"You shot them!" Meredith shouted. "You killed Buckle!"

"That is what my orders are," Alphonso countered.

"My brother could not have ordered you to shoot guests. He would do no such thing."

"Who said I take orders from your brother?"

"He is the king!"

"He is not my king. Your brother is too weak to face the trouble that will come for all of us. Lord Sheer is the one that we should follow."

"Sheer asked you to kill my brother's guests?"

"Why do you think we came out all this way? To protect you?"

Alphonso was enraged. It was not the arrogance of a mission gone, rather it was anger at the failure of his mission that made him spill his guts to the princess.

He was tired of serving the spineless royal family. He wanted someone who knew when to stand up and conquer. The realm was theirs for the taking. They had the strongest army the realm had ever seen, yet they sat around waiting on the king, a teenage bit that did not know the first thing about ruling.

"How many men did we lose?" He asked his deputy.

"Four men. The boy knight killed three and one was trampled in the stampede."

The stampede, Alphonso thought angrily. They were all supposed to be dead, but the trolls and the other creatures in this forest had run past them.

Alphonso thought they were probably going to fight the one who had the sword. The three would be killed by the trolls, but that presented the problem of getting the sword back.

"I am the princess and I did not order you to shoot! I am of a higher hierarchy than Sheer. You are sworn to serve the royal family."

There was a ruffling of leaves near them. The soldiers all turned towards the sound, scared out of their wits.

**

Tum walked through the forest at alert. He had seen the creatures bow to Bonnie, but he was not sure that was all. They could be lurking in the corner, waiting to take on them unawares. He could not believe that the creatures would just let them go like that, with the sword and all the commotion that they had caused. There had to be something else, some form of last resistance. But he had to find the princess before then.

He was also aware of the men that had just attacked them and shot Buckle. His heart was heavy at the thought of Buckle dying in the forest because of a king's distrust and greed. He realized that he was right to want to keep the sword away from the king. The king would become a tyrant with a sword like that.

Voices stopped his movement. They were loud and unsparing. The princess! He thought and his eyes widened. He crept closer and took a peep from behind the back of a tree. The princess and the men who had attacked him were discussing heartedly. She had betrayed them!

Without thinking and overcome by emotions, he ran out towards them.

"You betrayer!" he yelled, coming towards the princess.

The soldiers all had their rifles aimed at him. He knew that if he moved further, he would be shot.

"This was your plan all along?" he yelled. "You pretended to fall in love with me! Betrayer! I curse the day I curse my eyes on you!"

"This is not what it looks like," Meredith pleaded.

"It is exactly what it looks like. You have betrayed the peasants again for your stupid, royal gain."

"And when were you going to tell me you were a peasant?"

"So that is it! That is why you betrayed the only real friends you ever had?"

"Enough of the squabbling!" Alphonso yelled. "Cut his head off!"

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"No," the princess screamed, running over to stand before Tum. "Take him instead to the king as an impostor."

"If you cut my head off, how will you know how to use the crystal sword?" Tum asked, raising his own sword. "The king would love to know who got him the sword even if the person is a peasant." He said the last word with a spiteful gaze in the princess's direction.

"I can claim I got the sword myself," Alphonso said. "Kill him."

"You will have to kill me first," the princess said, still standing in front of Tum.

"You don't know him and yet you want to protect him?" Alphonso asked.

"I want him in the dungeon for the rest of his life, thinking about what he did to me."

Alphonso thought for a moment before he shrugged. "Sounds fair. Get the crystal sword from the impostor. Bind his hands and feet. We have the sword. Get the horses ready. We ride for Mora."

The ground, which suddenly started vibrating, said otherwise. There were enemy forces coming close and the captain had no idea where they were coming from.

"Get on your horses! Bind the prisoner!"

The men bound Tum and bundled him towards a cage. The door was shut.

"Get them out of here!" Alphonso screamed.

The thunderous footfalls of the enemy were coming from before them. He pulled out his sword and prepared for the fight. Behind him, the horses with the prisoner and the princess set out for Mora.

