Four Years Later (A "The False Prince" Fanfic)

Five

"Come in!" Father called. The same man who hunted me down and beat me the day before came into the room. I stiffened on the bed and I backed away towards the headboard. Father noticed my reaction, and cautiously he asked, "What do you want Captain?"

"Captain?" I exclaimed. "This man is under your control?"

"I don't control him, the Commander does. But he has to obey us." Father explains. "What do you want Captain?" Father asks again.

The man bows before speaking. " I apologize sire, but I need to see King Jaron."

I glare at him, narrowing my eyes. "Why?"

"That is nothing of your concern." He says harshly.

"Excuse me?" I say, letting the steel my voice. "It's none of my concern?"

 I feel my temper flaring. 

"Don't you dare come in here, ask for me, and then tell me that it is none of my concern! You can leave us now Captain, and do not come into this room again!"

But he did not leave. Instead he stood his ground. I sat up straight glaring at him, trying to intimidate him, yet he still does not leave.

"Captain, why do you want to see my son?" Father prompts.

"He is the only one in this room who knows how to get into the castle." He answers matter of factly.

My eyes widen in realization and fear. 

"No." I say as soon as the words come out of his mouth. "Never."

"Why do you need to get into the castle?" Mother asks diplomatically.

The man smiles evilly at me. 

"Oh, I was just inquiring in case King Jaron wanted to see his dear wife again."

I lose control of my temper.

I jump off of the bed and race towards him and I punch him across the jaw so hard that he falls to the floor. He kicks my feet out from under me and runs to jump on top of me. When he jumps, I kick him up over my head into the wall behind us.

We both stand, facing one another, both breathing heavily. I notice that he takes a knife out of his sleeve and I eye him, studying his weaknesses.

"I thought you would like to see your wife again." He taunts me.

"I would love to see her again." I admit, hoping that my longing to see Imogen does not come through in my voice. 

"But I would rather go to her, you know? I've always been one for dramatic homecomings. Oh, I especially love it when I ride a large war horse, with hooves so big that they could kill a man by stepping on him."

The Captain laughs. 

"Arrogant boy. I will make you bow to me."

My voice hardens. "Other men have tried to make me bow to them. It has never worked. What do you think these scars on my back are from? Other men have tried to break me, but they all have failed."

"Then I will be the first to be able to claim that I broke the famous King Jaron." He brags.

"And you call me arrogant?" I laugh harshly. "If you can claim to break me, I will be dead."

"So be it." He says and he runs towards me and tries to attack me with his knife. I grab his wrists and the knife is above my head, slowly descending towards me.

"Enough of this!" Father exclaims, pushing us away from one another. "Captain, you will do as King Jaron says and leave us now!"

"And you will never get her." I add as Mott pushes him out of the door. "I will fight for her until my last breath, and I intend to be taking that last breath by her side."

The door slams behind him, and I know that he will be back soon. He will not leave me alone until he gets the information that he wants, and most likely that process will cause me a lot of pain.

But these thoughts go through my head in the matter of seconds. 

"Imogen?" I voiced my confusion out loud. "Why would they want her? Of course she has value of being the Queen, but they already have me, and you." I add, gesturing to my family. 

I pace as I think, the adrenaline still pumping through my blood.

 "We need to get out of here." I add, sitting down on the bed, with my head in my hands.

"I agree." Darius states, looking at Mother and Father. "This Commander figure has kept us in here for four years claiming that Carthya was not safe for us, and clearly it is. In fact we've never even met the Commander, and we don't know his name, so why did we trust him in the first place?"

Father sighs.

 "He was once a good friend of mine, but I think he is dead now, and his men are just using his name to scare us into obeying them."

"I agree with the boys." Mother says, putting her hand on Father's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "We need to go back home. We have been away for too long." She adds, looking at me. "We have missed too much of our lives."

"Well," Mott breaks in. "I know the perfect escape artist. He can get out of anything." My face breaks into a smile before my family even grasps the concept of his words.

 Fink is looking at me, trying not to laugh.

"Who is it?" Darius asks. "How are we going to contact him?"

"Oh," Mott answers. "His name is Sage, but I don't think we need to contact him. He's in this room." 

They all look confused.

"Ah Mott, you promote me." I say in my fake Aveinan accent. "You meant to say I get out of everything."

"Hey!" Fink exclaims. "You sound like me Jaron!"

"The orphan boy Sage is at your service." I say still in my accent, giving him a wink. Mother and Darius laugh, while Father watches me with an expression that I cannot recognize.

"Was this your alternate identity?" He asks me concerned.

"Oh yes, he comes out to play sometimes." I say, trying not to laugh as he gives me the oddest look.

I walk over to the window and look down. It appears that we are on a second story floor and that annoys me. Now it was going to be a lot harder to get my Mother and Fink down. I'm sure that Father and Darius were going to be slow climbing, Fink could just ride on my back. 

This was going to take a lot of work.

"We could break out the window and climb down." I say in my normal voice.

"That would be suicide!" Darius exclaims. "I know you used to climb, but none of us ever did, Jaron, you're crazy."

"You used past tense." I correct him. "I still do climb. And I'm pretty sure that I can teach you all how to climb."

Mother and Father look lost. 

"Climb?" Mother echoed. "Jaron what do you mean?"

"Oh, ah. You see..." Darius started, his hand going through his hair nervously.

"No." I cut him off. "You are not going to get in trouble for me, besides, that was six years ago. It doesn't matter now."

"You boys kept a secret from us?" Father asked, surprised.

Darius and I exchanged a look and laughed. 

"Oh we have kept many secrets." I assure them. Mother and Father look at one another.

"But most of them were about the stupid things Jaron did." Darius says.

I make a noise of disagreement and protest.

 "Wow, blame it all on the younger brother."

Suddenly there's a large crash as the door bursts open and several armed men surround me and my friends and family.

 The Captain comes and walks around me, placing a knife at my throat.