The Fallen Prince: A Prince's Mistake

The Darkness

As Archie and I rode down the path, I thought about what awaited us at Vuns. What kind of kingdom was it? Was the whole kingdom evil, or just their monarchy? Would the plan work? I was bursting with anticipation before we even reached the end. Archie stopped in his tracks. 'Which way do we go?' he asked.

I pulled out the map and lined it up with the sun. It seemed impossible, but we had to go around Awt. Irritated, I rolled up the map and put it in the saddle. 'Around.'

'Are you kidding?'

'God, I wish I was,' I muttered. We looked around and managed to find a miniscule ledge that curved all the way around Awt and up a hill. I could hear Archie curse as I went first. 'Look on the bright side; this could be the last ledge we risk our lives on,' I called behind me.

'You mean because we're going to die here?'

Chuckling, I continued following the path. More than once, rocks crumbled underneath us and fell into the infinite drop. Also, stones almost hit us from above numerous times. No matter the dangers we faced, we continued to scale across the cliff. My palms turned sweaty within a few minutes, and I felt sick whenever I looked down.

Hours later, we had completed half the journey, but I was turning with exhaustion and clumsiness. Awt was still easily visible, its multiple lights still shining in the sky. Clouds began to form as the day got closer to its end. Ace and Biscuit had loyally followed behind us, not once encountering danger. The clouds quickly turned black, warning us of the rain. Our tiredness had soon got the better of us as we arrogantly sped up, slipping countlessly. Archie's prediction of a thunderstorm had come true; rain dampened our path and made it easier for the ground above to pour down on us. At that point, we had better chances of surviving in an avalanche. Thunder crashed into the sinister depth of Awt as rain blinded us and the path became increasingly dangerous. I wondered about taking a break, but that raised the risk of the ledge collapsing. In fact, it could collapse with us on it, so me and Archie perilously stopped walking with our back to the walls and instead chose to casually stroll. Our feet sometimes floated over the edge, but we didn't let that stop us from achieving the end of our story. The sky was now ablaze with the fire of the setting sun. What were horrifying clouds were now orange cotton balls. A calm wind had replaced the furious sun as we reached the end. 'Finally,' Archie gasped.

Getting a tent out of Ace's saddles, I suggested we get some sleep. 'We just had the longest hike ever and I don't want to fall asleep while killing a royal family.'

'How persuasive, Prince Castor.' He saw me take out a tent. 'Go on then, let's see the almighty Fallen Prince make a tent.'

'Are you doubting me,' I replied while setting out the tarp.

'Forgive me for saying this, but yes. I believe you can do many things, but I draw the line at constructing a tent.'

I laughed as I gathered rocks to keep the tent down. After a few more minutes, I had made an average looking tent. Proud, I looked at Archie and smirked. 'You were saying?'

He walked over to the tent and checked it out, and even went inside. 'You're not as bad as I thought,' Archie shouted from the tent.

'Well, I learn from the best.'

Tying up Ace and Pearl, I joined him inside. Already, he was comfortably sitting inside and reading a book. 'Hey, did you ever run into the assassin since Lyatar. I didn't see them even once.'

I coughed awkwardly. 'Yeah, about that. I... killed them.'

His eyes lit up with relief. 'Really?'

'Unless they found a way to survive being dropped from a mountain, yeah.'