Bound To Kill

XIV: Bound To Trust

Alexander

The French Royal Court castle is huge and I can't tour around without guards on my side. How am I supposed to find Evie and her chest now, if this place is impossible to hide behind corners with guards watching my every move?

Ah, climbing walls, of course.

I was about to climb a third story window when I finally have my privacy inside an indoor balcony when someone calls my name.

"Sir Alexander Kenway!"

Looking back and tidying myself up, the King's dauphin Prince Francis de Poitiers approaches me happily with a bow stretched across his hand.

"Care for a little archery?" He questions, already handing me the bow without an arrow.

He's like a little boy with his adorable blonde curls. I wonder if he was often mistaken as a child when he was younger.

Avoiding suspicion, I accept. "Of course."

-

We left the castle and arrived at the shooting range. Targets are already set a hundred yards away from where we stand.

"You can still escape from this, you know." I try to taunt him with all due respect, "before you'd have a tantrum if I happen to won."

"Nonsense!" He laughs, stretching his arms and aiming the arrow with narrowed gaze. "I've failed the bastard of the King of Portugal. I reckon I'd fail a Knights Templar as well."

"Don't get your hopes up, young Prince." I sigh, waiting for my turn as his arrow launches off and darts on the red near its edge.

I was trained by archers during my travel at Asia. Even a crossbow was my favorite weapon when it comes to my assassination weapons.

"Watch and learn, Your Majesty." I murmur under my breath but he happens to hear it from space of eight feet. Steadying my aim, a let go when I've stored enough breath to focus.

My arrow aims on the other target, right in the middle of the red circle.

"Just right where I want it to be." I grin.

He nods, accepting his failure with his hands on his hips. "So you happen to have someone you love the most in the castle?"

"Yes, Evangeline Kenway. She ran away from her parent's village. When I returned from my duties in Italy, our village had already turned down into nothing but ashes and crippled ruins." I fake a frown and he must've fell for it when he frowns as well. "She's my wife, if you haven't known." Evie would be cackling if she heard me.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Alexander, but your wife was scheduled for execution yesterday, by my Father's commands..."

"What?" I almost yelled at him.

"She was a spy and was planning to kill him."

I look away disappointedly and throw my bow across the shooting range as far as I could and it lands like a leaf on the lake.

"Is that why you brought me here then? To let me know before I could find out myself and kill the King myself?" I growl like a lion preparing for a fight.

"Yes." He finally confessed. "Don't kill my Father, please."

"Then tell me one good reason why!"

"Because I'll kill him with my own hands. The next week, on the jousting competition."

I look at him as though he's grown another head. "Are you insane? Do you honestly think you can kill your own father?"

"I now understand why your wife has been planning to end him, and I'm not afraid to continue her mission."

"Why not let the Assassins handle the job and stay at your line, Royal?" I emphasized roughly.

"Look, I'm really sorry about what happened to your wife but-"

"Francis! Alexander!" The King himself comes out from the castle, tramping towards us with a troop of his men tailing behind him. When he's able for us to hear he shouts this, "have you seen Bash and his new whore, Evangeline bloody Kenway!?"

My anger fumes even more that it begins to boil out of my head like my brain has spontaneously combusted.

Francis doesn't answer. Instead I'm the one who respond. "What did you say?"

Henry chuckles cynically and continues to smile at me. "The Assassin spy has escaped, Alexander."

I look away, stressed out. Somehow I'm wondering why everybody else living with the crazy King hasn't killed him yet.

"It's alright, Father." Francis reassures. "We'll tell you when we see them."

And somehow I wanna snatch the loaded bow Francis is holding and send its arrow straight to Henry's heart. I don't know if he even has a heart.

"You better be." And then he marches back to his castle with a tail of his troops like a child having a tantrum.

"Go," Francis starts after the disappeared on the castle entrance. "Find your wife before my father does. And if you see my brother, tell him to come home before dark."

I curtly nod, running towards the stables to fetch a horse.

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