WARNING: A/N is a bit long, but I would appreciate it if you read it nonetheless :)

"Chailey" seems to have won out over "Hase" for a ship name between Hailey and Chase! (Note that I never said anything about them ever getting together, muhahah >;) ) so yay for a possible Chailey!

This chapter is dedicated to @coridadino12 who reported to me seeing a Wattpad user who had entirely copied my story. Thankfully the Wattpad team is awesome and had the problem resolved in less than 24 hours after I had reported it! Hopefully none of you will ever have that problem, but if you ever find that someone has copied your story I'm sure you'll be glad to know that Wattpad is very efficient about it:)

Also thank you to @jadaboss143 who also told me she found a story a lot like mine although since it's not word for word copying, but rather same plot, title, and main ideas it doesn't work the same.

I can't believe that someone would copy someone else's story, especially word for word though... -.- I mean it's downgrading to yourself and all the comments and votes you'd receive aren't going to be worth anything in your eyes if you're passing for someone else... All right, mini rant over, I hope that never happens to any of you guys, and now on to the chapter!

Oops, one second! Let's all sing "happy birthday" to @dodolovato4 !!

(I won't type out the whole song you guys are probably yelling at me in your heads to shut up and wrap up this A/N already...)

So, without putting this off any longer, here is your next chapter!

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Chapter 18

Autumn and I had left the castle through a large wooden door at the back of the castle. The gardens behind the castle were smaller than the ones in the front, and cut off by rows of tall trees. Although the trees obscured our sight, they didn't stop the noise that reached our ears. It was peculiar, kind of like metal pots banging into each other repeatedly and the rings of an untuned guitar string, with grunts and muted yells. Autumn was unfazed by the noise and kept walking down the gravel path, continuing our conversation, but I interrupted her to ask what all of that noise was.

"The training grounds are behind the trees over there. So yeah, it's just the sound of everyone training."

"Really?"

"No, I just randomly made that up," she joked. "Hey, maybe Chase's there! Want to go? We'll have plenty of time to visit the actual city later."

We followed a dusty trail to the training grounds, and as we got closer the noise intensified. The trees opened up, and I finally saw the training grounds. Some people were fighting in sand arenas, others were doing pushups and similar workouts, and many more were practicing archery in a large field.

I let my eyes scan over the area, overwhelmed by the amount of bustling activity. Someone called out my name, and I turned my head to see Aiden jogging towards Autumn and me carrying a long wooden bow.

"Hey, Aiden," Autumn and I greeted him as he reached us.

"Hey, girls! Did you wake up this morning wanting to ache all over, or even better, did you come here to bring me food?"

I shook my head, laughing, "Sorry, neither."

Aiden turned to Autumn hopefully, but she said, "No, I was going to show Hailey the village, but we decided to drop by first. You know, it's too bad, if I had known we would see you I might have saved you a piece of that yummy blueberry pie or one of those gooey chocolate chip cookies," she teased.

Aiden glared at her playfully. "We're not friends anymore."

"Hey!" Autumn protested.

"Sorry, but Hailey's my new best friend. I bet she would have brought me cookies if she had known she'd see me today, right Hailey?"

"Of course I would have," I laughed.

"But she would have eaten them all on the way, so you wouldn't have had any either," Autumn finished with a wicked smile.

Aiden huffed. "I guess I'm just destined to starve."

Autumn must have spotted someone, because she waved towards a group of guys and told us, "I'll be right back!" before jogging towards them.

"Here, hold that, please," Aiden said, handing me his bow.

I held the weapon carefully, my fingers caressing the patterns carved in the smooth wood.

Aiden stretched and cracked his shoulders, making me wince.

"Is Chase training, too?" I asked.

"Yeah, but not right now. Chase has training in the mornings. And look," saying so, he pointed towards a group of guys who were practicing archery.

"Um, what am I supposed to be seeing, exactly?"

Aiden placed himself behind me and turned my shoulders to the right, pointing his finger right along my line of sight. At the tip of his finger, a grey-winged figure was nocking an arrow. The figure aimed at the target, letting the arrow fly. It was only when he turned to say something to someone else that I realized who it was.

"Lance." Aiden stated, confirming my thoughts. "These two idiots are so competitive when it comes to besting one another that they're not allowed to train at the same time anymore."

My eyebrows rose. Even though I had only been around Lance for a few minutes, I hadn't realized they disliked each other that much. At least, it must be so, because Chase didn't strike me as the type of guy who would pick fight with people during a training session just because of a little competitiveness. Then again, I was reminded that, although it was easy to forget it by their friendly and open nature, I hadn't known these people for long yet.

