Ashton's POV

She took a deep breath before launching into her story.

"It started two years ago. The war was raging in the west and they needed more soldiers to wield a sword. Everyone in the kingdom knew the war was futile, we were never going to win, but the Bastard King had too much pride" she began.

I internally cringed at the mention of my father. She kept a stern face.

"He wouldn't surrender despite the thousands of lives he could have saved. So instead he called for all adults to report for duty. Those who were wealthy enough managed to pay their way out, but for a poor village like ours we couldn't afford it." she says looking down briefly.

"So all those over the age of 18 left for the war. Calum and I were the eldest left, we were 17 at the time. We both narrowly avoided the front lines by a matter of weeks.

We looked after everyone else in the hopes that at least some of the adults would return when the war eventually ended.

None of them did. Every child in the village was orphaned.

I knew what would happen. The guards would come to take us to orphanages in the city.

I wasn't going to let that happen. So when the guards came we hid in the trees. They left and forgot that our village even existed."

Even though she was doing well to keep calm about it, I knew this was still hard for her to say. There was a twinkle of rage in her eyes that she was clearly suppressing.

She looked up, looking somewhat more comfortable as she continued.

"We went from there, everyone did their bit to help. It was hard at first, especially for the younger ones.

It's hard to explain to a five year old that their parents aren't ever coming back. Although it toughened everyone up.

Now we work together to keep on living. Everyone has their job and it's a nice village. We have a good life here. It's not perfect, but it's home."

I didn't know what I was expecting when I asked, but it defiantly wasn't that. My father was a horrible King and I pray that I will not follow in his footsteps.

I knew about the war, although I had no idea about contracting every adult in the outer villages.

They must hate the royals here, which means I can never tell them who I truly am.

My father clearly took everything from them and I didn't want them to dislike me. Especially Y/N, she was clearly running this village.

There was one thing I didn't quite understand. "So you and Calum looked after a whole village of children, surely it would have been easier to just let the orphanages take care of them" I say.

"Take care of them?" she laughs. I didn't understand why she was laughing.

"You think that the orphanages take care of the children? I'll tell you what the orphanages are really like" she states. There was fire in her eyes. The anger there could destroy a city.

"I used to live in the city with my dad. My mum died in childbirth, my dad died when I was twelve." she explains.

"I'm sorry" I state, looking into her eyes.

She shrugged "It was a long time ago but thank you" she gives me a small grateful smile.

"Anyway, I was taken to the orphanage. The staff are friendly when you show up, so that they don't arouse suspicion. But once the guards leave and the doors are closed, you're put to work."

"It's alright if your young, those under ten get adopted relatively quickly. But I was twelve, no one wanted me, they wanted the cute ones.

I'm glad that people wanted the young ones, they didn't deserve to grow up there. Us older ones were tough, we could handle ourselves. We were put to work doing housework and manual labour for people in the village.

We weren't paid, they said that our minimal food was payment enough. If we talked back, we were cuffed and beaten" She explained.

I could tell from the look in her eyes that she was remembering her life there, I didn't expect her to tell me everything about her as we only just met. It sounded horrible, I had no idea. I felt a pang in my chest at the sadness in her eyes.

"When I was fifteen, I realised something. There were no sixteen year olds, I assumed they were taken on as apprentices in local shops like the butchers or the blacksmith, because that's what they told us and we believed it.

It wasn't until my friend Elizabeth came to me crying on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, she shoved a letter in my pocket as she hugged me. She said goodbye to me, saying that she was getting a job. By the look in her eye, I knew we were being watched."

"I waited until I was back in my room to read her letter. She was being sent to the brothel, they were going to sell her as a sex slave to dirty old men to do as they pleased. She said that it was too late for her, but I had to get away, she told me to run, run far away." she said. There were tears in her eyes but she held it together.

"So I did, I was due to turn sixteen in less than a month, so that night I jumped out the window, I landed in the rubbish pile, it may have stunk like shit but it cushioned my fall.

I ran away, I kept running until I was deep in the woods and my legs couldn't carry me any further.

I spent about a week in the woods, I found a cave and I scavenged enough berries and water to keep me going." she explained.

"That's when Calum found me. He was out hiking with his father. They took me in and became my family. Calum became the brother I never had.

Finally my life was going well. I felt like I had a home again. The village was very welcoming, it was small so everybody knew everybody" she smiled as she relived her happy memories.

Her smile quickly faded, her eyes turning fiery once again. "And then the King took that all away. When I knew that we would all end up at the orphanage, I rounded everyone up, I didn't want to go back there and I sure as hell was not going to let those children end up in a place like that, they didn't deserve it.

The king had already taken their parents from them, I wasn't going to let them take their freedom as well." she finished. She looked at me, obviously trying to interpret my reaction to the onslaught of information she had given me.

I was speechless. My father was a liar, he had always said that the people that went to fight were volunteers. If this had happened to Y/N's village it must have happened to others to, but they may have not been so lucky to stay out of the orphanages.

"So that's how we ended up like this." she gestures to the air around her.

"Once you can walk properly, I'll give you the tour." she smiles. Any emotions built up from her story were gone.

She amazed me. I may have only met her today, but after everything she's been through, she acts like it's nothing. She's tough and I admire that about her.

"So what about you, what's your story?" she asks as she rests her elbows on the table as she looks at me curiously.

Shit. I can't tell her I grew up in the castle, or that I'm the son of the man she clearly despised. I quickly try to think of something believable.

"I lived with my father for most of my life, he was a woodworker, he used to sell little toys at the market in the city." I started as I tried to figure out what to tell her, without it being obvious that I'm lying through my teeth.

"He wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but I didn't want to. I just wasn't as passionate about wood as he was." I chuckle and she smiles at me. 

"He died naturally about a month ago. There's nothing for me in the city, so I left, I wanted to find somewhere I could start over and find out what I really wanted" I say, the story had elements of truth to it, despite it being a complete lie.

The way she was looking at me, it seemed she was genuinely interested in my story. I felt terrible lying to her, but it's for the best.