A/N: Wow, I guess I'm really that hyped typing up this chapter despite the story itself being not so popular as my other ones. But don't worry, it'll probably die down in the next week or so and my regular, once-every-time-the-planets-align schedule of other stories will be back, hell, I'm already halfway through Of Bets And Relationships right now, so, yeah!
I didn't realize this story has similar plot with an anime, this was more based on the fan comic of the Evillious Chronicles, 'The Servant of Evil'. But yeah, thanks for saying that, I'll have more ideas for this story this way!
Anyway, I drew the cover for this story! It's Hestia and Samuel, probably 10-12 years old, standing back to back and all that with some crappy editing I did in Pixlr. I'm still practicing on my coloring and shading, so sorry if it's all over the place.
But enough of that! On to the story!
"Prince Samuel! Come back here this instant!"
The young prince merely grinned as he ran faster throughout the halls of the royal palace, messing up his short, orange-red hair that his nanny fixed a few minutes ago whilst nagging him to not mess it up again. Though his nanny was quite old, being King Sky's nanny when he was a little lad himself, she still has enough energy to deal with such a hyperactive boy, and it was quite hard for Sam to shake her off of his tail sometimes, but he now knew better.
Suddenly, Samuel took a sharp turn to the left hallways, and another sharp turn to the right, and another, and another, until he can barely hear the voice and footsteps of his nanny. The Royal Palace of Eraklyon was quite huge, even some servants can get lost in its halls, but thankfully Samuel have memorized the whole castle by the time he was four years old, it can come quite handy during tantrums or if he just wants some alone time without anyone, mainly his nannies and parents, pestering him about his 'non-prince like' behavior.
Samuel looked around to see if anyone was on sight, seeing no one, he grinned once again and jumped around momentarily, celebrating on his current freedom. He then took off his navy blue jacket and put it on some nearby sculpture, deeming it uncomfortable and imagined that the scary lady might need it more, and loosened his ascot tie. He looked around some more, just in case someone saw him.
With no one in sight, he proceeded to go up a nearby painting, and pushing it aside, revealing a secret door of some sort.
...
"Prince Samuel! Prince Samuel!"
"What seems to be the problem, Marie?" King Sky approached the yelling nanny by the back, surprising her in the process.
"Don't sneak up to me like that, your highness!" The nanny reprimanded, causing the king to grin sheepishly and utter an apology, King Sky grew up with her as his nanny, so it wouldn't be a surprise he would act as a little boy again around her sometimes. "They weren't wrong when they say 'History will repeat itself'. Your boy is definitely like you back then, your highness, only worse." The nanny huffed.
Sky raised a brow, "Oh? What happened?"
"He escaped! Just as he was about to have his afternoon nap!" The nanny said, "I swear, the amount of times the boy has escaped this week is equal to each white strand of my hair." Every strand of her hair was white. "Not to mention, he probably messed up his clothing and hair in the process! Despite the times I told him not to!"
The blond let out a laugh. "Don't worry, Marie. I'm sure the boy will come around when he becomes tired, he did skip his afternoon nap, yes?" The nanny tried to speak, but was cut off, "And please cut Sam some slack, he's only six."
The nanny sighed, "I guess you are right, your highness." She said, "Although I do wish you had a daughter instead, less troublemaking, and it's been awhile since Eraklyon had a princess."
Sky stopped laughing, averting his eyes elsewhere. "Err, yes, I guess so."
...
"This is the royal hideout, son." His father told him, "If there is an emergency, or if there are bad people attacking this place, then go in this hideout. It leads to every part of the castle and to a hidden exit." He said, and warned, "No one, outside our family, must know of this hideout. Is that understood?"
Samuel grinned as he went in the hideout, sure there were no emergencies or any bad people roaming around, and he was simply bored, but he liked it here. It was a place that not even his nanny knows of, and therefore, he can hang out here without being caught. And it's not like his parents know that he's sneaking around here anyway.
Like the whole palace, he has the whole paths and stuff in the hideout memorized after being here so many times. He knows the path to his room, his parents' room, the throne room, the kitchen, and even the hidden exit just in case he got grounded and want to go outside. He went through almost all of the paths, except one, and it led to the north tower.
"I know you're going to hide in this hideout whenever you're bored, you're my son after all." His father shook his head, "So I'm allowing you to go through every part of the palace using the hideout, since you already have it memorized. But one place you are not allowed to go to is the north tower."
"Why?" Young Sam questioned.
"Y...you just can't, okay?" His father's voice shook, and he wondered why. "If you get caught sneaking on there, I will ground you for a month, is that understood?"
Not wanting to be grounded, four-year-old Sam merely nodded his head.
Now that he thought about it, one place he never went to his whole life in the castle, despite being the prince, was the north tower. He thought about it as he sat down on one of the big pillows he managed to steal from his parents' room, and opened up a comic book. What was in the north tower that he wasn't allowed to go so much? Were there monsters in there? Bad people like his parents warned? Maybe it's something really scary, that's why his parents forbade him to enter in the first place.
Believing the scary things theory, he eventually took his mind off of whatever was in the north tower, and thought about his friends coming for a playdate tomorrow.
He grinned at the thought.
Despite being prince of one of the most successful realms out there, the palace was still quite lonely for a six-year-old. Sure, there were nannies, servants and other people around the palace, but there was no one his age around for him to play with, and the playdates with his friends only occur at least once a month.
He frowned at the thought.
He recalled his two of his friends, Prince Lance and Prince Kyle of Andros. The two were twins, which means they're brothers of the same age, which means they always have each other to play with. Samuel wondered what was it like to have a twin, someone to play with, someone to relate with, and stuff like that. He once asked the two what it was like to have a twin, and they answered that it was annoying, but even Sam knew that the two wouldn't change anything if they had a chance.
