When I woke up I was no longer in Jasper' s house, instead I was in my own bed. The first thing I see is the ever so familiar ceiling that I have woken up to my entire life. I can feel my duvet covering me, keeping me warm through the night. None of this is right though.

The palace is too quiet. Normally I am woken up to the sound of butlers hurrying about or the smell of breakfast that has just been freshly prepared. Today there is nothing other than the sound of my own thoughts.

How did I get back here? The last thing that I remember is falling asleep on the old, battered couch at Jasper's house which is in the middle of the woods. A wood which is at least a two day journey away from the palace. Did I ever leave the palace in the palace in the first place or was all of that just my imagination. Maybe if I close my eyes, I will wake up in Jasper's house when I reopen them.

I close my eyes and for a moment everything goes dark and then I reopen them. I'm still in my room at the palace but this time Louis is stood over my bed.

"Louis you know you should knock first! It is only polite." I yell while shuffling further under my duvet. "I never heard you come in though." I realise. Yes I had my eyes closed but I never heard the door open.

"You need to choose one princess." Louis responds but his voice doesn't sound like his.

"I need to choose what? And are you okay?"

"You need to choose one princess." he repeats but this time he points to the three doors in my room. The three doors that are ordinarily not next to each but have somehow rearranged themselves so that they are.

Curiosity gets the better of me so I crawl out of bed and walk towards the doors. They look the same as before with the exception of where they are placed. "You want me to choose a door? Why?" I turn to Louis and ask him. This time he doesn't answer me, all he does is stare at the doors pointing at them. It is as if he is a zombie.

"Well this door leads to my bathroom, which you know. Probably my favourite place to relax. This door leads into my wardrobe which is full of clothes my mother has picked out for me. I probably won't choose this one as it makes me feel like I am under her control. The last door leads back out into the hallway allowing me to escape this room when it feels like too much. It allows me to have my freedom so if I have to choose a door then I choose that one." I tell Louis.

"Choose one." His voice hauntingly tells me.

"I just did." I back away from him because for once he is scaring me.

"Choose one princess. Choose one. Princess, princess, princess... PRINCESS."

I awake feeling startled. Jasper is hovering over me and I am back in his house, or shall I say his shack. I was never back at the palace, everything was just a dream. There were no doors for me to choose from, no zombie butler, no princess life. I realise now that it was Jasper shouting 'princess' at me towards the end of the dream and not Louis.

"Are you alright princess? You were mumbling something about having to choose something." he asks me.

"I'm fine, it was just a weird dream. I honestly felt like I was back in the palace but I wasn't." I explain the rest of the dream to Jasper and he listens to every word I say with no interruptions.

"Like you said, it was just a dream. Everything will be fine." He reassures me and I decide to believe him.

"Why are you up anyway?" I ask him because I eventually realise that it is still dark outside. It looks like there are still hours until sunrise.

"Honestly, my mind wouldn't rest so I decided to start packing for tonight. I heard you mumbling so I thought you had woken up but then I realised that you were still asleep." He tells me. "Do you want to help me pack or get more sleep?" Jasper asks.

"I don't think I could get more sleep right now. I feel very awake but I also don't have anything to pack. I left all my things in that garage when we were running away from the guards, don't you remember." I tell him and I decide to get up.

Jasper looks at me for a minute before saying "I'm sure we'll have some things that you can borrow and once we get onto the Mainland we'll be able to send Max to go and buy us things. Hopefully no one will be looking for him."

"You don't think that Anita will have told the palace about him?" I ask hoping that she won't have done.

"No, she won't have done. That would mean admitting that she has been looking after me while I have been breaking Strongway's laws. She won't want to get into trouble for that." he informs me.

"I guess that makes life a little easier then. I'll help you pack." I say the last sentence though a yawn.

"Are you sure you don't want to sleep?" Jasper asks while raising an eyebrow at me.

"Positive. I'll only end up over thinking the dream which could possible result in me cancelling everything. Right now I just need to stay awake."

"Alright then. If you want to you can go through those tops over there and pack any that you like, or think will fit you. They will probably all be a bit big for you."

I walk over to the pile of clothes that Jasper pointed to and begin to look through them. There is nothing there that I would ordinarily pick to wear myself but at the moment I do not have the right to be picky about what I wear. I grab a couple of tops and a jumper which should last me for the next couple of weeks until Max is able to go to a shop and buy, or steal, some more clothes.

I throw the clothes into a bag that Jasper gave me and consider myself packed. All I really need now is some food to last me until we're on the Mainland but Jasper said he is going to sort out that. Now it is just a case of waiting until it is time to go.

