Chapter 1:
[Sebastian's POV]
To think that a day would come when I would be on the run like this.
My name was Sebastian, but it seemed that if caution wasn't taken into consideration, I would cease to be called such soon.
The very identity I had crafted so carefully over these long years, my mask of a loyal and simple servant, was now the only thing standing between me and a traitor's death, yet it felt more like a cage than a disguise.
I stared behind me with a begrudging look at the group of hostile men on horses that were approaching my speeding carriage, their dark forms cutting through the haze of windblown snow like harbingers of doom. They were no other than the second queen, Aurelia's turncoat knights.
The thunder of their horses hooves against the frozen ground was relentless, a sound that urged the frantic pulse in my own neck to match its rhythm, pushing my exhausted horses to run even faster even as their breath came out in great, labored clouds.
Just moments ago, the late king's second wife, Aurelia, had declared herself as supreme ruler of the kingdom, and in an act of power, had her people try and eliminate the queen, Seraphina, or should I say, former queen.
The palace, which had been a place of whispered conspiracies and silent power struggles for as long as I could remember, had erupted into open chaos the moment the announcement was made.
It was a brutal and efficient move, a bid to snatch the throne from the grasp of the late king's first wife, the true queen of the kingdom and it had sent a shockwave through every corridor and chamber.
Within my speeding carriage was that very woman, Seraphina.... a woman I despised with all my heart for all she'd done to those around me.
Thanks to her, years ago, after the death of the king, countless villages were driven to near bankruptcy due to the strict tax laws she'd put in place, laws that bled the countryside dry to fill the already overflowing coffers of the crown, all to fund her extravagant tastes and secure the loyalty of powerful nobles with lavish gifts.
My family was unfortunately unable to keep up and crumbled before my very eyes.
I could still remember the hollow look in my father's eyes as he signed away our family lands, the stifled sobs of my mother as she packed what little remained of our belongings.
The way our name, once spoken with respect in our small village, became a whisper of pity as our memory faded along with my parents.
The taxes had been a slow-acting poison, and we, like so many others, had been powerless against it.
With nothing else but vengeance in my heart, I'd worked for years in order to get admitted into the palace as a servant, all for the sake of killing this wicked woman.
I had scrubbed floors until my hands bled, endured the casual cruelties of senior staff, and swallowed my pride a thousand times over, all for a single, fleeting chance to make her pay for the destruction she had wrought upon my life and the lives of so many innocent people.
Of course, by all rights, I should be amongst the very men chasing us down to kill us.
Alas, perhaps in my urge for vengeance, my acting skills were simply too perfect. I had played the part of the simple, devoted servant so well, that I had fooled everyone, including, it seemed, the very target of my hatred.
More than anything, it seemed the late king's second wife saw me as the queen's most loyal aid.
Back then I had become a loyal servant that anticipated the queen's needs, stood around to protect her even when not asked, the look in my eyes back then as I gazed upon her with seemingly unwavering devotion.
Of course I had only put up such a front in order to get close to this heartless woman and earn her trust in other find the perfect moment to strike, but alas, there was no way I could explain myself now.
To reveal my true intentions to the fleeing queen would be to lose my only chance at survival, and to be caught by the pursuers meant a traitor's death regardless of my motives.
All I could do was grit my teeth and steer the carriage through the heavy falling winter snow, the reins wrapped so tightly around my gloved hands that I could feel the strain all the way up to my shoulders.
The world had become a swirling tunnel of white, the only constants being the frozen path ahead, the unnatural gasping of my horses, and the persistent threat closing in from behind.
"Hold steady now!" I growled as the carriage threatened to go out of control, the wheels skidding on a patch of ice hidden beneath the fresh powder.
I held firm against the reins, using every ounce of strength I possessed to keep us from careening into the rocky mountainside.
The wood of the carriage groaned in protest, and I could hear the frantic shuffling of the queen within, though she, made no sound. I had to admit, even after working by her side for so many years, I still couldn't quite understand this woman.
Nevertheless, it seemed fate wasn't on my side. For off in the distance, through the thick falling snow, I caught sight of what looked like the end of the road and my heart seized in my chest with a cold that had nothing to do with the winter air.
Having been racing through these mountains for a while now, it didn't take me long to realize that what lay before my very eyes was definitely a bloody cliff.
The terrain had been growing more treacherous for the last mile, the path narrowing continuously.
The drop to our left steeper, and now, ahead of us, the path simply ceased to exist, swallowed by a vast, gaping emptiness that was filled only with swirling snow
' What on earth am I supposed to do now?!' My mind began to panic. A screaming voice in my head urging me to do something, anything, to stop, but the constant sound of the pursuers from behind, which was now dangerously close, left me with no choice but to continue forward.
To slow down now was to be caught, dragged from the carriage and executed on the spot, and that was a fate I was not prepared to accept, not after all I had endured.
Stopping now was impossible. It was a horrifying realization, a trap of my own making, where the only options were certain death at the hands of the queen's men or a desperate gamble with the cliff itself. Even with death facing me, I refused to blink.
I refused to give those bastards the satisfaction of seeing me falter.