You Don't Want the Crown

The Story of Lonan - 7

Ciara is as good as her word and lets us stay, with fresh clothes and food available when we need it. We spend little time there, merely stabling our horses and sleeping. We share a room despite her offer. At this point we do not trust the other out of our sight. My father will sit up watching me breath, unable to sleep. I see him sobbing alone. I often hug him, but sometimes I leave him to his grief. It's deeper than my own. We expect to lose a parent, not a lover, and I have him still as my father. It's easy enough to pretend my father the king is off being king and not really dead. He's just needed in heaven now.
We comb the city. But there is no sign, no word of our little hound. The people are receptive to us, but sadly unhelpful. They know nothing.
After two months we determine it was assassins not druids. But the trail runs cold.  It's not a society, but simply hired men.
"So what, they kill Alfie, for sounding the alarm, and then take Cuan back to raise him as their own?" I ask, as my father and I sit in a pub. Our tenth today. Just asking, listening, watching.
"Perhaps? Supposed that two little boys didn't need to die that night?" He sighs.
"But this is our Cuan we're talking about—he'd pitch a screaming fit if you or father carried him someplace he didn't want to go, so how'd they get him to go?" I ask.
"Knocked him out?" He shrugs.
"And why? They left the corpse they helped us fake his death—to save him and it doesn't make sense why?" I sigh.
"No, no it doesn't. But odds are, he's not alive. Not anymore. Maybe he lived through the night. But Fergus knows what men he hired. He would know if he had any doubt he may have checked—,"
"And killed him. Whatever two or three assassins left with him, got all the way off the grounds," I sigh.
"Correct, and they did what? Took him home? You know he'd scream he'd go mad. He knew he was the prince he's not that tiny. He knows who his mum and dad are he's going to ask to go home."
"He'd not go along with a kidnapping. Which means—,"
"They probably killed him," he sighs.
"I'm not going to stop looking. Even if its his body I bring back. I'm bringing him home," I say.
"We will, try," he nods, spinning his pint.
"But?" I frown.
"But the truth doesn't always come out in the end. And sometimes, our stories? They end badly. The hero doesn't always win."