The Forgotten Princess Rose
Chapter 110

Chapter 110: Chapter 110

"Oh wait. Will the festival be in the palace?" Rose asked as then she would not be able to go.

"It is not. It will be in the market for the stall and shop owners to sell what they have. There is normally music and a lot of dances. If you are lucky, there should be performers. Many will gather there. Maybe we might be so lucky to see someone who looks like you," said Zayne.

"I am lucky that Janice prepared good dresses for me to wear. I want to be just as dressed up as everyone else. Thank you," Rose said, appreciative of how much Zayne helped her. "I will finish tidying now."

"You don’t need to. You can finish what you need to do tomorrow before we leave or after we return. Dinner will soon start before it gets dark out. Make a promise to me, Rose. You will not do any work when the sun starts to set or before breakfast. That is your time to yourself. And you must take one day off," Zayne said, holding out his hand to Rose.

"A day off? But there is much to do. I- I will take the day off," Rose decided as she thought Zayne was becoming annoyed.

"It will be one day for you to explore the nearby land but you must-"

"Go with Finn or Mary," Rose finished for Zayne. She was now quite used to him telling her this. "Zayne, did it upset you when I said you would make a good father?"

"It did not," Zayne replied.

"It came off like you were annoyed and from what Finn said, I thought I did something wrong. I am sorry if I did. I must be more careful with what I say," Rose said as this was the second time.

She had angered Soren and was yet to figure out what she said to make him go back to not speaking to her. Now she had done something to Zayne.

"You did not anger me with what you said. I overreacted over something small. I will tell you what bothered me in the future and how it had nothing to do with you. Do you trust me?" Zayne asked.

"I do,’ Rose replied, nodding her head. She didn’t understand how she wasn’t the one to bother him when it was only the two of them but she would wait for the answer when Zayne was ready. "Will we do my lesson today or are you tired now? Your bed is already made. Oh, the bedsheets and blankets."

Rose tried to stand up but there was a pain in her foot from sitting so long. She sat back down. "I need to pick them up and fold them. My foot feels like it was poked by a stick for a long time."

"That is the first I have heard someone explain it that way. I will walk you there when you are ready and later, you must say something to Mary. You don’t need to make up a lie just say enough without giving away everything to not make her worry anymore. Here," Zayne offered his hand to Rose to help her up.

Rose placed her hand on his. She gasped, surprised by how fast Zayne pulled her up as he stood up. Her foot still had the weird feeling but she could bear with it. "I will speak to Mary before dinner and you do not need to join me. You must be tired from going to the palace. Did you see Mathias or are those soldiers not there?"

"I did see him but he remained within a group so I could not speak to him."

"You do not have to. You don’t need to speak to him because of me. I don’t want to speak to Mathias so why should you? Have you heard of anyone named Alexander?" Rose asked as she couldn’t help being curious about whether or not he was in the army.

Were Mathias and Alexander still close and joined the army together or had Alexander found something else to do?

"I did not. I stayed close to the royals while the soldiers stood behind us. I will try next time but if he was with Mathias in the other town, why didn’t he go to the brothel to look for you?" Zayne asked, not impressed by Alexander though he hadn’t met him yet.

"Well, I..." Rose didn’t know how to answer.

Alexander was the one she was closest to so she would have placed him to be the one to search for her. Mathias was there the night of the fire and Rose ran before she could see who else was present. Alexander could have been there to find her but she would never know since she left.

"I ran away. He wouldn’t have found me if he went looking," Rose answered.

"Rose, they were in town for enough hours that he could have searched for you. Had he known you were to end up as one of the women in the brothel?" Zayne asked.

Rose slowly nodded her head. She was to end up as one of the women selling their bodies while Alexander and Mathias would have gone there to be servants, eventually becoming Graham’s guards like the others.

Graham had been quite loud with where he planned to place her so everyone knew that was her fate.

"I am not trying to turn you against someone you have not reunited with yet but I don’t want you to be disappointed again. I will ask next time I visit the palace but it is not guaranteed that anyone will reveal who he is. I don’t have the best relationship with the king’s men," Zayne said, not wanting to get Rose excited when he could fail.

"Thank you for trying. Alexander and I were close but if he didn’t want to keep the promise, I would not be angry," Rose confessed. "It was a promise made when we were children and Alexander could have escaped by himself but he tried to take me."

"I only want to see that he is well and his kindness has not changed so much from what I remember. Regardless of how he might be now, he took care of me in the past and took a few beatings for it as Graham did not like it. I don’t mind if we will no longer be friends. I should go get those blankets now," Rose said, walking around Zayne to go to the door.

"He would be a fool if he missed out on the chance to continue being your friend. Who else will care for him like you do?" Zayne asked as he followed Rose to the door.

"I’m sure there will be plenty to care for him better than me. He must have grown to be quite handsome so many women would go to him. I have overheard today that you might get the princess-"

"No," Zayne interjected, already knowing what Rose was going to say. "I will not do anything with the princess. Ignore all that you might hear about me and the princess. It is her foolish father who is putting out that idea."

Rose smiled as she could hear in Zayne’s voice how annoyed he was. "Still, it is something to boast about that the king would want you with his daughter. You are of a different status from the rest of us. I feel much smaller next to you now."

"Don’t see me any different than before," Zayne requested. "You are short," he added, receiving a glare from Rose. "But I don’t think little of you when it comes to status."