The first thing the men saw was a flying shadow in the sky. It was a large bird, and on top of it was the lady they had seen the boy knight with, the so-called dressmaker, Bonnie. She had another sword in her hand, and this one glittered. Alphonso stared down at his hand, at the sword that he had taken from Tum. It was an ordinary sword. He was a fool not to know. The crystal sword had to have a distinguishing feature between it and the other swords. Why had he not thought of that before dispossessing Tum of it?

"Fire!" he yelled.

He tried to bring his rifle to train on the girl riding a strange black eagle. But before he can do that, an onslaught of trolls from the forest slammed into him. He was sent tumbling back, rolling, and rolling on the ground.

When he came to a halt beside a tree, he realized that both the rifle and his sword had been knocked off his hands. He had asked Sheer for more numbers to penetrate the forest. Sheer had refused. The best men, he said, would do the job. Were there not only three peasants to bury? Twenty men were more than enough. Now, as Alphonso lay against the tree, listening to sporadic gunshots going off and his men screaming in pain, he realized that not even the whole army of Kora could bring the forest to its knees.

A shadow hovered above him. He raised his leg to see a big foot hanging over him. It was the last thing he ever saw.

**

"Open the gates!" the guards screamed as the lone wagon rolled down the trail towards the gate.

Enil, the soldier who had managed to get the princess out of the forest with Tum as a prisoner was Alphonso's second in command. He rode the carriage through the streets of the city, certain that he was a lucky man. He had heard the screams and dying shouts of the men he had set off with on this journey as he rode through the forest. He was certain Alphonso was dead.

At the front of the palace, he found the king and Sheer waiting. He got down from the horse and helped the princess down. The advisor was looking startled as he stared at the carriage. Enil had nothing to say to the advisor. Alphonso was dead, and that was the man loyal to the king's right-hand man.

"Your grace," Enil said, bowing before the king.

"What is this?" Harodin asked. "Why is the knight bound in a cage?"

"He is no knight, your grace, but a little thieving peasant boy, who wanted to rob you of your crystal sword," Enil replied.

"What? Where is the sword?" Harodin barked, already turning red with rage.

"This very moment, the captain battles the troll and the thief's friend who he passed off as his dressmaker in the enchanted forest. He bid me make haste and return with the princess and our prisoner.

The king cast an unforgiving look at his sister.

"I told you to leave the boy knight be!" the king thundered, glaring at his sister.

"The boy is no knight, your gra…" Sheer began.

"Silence!" Harodin yelled.

"Your advisor sent soldiers after your guests, brother. They…"

"An oversight on my part," Harodin said. "If I had sent soldiers, they would be back with the crystal sword now and the heads of the thieves."

Harodin turned to Tum who had not uttered a word since he was accused.

"Common, thieving peasant," the king said. "That I let you dine at my table, feast with my family. All you repay me with is treachery, of not only the kingdom but your soul also. I sentence you to die!"

"Brother, do not rash," Meredith pleaded.

"Get the prisoner and the princess out of my sight."

The soldiers opened the cage and brought Tum down. Some of the citizens had gathered. Among them were the peasants on whose faces he could see admiration, admiration of him for what he had tried to do. But he did not feel the same way about himself. He felt terrible, like a failure. Like Buckle, he had failed at love. He had failed at protecting his friend.

As he was led away, he cast a long, accusing stare at the princess who quickly pulled her eyes away.

He was led past the palace gate and down towards the dungeon instead of the royal hallways he had gotten used to. With tears in his eyes, he remembered Buckle's insistence that they left the palace. The both of them, he and Bonnie, had been deaf, blinded by the riches they had never before seen. Only Buckle stayed true to himself, even in the face of so much wealth.

He was pushed roughly into the cell and the door shut in him.

"Traitor," the guard said and spat like he was a curse. He lay on the ground where he had fallen from the guards push unable to pull himself up.

"Oh, death, where are you?" he mumbled.

"Shut up," a voice called from the other cell. "You have only just come."

Tum ignored the voice. He had nothing to live for. His love had been a lie. He had started it, and the princess had completed it. A lie for a lie. But the betrayal was what hurt him most.

"My lord," a voice called.

Tum stirred. The voice was different. He knew that voice.