A few hours later Max finally wakes up and begins to pack his things.

"Are we still leaving tonight?" he asks Jasper some time during the morning.

"I can't see a reason why we shouldn't. Everything is ready, we all have our bags packed. All we have to do is wait for the sun to set. Now all we can do is wait until then." he tells Max who nods at him.

"I still don't see why we have to go with her." he mumbles under his breath but I still manage to hear him.

"If you don't want to go then don't." I say to Max which silences him. I may look like a princess but I can sound like a bitch.

At around midday I begin to feel tired which makes me realise that I haven't had a goodnight's sleep in a while. I have either been spending my nights wondering around forests or having nightmares about my life as the princess. "I'm going to lie down for a while." I tell the two guys who just nod at me in response.

I make my way towards the sofa and manage to drift off into a dreamless sleep for the first time in which seems like forever. I am shaken awake a couple of hours later by Jasper.

"Time to get up sleeping beauty." He says to me.

"Huh?" I mumble through a yawn.

"We're going to get going. It's time to leave this place behind."

"No, I meant the part about the sleeping beauty. What's with that?"

"Have you never heard of the story Sleeping Beauty?" I just shake my head at him. "Well the main character is a princess and there are fairies and dragons... which you don't look to be interested in." I have an eyebrow raised at Jasper wondering when he is going to get to the point. "Basically the princess gets cursed and pricks her finger on a spinning wheel and is out into a deep sleep. She only wakes up when a prince kisses her."

"As interesting as that tale was, we better get going otherwise we never will." Max tells us and for once I have to agree with him.

I grab the small bag that I packed with clothes, along with my wig which I place on top of my head again. Finally I am ready to go.

I follow the two boys who are in front of me. Jasper seems to be leading the way but only just. I can tell that they both know the way to the tunnels really well. I on the other hand would be completely lost without them. It's pitch black out in the forest and all I can see are the shadows of branches and Jasper and Max in front of me but only because I am close to them. In this light it is hard to to tell them apart. Jaspers blondish, brownish hair is really dark compared to what it normally is but Max's dark hair looks no different.

It still only takes us about ten minutes to reach the tunnels even though it is dark. I feel butterflies in my tummy as I realise that I am actually going to do this. I'm going to leave The Island behind which means I'm leaving everything I have ever known behind as well and I couldn't be more ready.

"I'll go down first, then Alexandria and lastly followed by Max." Jasper tells us. He is going down first to make sure that everything is safe and so I have someone's lead to follow. Max is going last to make sure we haven't been followed. I'll be a Rose between two thorns.

I watch as Jasper manoeuvres his way down the tunnel. The further down he goes, the more he begins to look like a small dot. Luckily there is ladder so we can use that to make our way down.

"Right princess, it's your turn. Just keep to the ladder and you'll be fine. You can throw your bag down if that will make things easier." I nod down at Jasper even though he can't see me. I throw my bag down towards him and he lets me know that he has caught it.

I position myself so I am able to climb down the ladder. I take a deep breath and down I go. The bars are hard to keep hold off because they are so slippery and and narrow which hurts my feet. I don't understand how Jasper made his way down so quickly.

As I make my way down the ladder everything seems to become darker than it was already. Instead of focusing on that, I keep my mind focused on the ladder so I don't fall off it. After a few minutes of climbing down I finally reach the bottom of the ladder.

"I made it." I tell Jasper, not quite believing it myself.

"Yes you did. Max you can come down now. Don't forget to cover the entrance up." Jasper shouts up to him and soon enough I hear the faint movements of Max making his way down the ladder. It doesn't take him anyway near as long as it took me to get down the ladder so soon enough he has joined Jasper and I in the tunnels.

"Which way do we go now?" I ask them both.

"South which is this way." Max tells me which actually surprises me because I'm used to Jasper answering my questions

"Lets go then." I say and we make our way further into the tunnels.

A/N: so it's #RoyalWednesday and I hope you are all having a good week.
The cover picture was one of the ones that were designed for the contest I did by cerezaloba I think.

Next week I'll be posting another chapter of Royal Blood as usual but also another chapter of Fingerprints: Seasonal Stories. If you don't know what this is then I'll tell you. Before this book I wrote another story called Fingerprints and throughout the story numerous holidays are mentioned, e.g. Christmas and Halloween. In Seasonal Stories I am revisiting these holidays and re-telling what happened in them from a different characters POV.

I would really appreciate it if you went and checked it out though you might have to read the first four chapters of Fingerprints for it to make sense. I will do any reads in return if you want.

Anyway, what did you think of this chapter?
Any changing thoughts on Jasper or Max?

Don't forget to vote and comment