“What happened? Are you okay?” he asked. I just stared at him. Now I was confused. I snapped my fingers. The guard behind me handed me what I needed. I wrote down what I wanted to know and gave it to Jared. He looked down to read it, then grabbed and shook my shoulders. “What do you mean, what do I mean?” I took the paper again and stuck it in his face. I could not have been any clearer. “Why was your door locked? Were you being held captive or something?” I took the paper and wrote down the information that he wanted. My shoulders relaxed with the knowledge that my secret was safe. “‘I feel safer if my door is locked. It was pure habit and I am terribly sorry for not letting you know,’” he read out loud.

The atmosphere in the entire room thinned. I felt the guard behind me relax a bit, but he still questioned me. He turned me around and asked, “Are you sure? No one threatened you to say that?” I just noticed that the guard was huge. He had a husky voice and a strong grip. It was like he was gesturing that I could trust him. I nodded at him but I kept eye contact. I cracked a bit of a smile to show that I was telling him the truth. It was a smile that simply said that he should trust me. He nodded and told the other guards that it was a false alarm.

I heard Jared take a step closer to me and his arms came around me. “Please do not scare me like that again. I really thought that something happened to you when you did not answer the door.” I grabbed his arms leaned back into him. His arms tightened. He really was worried.

I needed him to know that everything was alright. I wrote on the paper, I’m going to get dressed. Shall we meet on the terrace for breakfast? He read over my shoulder and nodded. His arms loosened and I was about to walk away, but he turned me around and kissed me again. This one sort of made me feel guilty. There was a lot of worry behind it. I slipped my arms behind his back, broke the kiss, and leaned my head on his shoulder. He hugged me tightly for a few minutes before he allowed me to leave. I slowly made my way back to my room. I seriously had to tell someone, even if it was a servant, that I was really a male. This secret was eating me up inside. I just wanted to yell it out that I had lied to save myself from being tortured until I died. I felt tears come to my eyes and I blinked them back angrily. Why did my father have to do this to me?

I got ready hastily. Why make Jared worry even more? I looked decent enough to just walk around the castle. When I walked out of my room, I was confronted by the guard that had carried me away from the potential danger that they all though that I was in. He extended a hand in the opposite way of the terrace. “May I have a quick word with you about arrangements for your safety?” I looked at the direction that Jared was going to be at. “I’ve already notified Prince Jared.” I nodded and walked with him to the side of the castle. “As you can see, there are many guards stationed all around the castle. As I saw in at your castle, there were a little less than there are here.” I just wanted him to get to the point. We were all ready outside, so no one could possibly hear us at the range that we were away from the castle. “I know you are probably questioning me, so I’ll get to the point that I am making. My question for you is: Why do you lock the door when there are about twice as many guards here, and not at your previous home?” He handed me paper and a pencil.

I wrote: This is a new place for me. I was not allowed to travel to other places before I got married, so I guess you can say that I am a tad insecure.

I gave it to him to read. Most of that was the truth. He sighed. “I may be crossing the line by asking this, but are you hiding something from us?” I stopped walking and looked at him. “At the wedding, everyone from your previous castle was holding their breaths right before the kiss. You yourself even looked like you wanted to get out of that situation. Is there something that you all are hiding from us that may jeopardize the treaty?” He looked dead in the eye. Even though I wanted to tell someone quite badly, I was afraid to. In a way, I was on enemy territory if they found out that my father had betrayed them. The guard must have seen the fear in my face. “Are you all right Princess Atena?” he asked seizing my upper arms.

‘It’s now or never,’ I thought to myself as I closed my eyes and gathered my courage. We were on a path in the woods. No one would hear or see anything. “My name is Prince Aten,” I whispered.

His grip on my arms tightened. It felt like my stomach dropped. The fear that they might kill me was not as powerful as the fear of my father. If he found out, he would merely lie and put the blame on me. My mother would simply watch. Tears came to my eyes as the scenes played out in my mind. I hid my face in my hands. Those five words revealed everything that they needed to go to war, kill me, and kill the castle servants and guards that had tried to constantly bring cheer into my life. One of the guard’s hands left my arm and went to my hair. Very gently, he took the wig and slid it off my head. His other hand went to my face as he lifted it and examined it carefully. He had enough evidence to let the others know that I was a fake. I felt sick. I just wanted all of this to be a dream, but I knew it was not.

My legs gave out. His arms quickly moved to mine. “Why? Why are you betraying Belzoni?” he asked.

“I did not want to!” I sobbed. “Please believe me. My father—” I smacked my hands onto my mouth. I had all ready given him too much information.

“Your father what?” he practically yelled.

I shook my head angrily at him. I snatched my wig away from him and ran.