All Hail The King

Chapter 8

The Solis festival. A festival to honour the sun goddess of the kingdom of Arcania and to signify the end of spring and the start of summer. It was a lively festival that lasted around three days with endless food, music, dancing and multiple celebrations. It was one of the most popular festivals in Arcania. It was mostly attended to by commoners but also attracted a few nobles as well.

The Solis festival had always been one of Y/n's favourite events of the year. She would partake every year in the festival, setting up a fortune stall where the two of them would give people their fortunes. Later in the day, her mother would allow her to explore the festival with her friends, enjoying the music and dancing.

The festival brought her a lot of joy so she always looked forward to it every year except this year when going would be far from impossible. She considered asking Andrias multiple times though her mind always played out the same scenarios with her ending up deflatedly dejected.

Sneaking out wasn't an option either. The festival would take rather a long time to reach if she walked and taking any other means of transport would be far from likely to happen and besides she didn't even know her way to the location where it took place from the castle. Therefore Y/n would have to postpone her visit to the Solis festival until next year.

Though perhaps there was a way she could go to the festival.

"Excuse me?" Y/n said, hoping to get a repeat of what Adonis had just asked of her.

"The Solis festival. Come with me," Adonis repeated. It was actually far from a question with the way Adonis chose his words. It was more like he had anticipated her saying her yes and tagging along with him.

If Y/n was in any other situation, she would have said yes without thinking about the way Adonis proposed the question and the fact that it was him asking. The third prince of Arcania. Hell, if it was anyone else, she would have blindly said yes. That's how much she adored the Solis festival.

However, she had to think practically this time. Many reasons were holding her back from attending most of which she couldn't explain to Adonis without revealing her whole situation. She would have to come up with an excuse to give Adonis as to why she could not go regardless of her heart screaming yes to go.

"I can't, Your Highness," Y/n started but she was interrupted.

"Adonis. You can call me Adonis," he said.

"Um, Adonis. I can't go to the festival because I have many duties to attend here. My Lady has recently made a long list of tasks that need to be done by the end of the week," Y/n smoothly lied.

"Really?" he asked with a slight tone of disbelief in his voice as he raised an eyebrow. "You always seem to be busy, princess. Places to go, things to do. I'm almost starting to believe that you're making up these excuses to not be with me."

Y/n stood still, not giving him the response that he wanted. He was right on the most part. She had been making up a lot of excuses in the times she had seen him and spent some time with, which had not been planned but coincidental somehow, however, they weren't because she didn't want to see him but because she needed to be back in her room before certain times during the day.

"That's not true. My Lady is just very persistent and asks for a lot of things. There's nothing I can do about that. What she wants is out of my control," Y/n lied again, adding to the excuse she gave him.

"You can't give up a few hours? Just for me?" he pleaded.

"I'm sure there's a lot of ladies who would like to go with you. Why don't you ask one of them?"

"They're not you, princess. I only want to go with you," he said with the distinct look in his eyes that would manage to trip Y/n up and heat her cheeks though his words alone would have managed to do that.