling them out, and handing them to my mother.

“Oh, he’ll give you a choice all right, and I hope for your sake and everyone around you, that you take it.” Avira stops laughing. “If you don’t, he’ll make your life and your parents’ life hard until all of you die.”

I look at her funny. “Our parents?”

Once in a while, Avira messes up and calls them ‘my parents’ instead of ‘our parents’ as well. It’s something I’ve noticed over the years and doesn’t make any sense. Does she no longer want to be part of our family? Does she want to get rid of us so she doesn’t have to visit?

“That’s what I said. Our parents.”

I want to correct her and tell her it’s not what she said, but Avira glares at me before I can open my mouth.

“It’s just something to think about before you hang out with him again. Think about everyone and not just yourself,” she sneers at the end.

I bite my tongue as mother gets closer to us.

“Adeline always thinks about everyone,” she gently says, smiling at Avira. “This is no different, but maybe she should think about herself this one time. It is her life after all.”

Looking at my mom in shock, I don’t know what to say to that. I figured, with how excited she was that the prince took interest in me becoming the future queen, she wouldn’t have responded like that.

“Of course.” My sister smiles. “I just want her prepared for every eventuality.”

I hand Mother the last of the clothes and drain the water, letting it run down the side of the cobblestone road to who knows where.

“Have any of the Fae bothered you?” Avira asks after several minutes of silence. “Have any of them done anything to anyone that the guards don’t know about?”

My whole body freezes as I look at her, trying to figure out whether she knows about Kieran or not.

No one has seen us at any point. I looked around before I left the stream.

Not that anyone would suspect anything when I walk in and out of the forest. Everyone knows I love being in nature, and they often leave me to it, paying no attention.

“Adeline?” Avira takes a step closer to me. “Are you okay?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” I snap back.

She studies my face, and I hope I don’t give anything away. “You froze when I asked about the Fae. Have any of them done anything to you or Mother?”

I shake my head. “They haven’t done anything to either of us. We don’t interact with them,” I lie.

I feel no remorse in not being truthful to Avira. All I feel is happiness that she isn’t getting what she wants. I like knowing I have something she so desperately wants but won’t ever get.

“Are you sure?” She takes another step closer to me, cocking her head to the side. “Because I can let the prince know if they are bothering you, and he’ll take care of them.”

“I promise, they aren’t. I don’t interact with them. They do their job and I do mine.” I sigh at the end. “They stay away from us.”

All but one stay away from me, and I have no idea why he wants to be close to me. He called me his mate, but I have no idea what that means.

“Promise me you’ll contact me or one of the guards if they do bother you.” She gives me a pointed look.

“The guards will be alerted if they bother me or anyone in the town, like it will always be,” I say, clearly annoyed. “Now, can I get back to work?”