The search party has been called off, so that only meant that there was no hope of ever finding Valeria, ever again!

But my instincts made me believe strongly that she wasn't dead, she couldn't be! Then where else could she be? That's the question in everybody's mouths and no one seemed to know the right answer to that.

At some point, I began to have an awkward feeling that Val was dead after all and her body feasted on by wild birds. Who would have believed that she would never be in the palace with us all her life?

If she was indeed dead, who could be responsible for...