"I've always known that child was a good-for-nothing." The neighbors began their usual prying murmurs, shaking their heads in complete disappointment as they watched Valda get taken to the awaiting carriage.
She was placed in a cage made from thick bamboo sticks, but there was no reaction on her face, not even a tinge of humiliation could be seen. She wasn't surprised, nor was she dazed by her predicament. In fact no one knew what to detect from her looks except she was at sea, but their attention was broken by the sudden angry wail from Valda's Aunt and her daughter who stepped out of the house.
"How could you do this, Valda? We gave you everything! Is this how you reward us for all the love we've showered you with over the years? By gambling with your dignity?" Her Aunt Marissa cried, earning pity from the neighbors who, like puppeteers controlled by dumb brains, fell for her awful act.
Her cousin Annabelle held her mother, comforting her, and when she looked at Valda's indifferent stare, she decided to play her part in their inconspicuous plan.
"Have you no shame, Valda? Is this – a woman of your caliber should know better than stooping so low as to gamble, and in a prison cell of all places? I'm ashamed of you, Valda, I have always forgiven your atrocities cause I loved you as my own sister, but today, you've proven to my family and I that you do not care about the purity of our reputation."
"Maybe that's why the ownership of the Griggs family home was given to her father's brother, else, she would have gambled that away!" Someone amongst the spectators added, worsening the rumors that were bound to spread by tomorrow.
"Just look at her face, she isn't even showing a single remorse."
"Beauty with no brains. Who knows how many young men she must have tricked! I keep telling you that she's a witch!"
"Excuse me, guards, sir?" Turning deaf ears to the people's commentary, Valda glanced at the guards who, for some reason, were still waiting. "When can we leave this place, please? Any longer here than I might suffer from a syndrome, I'm already in the cage, I doubt there's anything left to do so please whisk me out of here."
Listening to Valda plead with the guards to take her away from here wasn't something the spectators had expected at all, including her family – she neither begged nor kept her head low in shame, it was this pride of hers that made people judge without listening to her side of the story, they hated her confidence.
Valda on the other hand glanced at her home's entrance, but her uncle barely stepped out of the house to defend her, despite knowing she did what she did to try and save all of them – to save the house they had stolen from her.
She did what she did because regardless of how poorly she was treated in this environment, she was taught that blood runs thicker than water. She didn't want to see anyone in her family become homeless and roam the streets; that life wasn't easy, so she risked her dignity to help them.
She took a big risk for their selfish needs, and what did she get in return? She was schemed after.
It was her fault, Nelson warned her about something like this, but she didn't realize how low her family could stoop until now – no, she didn't realize that they could despise her this much. Maybe all this while, she had been doing her best because she thought that at some point, they would learn to love her back, to accept her, but it was a fool's wish, wasn't it?
"Can we go?" She sighed tiredly, ignoring the existence of everyone except the royal guards.
The guards, acknowledging her plea, got in the carriage, and the coachman began the ride back to the Palace. Judging glares followed Valda as they rode by, she felt like she was some kind of abomination that was displayed around town for the people to see – for them to be wary of, an example that parents would use to warn their daughters.
"I hope Nelson doesn't hate me for this." she mumbled before leaning her back against the cage, hugging her knees.
Back in the Grigg's family home, Annabelle and her mother returned to their home after gaining sympathy from the neighbors, and once the doors closed shut, Annabelle and her mother exchanged glances before bursting into a silent laughter.
"Mother, you are an amazing actress! I honestly thought you were genuinely broken down by that wasteless trash of a girl. Bravo mother, you're just the absolute best!" Anna praised her mother, and the woman simply took her seat on the couch, overlapping her leg with the other, and there was a glint of satisfaction in her eyes.
"This wouldn't have been accomplished so perfectly if you didn't reveal to the guards about Valda's illegal activities." Marissa leaned back comfortably on the couch, "she really took such a big risk to save her father's home, but she keeps forgetting that the house is not under her name, but ours."
"Father told me his brother was in the middle of getting it changed before he passed away, such a pity though, but who cares?" Anna chuckled and joined her mother on the couch, "finally mother, we've gotten rid of Valda for good! I hope she rots in the main dungeon, I heard they're infested with cannibal rats in search of their next victim."
"My dear, it's none of our concern what they plan to do to her. By tomorrow, we'll be aware of the King's judgment, and if by chance there's a way Valda can be freed from her crimes, I'll sell her off to the royal family before she gets out, she'll be treated no less than a slave." Marissa plotted audibly, drumming her fingers subconsciously on the arms of the couch.
She wasn't going to give that girl a chance of returning to this house, never. Her parents were already dead, so she should join them wherever they are.
Meanwhile, along the quiet bushy pathway where the carriage navigated, Valda was fast asleep in the cage she had been locked in. The ride to the Palace wasn't bumpy enough to wake her from her deep slumbers, but all of a sudden, the carriage stopped moving, as if something had deliberately stopped it.
Unbeknownst to the sleeping beauty in her cage, several arrows came flying from the bushes, aiming directly at the royal guards who were in charge of bringing her in. The guards who were sitting in front with the coachman, noticed the danger a little too late to stop it, and they were inevitably struck by the multiple flying arrows.
"Arrrghh!!" They yelped in pain, falling from their seats to the ground.
Four figures dressed in black ascended from the bushes, drawing out their blades that glinted in the night, and they surrounded the cage Valda was in. Their movements were swift, their footsteps unheard, and one of them quickly searched the unconscious guard to fish out the key to the cage.
The cage was opened afterwards, and the leader of the assassin's silently crawled inside. He placed a white handkerchief to Valda's nostrils till she was knocked out completely by the scent in it.
"Is she the one?" an unfamiliar voice questioned the assassin who withdrew the handkerchief from her nose.
"She fits the description." He answered, taking note of her physical features before bringing her out of the cage and carrying her on his shoulder.
"We better leave before someone finds us, can't spend too much time out here." the other one whispered, and in agreement, the four assassin's hurried back into the woods, camouflaging with the night.
The coachman, who was hiding beneath the carriage after the arrows came flying, stepped out of his hiding place once they were gone. The fear in his eyes after he regained himself, made him abandon the carriage, and he ran as fast as he could to the Palace, hoping to escape the death that struck the royal guards.