DRIMYÉEKLY PAPER
KING OF DRIMYÉ ANNOUNCES LIFE CHANGING TRIALS
and he already has two candidates.
Yesterday, something strange happened. Chadd Malik Dunkeld, King of Drimyé and leader of Ilanos, gathered all leaders together in his palace.
“No one knew what was coming and everyone’s mouth fell open,” one of the servants of the palace told us.
“I am proud to announce that in two weeks there will be a trial. It will be something none of you have ever seen before. It is going to be the talk of the century,” I quote our king. He said this has been in his planning for almost 18 years. You might ask, why?
Well, we have no idea, and neither do the rest of the leaders. There are conspiracies going around. Maybe it has something to do with the disappearance of his wife, Queen Sibylla? His oldest or youngest son? Or maybe with our secret contestant he won’t tell us anything about? Does he have other plans that we don’t know about? All we know is that it is going to be big. And we get why people might be excited. Who doesn’t want to show what they got with a life full of wealth as the prize? Or maybe you have yourown reason for entering the thing, the king surprised us with.
The king didn’t stop there just yet. He kept on surprising us. After he told us that there was already one contestant, which looked like it would be a girl, there was also another volunteer. When the king started walking away, leaving everyone flabbergasted, his youngest son spoke up. “I volunteer!” he screamed out. Our king didn’t show mercy and left the room with nothing more than a grin on his face.
A short meeting ended in a lot of unexpected upcoming events and pent-up questions. What will this trial be like? How can you volunteer? Who is this mysterious guest? Why did Prince Braxton volunteer? And maybe most important of all, why this trial? Why now?
We will get back to you when we have more answers.
DRIMYÉEKLY PAPER
My throat feels thick and it is hard to swallow.
“What is it?” Da asks, stamping inside the living room. I look up at him and my watery gaze meets his.
“It is really going to happen, isn’t it?” I shrug, wiping away the one tear rolling over my cheek, shaking the fear and downcast feelings off me. Tattooed arms wrap around me.
“You got this, Goldie,” he says, brushing his fingers through my shiny hair. Low curse words follow his voice, and I feel his heart pounding.
“What?” I ask, lifting my chin high, acting like I didn’t just spill a tear over the thing I knew would happen for almost four years.
A growl rolls over his lips.
“It is just that—that he wasn’t allowed to share this yet. We were working on a deal,” he hisses, taking the paper from the couch, crumbling it to a ball. “We weren’t done discussing one specific thing.” I raise one eyebrow at him, trying to figure out what they weren’t done talking about.
“You, I wanted to make a deal about your freedom.”
“You did?” I whimper, knowing Da went off track with the usual plan.
I wrap my arms around him, and try to tell him it is okay, but I am not sure it is.
A question pops up in my mind as I repeat the article in my head, not going deeper into what Da said, because he needs to calm down. He knows I was entering for years, so I don’t think there is much more to talk about anyway. I will find my freedom one day, with or without the king’s permission. That wasn’t our plan in the beginning anyway. I will become that big of a threat that if I survive it, I will force him into my freedom. Force him into a choice between me and the continent.
“Da,” I swallow the words in, trying to change the subject, “why did the prince enter?”
His eyes look at mine and he grabs the ball of paper, unfolding it even faster than he crumbled it together. He reads the paper word for word before he throws it back again.
