Our hope

Chapter 17: Royal

The Prince brough back most of the letters that were in the small room. There was hundreds to go through, but he was sure he would have been able to get what was going on in only a few. There was plenty of letters to go through that it would have taken days to read through all of them.

The Prince got the message from the first few hours of looking through the letters. This King was sending support to the Rebel leader to start an attack on the kingdom. Not people but weapons and training that seemed to cover everything. The sun had been down for a while when the Prince got pulled out of his research by a knock at the door.

"Come in." He said half listening as he finished the letter he was reading.

"Sire." The voice belonging to Sir Theodor. He sounded like hesitantly like he was bringing bad news.

"Have you heard anything?" The Prince asked putting the letter in the read pile.

"No, I came to bring you dinner. I saw that you didn't show. I assumed you were otherwise preoccupied. How are you doing Star?" The Prince got up to take the plate from the Knight.

He was one of the few that knew of the Princes existence thought out the years. He like the Prince's sisters adapted to the nickname before the Prince had his name. They both settled at the unlit fireplace before the knight got up again to lite it.

"It has been a stressful few days. I don't think I will be able to prosses any of it till we can get Ace back home safe." The Prince looked down at the plate but moved a few things around not feeling like food at the moment.

"That is understandable, all things considered. I wouldn't be very happy if my betrothed ran off leaving me alone like this. The stress of it all might kill me before the heart break would." The Prince looked up at the knight in a bit of a panic.

"They didn't leave me on purpose. I'm sure of it. Kidnapped seems like the more appropriate term to use." The knight looked from the fire to the prince, his forearms resting on his knees.

"Star, I know you want to see the best in them. You want to see the best in everyone. But if their mother was able to treat you like she has, think of how close your oldest sister mimicked your mother. Can we actually be sure that your betrothed isn't keeping you around for some wrong reason." The Prince put his plate down near his chair.

"Yes, I can be sure actually. You don't know them like I do. If you did, you wouldn't be considering such a thing." The knight nodded not wanting to start anything tonight. He was here to do a check up on the prince. Wouldn't be good to report the Prince was staying up due to spite that he caused.

"What is the news on the rebuilding efforts?" The Prince changed the subject not wanting to go to bed with more restless thoughts then he already had.

"It's been going well at least. We do have a noticeable different since the Rebel stepped away. We are working on getting that efficiency back." The Prince nodded staring into the fire.

"Good, that's good. It's getting late and we should both turn in now." He dismissed the knight quickly as the conversation stirred his thoughts. It was hard to think that the Rebel would double cross him. After all they both went through, it was impossible. They would never do anything like that.

It was hard to think when no one really trusted the Rebel considering what the Rebel Leader had been doing. She was crazy but it was wrong to think that they would have acted anything like that. He knew the rebel; they were to be getting married in only a few days.

Until there was direct word from the Rebel; the prince would be under the assumption that this was not their choice. It was all he could do for the time being. That and get ready for the rest of the royals to show up very soon. They would be here any day now. He had so many important things to get done it was hard to focus on which one to put his energy into.

The rebuild was already kind of taken care of so he didn't put much of his worry into it. All that was left to do is the stabilisation of the castle, hosting the other royals, and finding the rebel. He decided going to bed would be in his best interest.

It was hard with the Rebel being missing as they had been cuddling for months now. Even if the Rebel had to leave early in the morning. It felt empty, cold, no where near the comfort he needed for the coming challenges. This was the first time he wished that the Rebel leader went through with the execution.