Chapter 33
“What happened, my child?”
Abby was startled when she heard a soothing voice coming from the side while she sobbed soundlessly.
She turned around to see that it was an elderly woman with a gentle air to her. She seemed like a local and had this soft smile on her face.
“Are you new around here?” The woman asked Abby, to which she nodded.
“Did you get
you get lost in the crowd?” The old woman asked Abby when she wouldn’t say anything but kept looking at her with tears in her eyes.
Abby felt a little awkward hearing the old woman’s question. What grown up would get lost in a
crowd?
But then again she couldn’t blame the old woman for taking herself to be someone underage when she didn’t look like a grown up at all.
Her father’s negligence of herself played a big part in this. But Abby couldn’t afford to wander to her father right now.
As if she could sense Abby’s discomfort at the question, the older woman changed the topic. “Here, drink some water. You look like you need to soothe your throat,” the woman said, offering her own water skin to Abby.
Abby felt so grateful at the first sip she took, she didn’t realize it, but her throat had been parched.
The woman didn’t take her water skin back until Abby drank to her heart’s content and then made her wash her face.
In her motherly presence, Abby relaxed a tad too fast. But her next question made Abby start crying again.
“So where is your home or where are you from?” The woman asked, seemingly wanting to help a helpless teenager.
Home? Did she ever have one?
After listening to Ruby’s friends’ endless gushing over Micah, Ruby and how the both of theni would make a perfect couple, Abby couldn’t help second guessing everything.
Micah did say she was his destined mate and that he wanted her clearly. But she couldn’t feel anything this was all really complicated.
When she didn’t answer for a long time again, the old woman changed her question.
“Or how about where you are staying in the capital? Or who were the people you came here to
visit?”
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Chapter 33
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As soon as Abby heard these questions, her eyes immediately lit up.
She thought all ways to go back were closed. But how stu pid of her.
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She didn’t think of finding a way to the palace directly. Had she thought of that earlier, she would have been halfway to the palace by now.
At this thought, Abby immediately perked up and smiled at the older woman who looked confused at her reaction.
When the woman asked her so many questions, and didn’t get a proper answer for a single one, she felt dejected a bit in her need to help Abby. And when she smiled at herself, she couldn’t help feeling confused as to how she made her look like that.
“I need to go back to the palace,” Abby told her, beaming from ear to ear,
The woman looked like she was from around this place, and Abby didn’t think there would be someone living around this area that wouldn’t know about the palace.
“Which palace?” The elderly woman was dumbfounded by her question.
This girl didn’t say a single word from earlier but she wanted to know how to go to the palace now. Did she hear her wrong?
“The King’s palace.” Abby affirmed her answer and this only made the older feel even more curious of her identity.
“Why?” She couldn’t help but ask, only Abby seemed to have found her lost brain cells as she deflected answering her with the truth.
“I know someone from there.”
The girl’s answer cut off the older woman’s train of thought as she explained to her the biggest. landmarks Abby needed to take note of while going to the King’s palace from this town.
Abby listened to her carefully before thanking her profusely.
“Don’t get lost again. Ask the people along the way in case you need to confirm the roads you are taking,” the woman advised her and Abby could only smile at her sheepishly.
After thanking her one last time, Abby finally started walking to the palace.
However, the deeper the night became, the colder the air around her felt once she got out of the crowd.
Only then she realized she left her outer robe in the carriage. And a few moments later, she felt her stomach protesting in hunger.
I think I digested whatever little I ate at the restaurant long back, Abby lamented as she continued. walking slowly. In her panic earlier, she didn’t feel any hunger, but once she found a solution to her problem, her stomach too chose to make a protest.
Even her throat seemed to have dried up again. What could she do? She didn’t have any other.
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Chapter 33
option than to move forward.
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The only place she could go back to now was where Micah would be. Which was none other than the palace.
Moving forward step by step. Abby didn’t forget to follow the old woman’s advice. She asked, people for directions whenever she felt like she took the wrong road and corrected herself immediately.
She didn’t even want to think about the number of times she did that. She was hungry and tired beyond possibilities, as she dragged her feet one after another.
Her face
ace was full of dirt and her clothes were all disheveled by the time she could take the last turn. and enter the main street that would directly lead her to the palace gates.
“Only a few more minutes to go.” Abby told herself as she continued her journey.
And the moment she saw the palace gates, the happiness she felt couldn’t be explained in words. She was so relieved she wanted to jump at her own success.
Only that emotion didn’t last long as the guards there refused to let her in.
“Who are you?”