At Your Service- A Royalty Solangelo AU

Chapter 18

To say he did not miss the pampering that came with being prince was an understatement. It was hell on earth. 

A flurry of servants and waitstaff bustled around him in his chambers, all in preparation for his announcement ceremony. Someone's hands were fixed in his hair, tugging the curls into order roughly as his eyes watered up from the pain. Another few people were poking and prodding at his outfit, fixing the tight sleeves and pants to his exact measurements. He felt like he was just a doll, getting tugged every which way to please the speculative eyes of the people. Purely figurehead, that's all he was, just a man getting doted on for having the proper bloodline.

And when all was said and done, he was a prince once more. 

The aids bowed out of the room, leaving him standing alone in his chambers in front of a mirror. His reflection was a stark contrast to the version of himself in Aruma. He was fitted in a tight white suit with gold embroidered thread, a collar which reached up to just below his chin. His usually mussed hair was combed smooth, laying across his head in a well composed manner. He looked royal, but he did not look like himself. 

He looked like the man which he had spent most of his time thinking about recently. His skin was paled slightly, and for a moment, he saw himself as the Prince of another nation. 

For a moment, he just took a breath, realizing what being prince met. When he was unannounced, he could pretend that there would be no betrayal. Deep down in his mind, he knew he had been against the mission since the moment he had set foot in the door. From the second he knew the Prince, he was gone. 

That was his problem, he got too attached. There was not even any reason for him to feel bad about betraying the prince, but he still did. The opposite of love was not hate, it was indifference. And if Will could not bring himself to feel nothing about the prince, there was nothing keeping him from feeling everything. Enemy or not, betrayal was betrayal. 

His actions could mean the death of another person, someone that he knew the deepest secrets of. The person he was now entitled to kill had a family, kept with him the ghosts of people he still counted as his fault. Now, Will was stuck weighing whether or not it was better to allow him to join them as a ghost or continue living with them as watchers. But he could not make that decision, it was made for him. 

So instead, he picked up a pen. If he could not save himself from the war to come, he may as well apologize. Though what good was an advanced apology when it would not begin to excuse the pain he would cause?

The paper was cold as he unfurled it, the plainness staring up at him like a threat. It urged him to say the words, to admit all the wrong he was doing just by beginning it. The pen in his hand felt like a knife, like the wrong stroke of it would ruin everything. With the delicacy of a feather, the placed the tip of the pen atop the paper, watching the ink spread its tendrils out as the paper bled with unforgiveness. But he continued, cutting his cruel apology into the page to a recipient he cursed his mind to address. When the letter was carved, it's carcass read a melancholic message, an apology that could never be forgiven.  

Your Highness, 

I do not know how to do this. How can I begin to explain all that I have done in the past few months? You trusted me with your most painful memories, you opened up to me, and I must live with the knowledge that you believed in a false man. 

My intentions were never to get that close to you, to only watch and listen. But my wallflower tendencies were unfortunately changed by meeting you. Please know that nothing I did was personal, I never truly hated you. And when my betrayal may come, which I know it will, know that it is not with my whole heart. Part of me is still stuck with you, wishing that different nations did not mean we could not share a bond. But the other part of me is now called to answer a duty for my country, putting me in the crossroads of the lives of the many or the feelings of the one. There is only one path for me to take. 

Though I realize you will never come to see this letter, I hope that one day I can prove to you its contents. I do not think it fair what I must do to you, but it does not matter what I think. Maybe in another life I gained your acquaintance not by lying, but by collaboration. That in that life I may not be forced one day to find you at the end of my blade, stuck between the decision of my people of your life. Some would burn the world for just one person, but know that I am not one of them. 

In the end, I hope that we meet our demise on different fields. That neither of us may pay for our people's salvation with the blood of the other. But only a child could wish for such a fantasy. 

Always,

Will

A soft knock sounded on the door, and he quickly folded the letter before sliding it into his chest pocket. The paper pressed gently against his heart, a weight that kept reminding him of what was to come. 

When the door creaked open, Will inhaled deeply. These were his last couple moments in denial, last couple moments before the reality of his actions would crash down on him, before he had to betray every value he had before. 

"Sir, it is time. You must now claim your title in front of the hele kingdom."