I Must Save the Evil King

Chapter 13: And His Princess Was Stronger

"I was wondering if you were okay?" asked the prince, releasing my wrist, sure I wouldn't fall. I on the other hand stood there frozen like an idiot, red as a tomato. 

"Mm-hmm," I must have been distracted at lunch because now I found myself paralyzed by his beauty. My face turned an even brighter red when I remembered the disaster of a dress I was wearing. My hand moved on its own trying to flatten down my frizzy hair. "All good here." 

"That's good," he gave a small smile, trying to be polite, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Will you need me to escort you back to your room?"   

"Hmmm- What? No!" All my thoughts of how cute the prince was disappeared once I remembered the cookies I had gone out searching for. Boys were good, cute boys especially, but nothing can beat a snickerdoodle cookie fresh out of the oven. Not even Prince Julian. "Nope, all good here. No need to go back to my room."  

"Oh." he glanced behind me, perhaps wondering if he could outrun me. "Well, then I best be on my way-"

"Wait!" I exclaimed, stopping him in his tracks. I drew my hands up to my face contemplating if this was a good idea. "Take me to the cookies!" 

"What?" Shit! I phrased that wrong!

"What I meant was...." I paused trying to summon the cadence of Princess Anna. "I was hoping you could escort me to the kitchen, for I am afraid if I don't eat cookies in the next hour I will perish!" I stared at his face trying to gauge his reaction. Was I too dramatic? OR was I not getting across the severity of this cookie crisis? He tilted his head at me, like a puppy would when you call their name, confusion clouded his eyes. But then, as if against his will, a short laugh escaped from his mouth. 

"Sure why not?" And for a brief moment, I could catch a glimpse of a genuine smile. Then he turned around and began to walk. Startled I hurried to catch up, which proved to be poorly planned when he stopped suddenly. I stopped just in time narrowly avoiding a collision. He turned his head to the right peering down an empty hallway. I craned my head to look at him. "Though if it is cookies you are looking for perhaps there is somewhere better to find them," he mumbled to himself as he turned and began walking down the hallway. 

"What?" I stared after him confused, that was the way to the guard tower. But he did not slow down, didn't even turn to make sure I was following behind. "And I guess we are going this way," I mumbled as I ran down the hallway, following after him.  

"I don't think I'm allowed to be here," I called ahead to him as I moved out of the way of a servant walking by. The hall was made of stone unlike the rest of the castle and had no windows meaning I had absolutely no clue where I was going. 

"You are a guest of the Prince, you can go where ever you want," He said calmly keeping his eyes trained straight ahead. My face went bright red and I tried fanning it with my hand in an attempt to get it to stop. A sequel of excitement built up in my throat. I was a guest of the prince! I looked back up at him again only to see he had turned his head to look at me. I quickly dropped my hand back to my side. Act natural. Just act natural Ettie, you can do it! God, I'm such a disaster. "It's just up here," He said turning back around. 

I leaned to the right, trying to look past him. The hall ended in a simple archway that lead into a tower. The tower was tall, probably 5 stories, but it had no floors only stars tracing up the sides which lead to small platforms. This meant for the center of the ground floor you could look up to the roof. Giant stained glass windows covered the walls each depicting some great battle or significant event. The sunlight beaming in it cast down colored light on me. Making me feel as though I was in a kaleidoscope.    

"Wow," I breathed, as I slowly spun around, mouth agape. The prince made his way to one of the alcoves that decorated the bottom floor and pushed aside a torn blanket to reveal a wooden box. I knew what was inside it the second he opened it. 

"These are from this morning so they shouldn't be stale," The prince lifted a cookie the size of his hand out of the box. Rich people have it so nice. I walked over and carefully took the cookie out of his hands. I bit in and I couldn't help the smile that formed on my face. One of my longest stays with a foster family had been spent right above a bakery. Me and a couple of the other foster kids would save up any spare change we found for an entire month so we could buy cookies for everyone. I was always left with snickerdoodle since it was the least favorite of the kids, but I didn't care. It was my mom's favorite.    

I was snapped out of my daydream by a hot tear running down my cheek. I quickly swiped the tear away only to find the prince staring at me. His eyes bore into mine in a way that made my heart pound. 

"Guess I wasn't lying about needing a cookie," I smiled trying to laugh it off. The Prince looked away, if I didn't know better I would have thought he was embarrassed.  "Which brings me to the point of your secret cookie stash! What sort of prince hides cookies? Are these like super secret magic cookies? Am I a threat to national security now? I guess it's settled then, you're gonna have to kill me and make it look like an accident!" 

The prince let out a small laugh. As he slid the lid of the box back into place. 

"Everyone needs a cookie now and then," He tossed the blanket back over the box. Though he stayed seated in the alcove. 

"What's your favorite cookie?" I asked as I took another bite. He stared at me with a blank expression on his face and for a second I thought I had done something wrong. 

"Molasses" 

"ehh it's average," I smiled taking another bite. 

"It is not-" He stood up quickly, hitting his head on the top of the alcove. Though all the rage cleared from his eyes when he saw the look on my face as I struggle to hold back laughter. Then the most amazing thing happened, he laughed. And not just a small polite laugh no this was real unrestrained laughter and I couldn't help but laugh along with him. 

"You have to be joking, right? There is no way you can think a molasses cookie is only average!" 

"I don't know. I've never had one," I shrugged, I don't even know if that bakery had even sold them. He gave me a look of absolute shock. 

"This is absolutely a situation where you NEED a cookie," He quickly threw the blanket to the side rifling through the box trying to find a molasses cookie. "They have been hard to find because most of the funding is being diverted from the sugar farms to Belmont's diamond mine but my aunt had some shipped in for my birthday." 

A memory rubbed in the back of my brain, something about a sugar farm and a diamond mine called it to the surface. In the books, Cordellia had always met with her lover in an abandoned diamond mine that sat on the far end of a sugar cane farm. "Ameria mine?" 

"Yes, that is it. Why do you ask?" The prince stopped was he was doing to look at me but I was lost in thought. The Ameria mines had stopped producing diamonds years ago at this point in the story. If I'm doing the math right it would run completely dry next year. 

"There was no diamond," I gasped, the pieces clicking together. 

"What?" 

"Ask Belmont if his missing diamond came from the Ameria mine! That mine stopped producing diamonds years ago. So either he bought it from someone else mine or-"

"Or there never was a diamond. He just pretended it was stolen to not look a fool in front of the other houses." 

"And if his mine has run dry I doubt he has the money to buy a diamond from someone else," I paused for only a second when I realized something else that didn't add up. "Unless he is using the royal family's money meant to subsidizes his mine to buy expensive jewels and pretend there are his! Why else would he need the sugar farms money for an empty mine?" I stopped realizing I probably sounded insane but the prince seemed deep in thought. 

"Are you sure the mine has no diamonds left?" OH yeah, I remembered, why the heck would he believe me when I have no proof? What am I supposed to say? 'Trust me I read it in a book'?

"I'm certain," He stared at me deep in thought. 

"Then we best go confront him now and not let him leach off any more royal money!" The prince made his way quickly to the archway. I felt a surge of relief that he believed me and I stepped forward that's when the world started spinning. 

"Oh no," Was all I managed to get out before I collapsed to the floor. The last thing I saw before the world went black was the prince running towards me.