The Misplaced Prince[COMPLETE]

Her Price To Pay

Perhaps she had gone a bit far.

Kasey paced at the end of the ballroom, smiling now and then to acknowledge the sympathetic murmurs flowing her way since Joshua Dashwood had made a silent exit. She ignored the people vying for her attention, no doubt to get the juicy details, and concentrated on the sick feeling of guilt rising within her stomach.

She had overreacted. There was no way around it.

She wasn't usually so prickly. In fact, she was the life of the castle.

Taken in after being orphaned in the same battle that had brutally wiped out most of the royal family, she had grown up trying to erase the shadows and darkness that had pervaded the castle in its wake. She had been there when, for the first time in years, King Sebastian's tough veneer had cracked as he had arrived upon her sliding down the banisters screaming, with the servants screeching even louder behind her. Landing on the carpeted ground with a soft thud, she had looked up at the towering king with a tentative toothy grin, as her heart hammered with fear.

She still remembered her astonishment when after a moment of quiet deliberation, those intimidating deep blue eyes had gentled, and his beard had split with a soft smile, transforming that rigid face with startling warmth.

"Lily used to do that." He had murmured gruffly, before walking away, leaving servants quaking with relief in his wake.

After that, it had been Kasey's personal mission to find the King at the oddest times, trying to make him smile, while the servants struggled not to have apoplexy in her wake. Whether it was from popping into a royal meeting tottering with a huge sloppy cake or rushing into his library to present a muddy puppy she had rescued, she had been relentless. And to her increasing childish delight, the severe, once terrifying king had indulged her, with quiet smiles at first, and then later with a word here and there in encouragement...affection...until one day she didn't remember him for the terrifying king he had been but for the kind man who had raised her, listened to her childish stories, and given her a home when she had none.

So of course she had taken an interest in the one thing that was of utmost importance to the king: finding his grandson. Growing up, visions had filled her of discovering the shiny Prince like a prize, of presenting him to the king and watching the fine wrinkles fade away from his eyes as they lit with true joy. Seeing the realm cheer with renewed hope, faces beaming with vigour, as the faceless Prince Kohl, Heir to the Noble Fire Lineage, was presented to the realm.

Still filled with childish visions she had been three years ago, when she had come upon the king whose strength held the entire kingdom together, broken down at the foot of his daughters bed, his head lower than she had ever seen it. Those blue eyes, always so dark with determination, almost glazed in sadness.

"I went for him." He confessed to her in a soft whisper, almost as if afraid of the ghost of his daughter lingering to hear him, "Just as I sent him away...I couldn't bear it. He was Kohl...my blood. My grandchild. But the Faeries...those bastards...closed the portal before I could blink. I couldn't even know where they sent him."

"Surely you could get them to open it again?" Kasey had breathed, shocked, "You are the King."

He had given a weary laugh, letting his head drop back, "Don't you know by now, my sweet child? To bargain with those beings..." his eyes had dropped closed, "They know everything. To send my child away? It took but a few pennies. That and my foolish pride. But to get him back?" his blue eyes had blazed open, "They demanded an insurmountable payment. 'A life for a life. Equally valuable. Equally treasured.'"

She had gasped, her hands clapping over her mouth. "You can't!" she had cried out, "The realm needs you!"

He had shot her a wearily rueful look.