Samuel put his comic book down. He didn't have to have a twin to have a playmate or someone to relate to, a normal brother or sister would have been fine. Like how Prince Ben has his big sister Princess Claire, or Keith with his little sister Holly, or Alexis with her little brother Toby, or his cousin Princess Talia with her big brother Prince Ethan.
The one who relates to Sam being an only child is Piper, but even last month Piper's mom announced that Piper will have a baby brother in the next few months.
His frown got deeper when he realized he's the only one who's an only child out of his group of friends.
It's not fair.
As he was sulking at his 'only child' status, he suddenly hears someone singing. It's that voice again. Sam thought, that voice has been plaguing him recently, because it seems that nobody but him hears it.
Samuel was running around the courtyard with his friends, with Benjamin being the one who is it as they were playing tag. But Sam suddenly stops running midway, letting Ben catch up to him and tag him, "Sam, you're it!" Prince Ben laughed, his short brown hair bouncing. He stopped laughing when Sam didn't react much, as he only seems to be listening to something. "Sam?"
"Hey, what's the hold up?" Alexis and the others ran up to them, her choppy orange-brown hair flying in the wind.
"Samuel, are you okay?" Glenn asked, his dark hair all messy from all the running.
"Shh." Sam shushed his friends as he listened to the pretty voice. "Did you guys hear that? Her voice was really nice."
"Whose voice was what?" Kyle asked, running his fingers through his dark brown hair. "What are you on about?"
"Someone was singing." Sam said, "And their voice was really nice. Right, Pipes?" He turned to Piper, who has extremely sensitive hearing.
"What?" Piper questioned, before shaking her head, her dark blue hair bouncing in the process. "I didn't hear any voice other than ours, and I didn't hear anyone sing either."
"Of course there was someone singing!" Sam frowned, "It was loud and I heard it!"
His friends looked confused, and shrugged off what Sam said, continuing their game of tag, and that was the end of it.
And it didn't just end with his friends either, he heard the voice plenty of times after that, and when he asked his mum, dad, nanny, and even some servants, they merely looked confused and said they never heard anything.
It is driving him crazy.
He wants to find out who was singing, right here, right now. He looked around the paths for the direction of the voice, and sees it coming from...
The North Tower.
Sam's eyes widened, out of all the places the voice could come from, it came from the one place he's not allowed to go in?
He looked back at the entrance of the hideout, then to the path. He was starting to doubt there were scary things in the north tower, because what scary thing has such a beautiful voice? If there were no scary things in the north tower...then where's the harm in going in it in the first place?
Samuel bit his lip, there would be no harm in checking the north tower up, right? He would just take a peek, maybe say hi to the owner of the pretty voice, and that's it. Sure, it would be considered disobeying his parents' orders, and it makes him bad but Prince Kyle, Alexis, and Piper would disobey their parents all the time, and like they say, 'it's not bad if you won't get caught'.
Looking back at the entrance one last time, he turned back to the path to the north tower, and took a step, and another, and another. Slowly, quietly, just in case there were people guarding in the other side.
...
"So you're new here?" One of the older maids asked what she assumed to be the new girl.
The new maid nodded, and politely bowed. "Yes, ma'am."
"That's...surprising." Another older maid said, turning to her fellow maids, "Why would they allow a newbie in the north tower?"
The other maids shrugged, "Anyway, new kid, our job is fairly easy here in the north tower." A maid said, "All we have to do here is take care of a little girl, nothing more, nothing less. Like, feed her, bathe her, maybe keep her company, and teach her some stuff although it's the tutor's job for that. She also sings, which is nice to hear in this empty tower every once in a while."
"Just that?" The new maid asked, and the others nodded, "Then...what's with one of you asking why someone new like me is in the north tower on her first day?"
"Well, even though our job is quite simple, it kind of has a lot of rules, really strict ones, and the consequences are quite dire."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, the first rule is that you shouldn't go snooping around the place." The maid said. "Second rule is that you shouldn't grow attached to Hestia, the little girl. Third rule is you shouldn't talk about your job here in the north tower to other people. Fourth rule is that you shouldn't ask anyone, especially the king, queen and their son, about Hestia."
The new maid nodded in agreement
"Oh, and this is sort of our own rule but...please don't mind the birthmark on Hestia's neck."
"What birthmark?"
"She has a birthmark that looks like a bloodied scar on her neck, asking her about it makes her really upset." The maid informed, "'Anyway, that's about it. Don't worry about Hestia herself though, sure she might be shy at first but overall, she's a sweet little girl."
"Oh, okay." She nodded, "Who is Hestia, anyway? Why are we taking care of a little girl in the most isolated part of the palace?"
"Heck do we know." They shrugged, "There are rumors from other maids about it, though."
"Like what?"
"Like...err," They thought about it. "You know Prince Samuel, right?"
"Yes, the six-year-old son of the king and queen." She nodded, "I saw the boy running around earlier, he's a really sweet boy."
They nodded, "Well, the prince had a twin sister, a princess that was declared dead during birth. Both Hestia and Samuel are six years old, and their resemblance of one another is quite uncanny. So, rumors were spread among maids that Hestia is Prince Samuel's 'dead' twin sister, hidden and raised in the north tower for unknown reasons. But again, it's just a rumor, no one really knows who Hestia really is, not even the girl herself."
"Oh."
"Enough about that, talk about it some more and our heads could be cut off and eaten by crows." The eldest of the maids frowned, looking at the others sternly.
A/N: Next chapter will involve the twins meeting for the first time, I guess, and maybe the other kids' formal introductions, I guess, but don't trust everything I say.
I'll probably update another story tomorrow, either Of Bets and Relationships or Hunted, but either way, something's gonna get updated. Yup.
Hope you enjoyed reading!