All Hail The King

Chapter 2

3 months ago

A few days had passed since Prince Andrias had given Y/n the grace to stay in one of the rooms in the palace until she had figured out her next steps. She had thought of going out of the palace to find someplace where she could work and stay out but she had feared that there was the possibility that the Duke de Croix's men were searching for her in the capital.

She was paranoid, to say the least. If she stepped out of the palace his men could see her and capture her before forcibly sending her back to the duke who she presumed was quite angry at her.

But she knew she could not overstay her welcome at the palace. The prince would surely have to send her away at some point. She was only just a commoner and commoners had no place in the castle.

Ah, I don't know what to do.

The door to the room opened. Y/n had expected it to be a maid but instead, she was greeted with the face of the first prince. She immediately stood up from the soft bed she was seated on and flattened out any creases on her dress before bowing to the prince.

"Greetings, Your Highness."

"Charlotte," he said her name in acknowledgement.

He was wearing clothes similar to what he wore from when they first met but Y/n recognised it to be for sword training rather than hunting. It seemed as though he was stopping by to see how she was doing before going off to complete his training.

"Are you making any progress with finding a place to stay once you leave? The maids have informed me that you haven't sent out any letter or even set out of the room," he explained.

"I can't exactly leave, Your Highness. The room or the palace," Y/n nervously said.

"And why is that?" he quizzed, curiosity present on his face.

"Like you established some time ago. I've run away from someone, someone quite important so there are people outside looking for me," she replied in a low tone.

"You know there have been rumours that the Duke de Croix's men have been looking for something important," Y/n felt her breath hitch as her hands grabbed the sides of her dress in fear. "Or perhaps it's someone important. It's quite a coincidence that you ran away from someone who you called important right about the same time his men are out searching. Don't you think so?"

So he knew. There would be no other reason for the prince to mention the duke if he didn't suspect that she was the 'object' they were looking for.

"How did you know?" she slowly whispered.

"When I heard of the rumour, I had thought back to you and how the timing between you showing up and the rumour was somewhat suspicious. I then remembered the dress you were wearing when we first met, which I knew was of high quality only a noble could buy. I wasn't so sure so I decided to tell you about the rumour to see how you would react and by the way you held your dress, well, it confirmed my theory," he explained.

Y/n looked up at the prince almost in shock. She knew that the prince was known to possess high intelligence, not as high as the second prince, yet it still surprised her how he was able to figure out that she was one the duke was looking for.

She didn't know what to say to the prince now. She had thought of apologising but she never directly lied about the reason she was out in the woods. She only withheld some information to ensure her safety.

"I presume that Charlotte Banks is not your real name. What is it?" he said.

"You don't know my real identity?" she asked. She assumed that the prince would've heard her name along with the rumours but it seemed that he didn't for he asked for her real name.