Aiden started chattering happily, retelling the event that had led them to not being allowed to train at the same time. He obviously found the story very entertaining, but I couldn't help but zone out on his words a bit, still taking in the scene in front of me. As I observed different fighters, I distractedly heard that Lance had supposedly sent an arrow purposefully close to Chase, that some kind of argument followed, and that Chase had ended up breaking Lance's nose. Still, I was more interested in the skills the archers showed, many hitting a bullseye on a very far target. The most impressive archers hit moving targets such as small sacks of sand or pinecones, which were thrown up in the air by a group of younger kids, about nine or ten years old.

Aiden didn't seem put off by my lack of response to his story and smoothly and happily changed the subject towards the archery range.

"So over there, you have regular targets, which get a greater distance away from the line where the archers are shooting as you go farther to the left. The people that are shooting toward the trees there, well they're actually shooting towards higher targets." I nodded, I had actually been wondering what they could have been shooting arrows at. "The targets are attached on smaller tree branches, so on top of being higher they also tend to move a bit."

"That is correct," An irritated voice behind me confirmed. "Now, what I'd really like to know is why you aren't over there with them like you're supposed to."

The speaker was a girl with flaming red hair and lilac wings who was looking at Aiden with a disapproving -and rather scary- expression.

"Hey, Bree," Aiden smiled happily, not put off by her glare.

"Hey yourself, Aiden. You still haven't answered my question," she said with a raised eyebrow.

"You mean why I'm here, and not shooting over there? Well, actually, I was there, but then I saw Hailey here -you know, Hailey, she was at that banquet yesterday, because she's the king's granddaughter. Well, so I saw Hailey, and I thought, 'I can't just leave my new best friend all alone on the training ground,' and also my arm kind of hurt, so I decided I would come here and show her how friendly us Winged are around here," Aiden chattered amiably.

Bree looked at Aiden blankly. "As heartwarming as your story isn't, you're going to have to go back over there, and you better be hitting all bullseyes. Just because you're one of our better archers doesn't mean you can skip practice."

Aiden took his bow back from me with a huff.

"All right, Hailey, I'll see you when torture's over!" He skipped away, ignoring Bree's glare in his back.

Bree turned to me, looking as if she was assessing me -although for what, I wasn't sure.

"So, you're the girl everyone's talking about."

"Well, I don't know that anyone's talking about me, but I'm Hailey. I just arrived here, and the king is my grandfather." I replied politely. She didn't seem like someone I wanted to mess around with.

She nodded. "Yeah, I know that." There was a tense silence, before she spoke again. "If you think that to be a princess you only need to be related to the king, you're wrong. Honestly, the last thing our people needs right now is some silly girl who doesn't even know how to fly properly yet."

I bit back a sharp reply. Her words hurt more than I cared to admit, and although I didn't want to seem like a wimp, I didn't want to make things worse for myself either. She didn't seem like someone you'd want against you. I was about to muster a polite reply, when she threw me a superior and disdainful glance, and the sharp words were out before I could stop them.

"I fly perfectly well, thank you very much. And I am well aware being a princess has responsibilities, but as I just arrived yesterday I was only introduced to the people the king deemed important enough for me to know. Which obviously didn't include you."

She looked at me, unimpressed, and that somehow was worse than if she had gotten mad, or even slapped me in the face. She was acting like I was just some pesky little fly, unworthy of her wasting her breath to reply.

"Well, then, I won't bother you any longer," I said between my teeth, "It seems you have enough trouble getting everyone to do as you say already, you don't need any more distractions. Oh, and when you get the chance, take a shower. You smell like a dead pig."

I spun around on my heels, when she called out, making me turn back around.

"That's the smell of perseverance and winning," she said with a small smile. Then, almost to herself, she added, "Maybe we can make something out of you, after all."

I watched her leave and start barking orders at a bunch of warriors, puzzled at what had just transpired.

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And... It's the end of the chapter. If you want more reading (of course you do,) and are interested in learning a bit more about "Secret Wings" 's author (a.k.a me), check out the interview by @EXTREMEmusiclover (it's chapter 100). I'll try posting the link, but if that doesn't work you can also go to my profile and "dedications" as she kindly dedicated that chapter to me!

http://www.wattpad.com/41141796-365-interviews-interview-100-mlb998

While we're on the subject of dedications (and since you can't seem to shut me up today,) I just want to thank all those of you who dedicated a chapter of their story to me! Very sweet!:)

Alright, bye now, I'm sure you have lots of fictional characters to cry over and authors to curse at and send death threats to :) ;)