"Sam, there’s something you should know," Willow began. "About you and Josh.""What about me and Josh."
"You’re my sister," Josh told her. "You’re a princess. Which is why you can’t spend anymore time alone with Justin."
"What?" Sam exclaimed, looking from Willow, to Josh, to Justin. She looked back at Josh. "I can’t be a princess. It’s... it’s just not possible."
"Now you don’t have an excuse to not marry me," Justin told her.
"You asked her to marry you?" Josh asked Justin at the same time as Sam yelled:
"I’m not a princess!"
"You have to ask my permission first. And what went on while you two were lost?"
"I’m not marrying anyone, he doesn’t have to ask anyone’s permission, and I am not a princess!" Sam said again.
"It’s none of your business what went on while we were lost," Justin told Josh. "Needless to say, I asked Sam to marry me and she said no."
"He didn’t ask, he demanded."
"She isn’t marrying you. She’ll marry someone from Augumentia and be queen."
"I am not a damn princess!" Sam screamed. "And I’m not marrying anyone!"
"I’m afraid you are," Chris said sadly. "I know for a fact you are."
Everyone fell silent at his words and looked at him. "How do you know?" Sam asked. "What did the witch tell you?"
"She told us that my sister is someone I know, but lost again. It could only be you," Josh told her.
"I wasn’t talking to you," Sam said. "I was talking to Chris. How do you know?" she asked Chris.
"I- I was the one that cursed you." He was staring at the ground, so he didn’t have to see the looks on everyone’s faces.
"What?" Sam asked. "You’re the one that cursed me? What curse? Why?"
"I put an invisibility spell on your name and caused the people closest to you to think that you were just a myth."
"Why?" Sam repeated.
Chris mumbled something under his breath.
"What was that?" Sam asked.
"Because I was trying to be evil."
"You were trying to be evil?" Justin asked.
"It was the best I could do. I didn’t know what was involved in being evil. I’m not evil. But the rest of my family was. So I had to do something."
"You definitely are crazy," Sam said. "All I know is that I’m not a princess, nor a queen, and nothing anyone says is going to make me one."
"You are too a princess," Josh said.
"No I am not. I don’t care what anyone says." She stood up and walked out of camp, Nyx following her.
Josh turned to Justin. "We’ll let her settle down before talking to her. Now, tell me what happened while you two were lost. If you so much as touched her, I’ll-"
"You’ll what?" Justin asked.
"If you did touch her, you’re going to marry her. I won’t have my sister’s honor ruined by some prince sowing his wild oats."
Chris watched as Sam stormed away from the camp, Josh and Justin argued, and the others looked on in shock, or- in Willow’s case- amusement. "Wait, isn’t anyone mad at me?"
Josh and Justin ignored him, continuing with their argument, and Sam was too far away to hear him.
"I guess not, then." Chris shrugged his shoulders and sat down, trying to block out the argument between the two men.
***
"I’m not a princess," Sam said, sitting down on a fallen log. "I’m not."
Nyx placed her head on Sam’s leg, looking up at her mistress with wide, unblinking green eyes.
"I’m not, Nyx. There’s no way I could be. I’m nothing like a princess."
Nyx didn’t move.
"And I’m not going to marry Justin. No way in the seven hells of Aerin will I marry him. His people wouldn’t accept me, I’m not cut out to be a queen, I would probably be unhappy there. Besides, if I really am Josh’s sister, then I wouldn’t be able to leave Augumentia. Do I really want to leave Augumentia?"
She did want to travel, but Augumentia would always be her home. She would miss it too much if she left for good.
"Oh Nyx, what am I going to do?" She buried her face in Nyx’s thick black fur.
***
"Where is Sam?" Justin asked suddenly, pausing in his argument to look around the camp for Sam.
"Her name is Samantha," Josh told him.
"It’s Sam. Where is she?"
"Why?"
"I have this really bad feeling that something’s going to happen to her."
***
A twig snapped behind her and Sam slowly rose from the log. She turned around.
"Well, look at what we have here," Nick said, grinning. "If it isn’t the princess." He took a step closer to her. "What’s wrong, princess?" he asked. "Lost?"
"Why have you been following us?"
"You’ll find out soon enough." He took another step closer to her.
Damn, I left my dagger back in camp, Sam thought, cursing her luck.
Nyx was eyeing him warily, watching his every move. If he took another step towards them, she’d attack.
Nick ignored the great cat at Sam’s side and moved closer to her. Nyx lunged for his leg.
He kicked her, sending the cat flying away from them. "I’d kill you for that, but Serpienta doesn’t want you dead." He reached for Sam, who dodged his grasp.
***
"What do you mean, something’s going to happen to her?" Josh asked. "Is this just an attempt to get my mind off the fact that you probably compromised my sister and I should challenging you to a fight for her honor?"
"Something’s going to happen to her, something bad. And I wouldn’t be using that as am attempt to keep you from trying to harm me. Something’s going to happen to Sam." Justin glanced at her bag. "And she doesn’t have her dagger."
He slipped her dagger into his boot and grabbed his sword, running from the camp towards the small grove of trees before anyone could stop him.
***
While Nick was moving in on her, Sam had failed to see that someone was approaching from behind until a pair of arms wrapped around her.
"We’ve got you know." Kevin looked at Nick. "Get the others. We’ve got to get out of here before her friends notice she’s missing."
"Don’t we want her friends?" AJ asked.
"Serpienta doesn’t care about them. She only wants this one." Kevin tied Sam’s wrists together, gagged her, and all but dragged her from the grove.