Twisted Diamonds and the Hidden Spade

Chapter VIII

"You lied to me da?" Ivan says with a menacing smile on his face and a dark aura radiating off of him. "You know appart of our alliance we can't keep hostages from our own kingdom." he says seeing this person around in the diamond kingdom before.

"B-but mon ami he's the Queen of Spades..." Francis tries to defend himself.

"But he wasn't apart of the Spaidian Kingdom, and besides, he'd have to sneak past the diamond borders to even get close to the kingdom. Now release him or our alliance is no more." Ivan demands. Francis sighs and takes the chains off of Arthur, who proceeds to back away from the king and rub his wrists gently as the chains were tight.

"There... no hostages from my own kingdom." Francis sighs out in defeat.

"Good." Ivan says with a nod. "I will escort him out of your castle. No objections, da?" Franics shakes his head no, not wanting to anger his allie anymore. Ivan holds his hand out for Arthur, who hesitantly takes it. They walk out of the castle after a long mess of twists and turns through the hallways.

"King Braginski, thank you for your help I appreciate it, but why are you helping me? I get that I'm a citizen of the Diamond Kingdom, but I do belong to the Spade Kingdom as the queen..." Arthur asks confused.

"Because... as much as I don't mind taking hostages from other kingdoms, it's more fun if they put up a fight in war. It makes victory so much better." Ivan says in a sickly sweet tone.

Arthur shudders from the king's statement. "R-right... uhm, may I ask where we are going?" He questions Ivan, hoping not to annoy the King of Clubs.

"We are going to the border." Ivan says with a small but still creepy smile, Arthur was shocked, his face reading 'why?'. "Because, I am going to chase you!" Ivan says and looks down at Arthur who took that as his cue to run into Spade territory, and so he ran as fast as he could.

Arthur isn't the most athletic of people so he was stumbling quite a lot, tripping over his own two feet. King Ivan was still chasing the soon to be queen with a large grin on his face. Soon enough Arthur runs into the Spade Kingdom territory, Arthur didn't dare to look back to see if the King of Clubs was still chasing. Arthur trips over a tree root sticking out of the ground and collides with a chest. Arthur surprisingly knocks the other person off their feet. Arthur realises that it looks like he was pinning the person down, and he quickly scrambles to get off the person.

"I-I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there. I was just running to get away from someone..." Arthur trails off to look at the person he knocked over. They were wearing spaindian clothes, a border patrol.. Maybe? The person gets up and dusts off their clothes. They look at Arthur and sigh.

"It is my duty to take you to the King of Spades since you are in our territory. Save your story for him." The guard says, "Follow me." He motions for Arthur to follow him and puts him in magical restraints. Arthur sighs and follows the guard without putting up a fight. The guard leads him to a carriage with a horse nearby and shoves Arthur in the carriage.

"Sorry mister Yao, but I caught this guy trying to enter Spaidian territory, even though he's from the Diamond kingdom."

"Ai-yah..." Yao nods, "It's alright." The guard shuts the door of the carriage and tells the coach to continue. The long ride to the kingdom starts.