Three Fates Entwined | Dream Team

Chapter Sixteen

Sapnap glanced around, making sure that there wasn't anybody following him. He crept through the halls with the stealth of a professional ninja.

There were so many halls. It was as if the king wanted people trying to raid the kitchen to get lost in a hopeless maze of corridors with the same couple paintings hanging around. Clearly, the artists who had painted them were seriously lacking in some creativity and motivation at the time.

He peeked around a corner. Nothing. No door with the smell of freshly baked goods wafting out, no signs saying "IT'S RIGHT OVER HERE," no friendly baker dude to help him along his way.

Sapnap clenched his jaw and stepped into a new corridor. His stomach grumbled at him.

"Be quiet," he whispered. "I'm looking, I'm looking."

Hallway after hallway after hallway. Finally, he reached one that ended abruptly at a large wooden door.

Sapnap advanced towards it, frowning slightly. If his sense of direction hadn't been completely ruined by his wanderings throughout the castle, then the room behind the door should be behind the throne room he had stumbled through earlier.

He pushed through the door. Immediately, the scent of pastries and boiled eggs wafted into his nose. His stomach rumbled some more.

A basket of fruits sat in the center of a large wooden island table. Trays of baked bread were set to cool on metal wire shelves on the left wall, next to a large oven.

Sapnap grinned. Finally, he had found the legendary room known as the kitchen. He felt like a lost explorer that had finally discovered the treasure he had been searching for since the beginning of time.

Movement near the bread caught his eye. Sapnap turned towards it automatically and frowned. "George? What are you doing here?"

The prince froze, a chunk of bread still clutched in his hands. "I'm, uh... same reason as you. You're hungry, right?"

Sapnap laughed and sat down next to him. "You have no idea how long it took for me to find this place. No idea."

George shrugged and broke off another piece. "I'm amazed that you found your way here though. It's the most out-of-the-way room that I know of."

He offered Sapnap the bit of bread. Sapnap accepted it thankfully and took a bite, finally able to end his hunger.

"How come you didn't just order a servant to get you some food instead of coming here yourself?" he asked curiously.

George blushed. "I would rather make my way over here by myself than get someone else to do it for me."

"You're the prince. It's weird to see you raiding a kitchen. People usually expect someone like me to do that."

"...I don't want to be the prince."

Sapnap raised an eyebrow. "You get to live a life of luxury, with whatever you want right at your feet, power in your grasp, and you don't want it?"

"No, I don't," George said firmly. He stared down at the ground. "I don't want the responsibility. I care about this kingdom, but I think that having me as the ruler would ruin everything." He gripped the bread tightly, then tugged off another piece and munched at it slowly. "My father expects me to take over, but I honestly can't. I'll just make everything worse, and I don't want that."

Sapnap finished off his bread and glanced over at the prince. "So, you have a role and you don't want it."

"That's a good way of putting it, yeah."

"So is that why you didn't tell us you were the prince right off the bat?"

George nodded. "But I suppose it didn't matter either way," he said moodily. "Clay figured it out all the same."

"Hey, he's too smart," Sapnap shrugged. "People like us can't keep up with the likes of him."

"I want to get to know him better," George admitted. "Right now I know basically nothing about him, and being around him makes me feel uncomfortable. You two are the first people I've ever recruited, and I feel like I need to connect."

"You don't need to," Sapnap said, "but it would be nice if you did. Actually, I don't know much about Clay either."

The prince sighed. "That's one of the things that made me uncomfortable. I found the two of you together and yet even you don't know him that well."

Am I going to tell him about me getting kidnapped by assassins? Sapnap thought to himself. It's so embarrassing, though. And how am I supposed to make him understand if I don't add that crucial fact in?

"We just met up and headed towards the village with the common goal of becoming knights," Sapnap said. It was the truth, even if it was a very edited version of it.

George furrowed his brow. "How did you know to go to that village in the first place?"

"That was Clay again. He said that it was directly in the path of the castle, and if you came looking for knights, you'd go there." Sapnap paused briefly to let the brilliance of that soak in. "I just realized how smart he is."

"Oh, you just realized?" George asked sarcastically.

Sapnap rolled his eyes. He accepted another piece of bread from George and munched at it, deep in thought. He knew that there was something fishy going on with Dream, but he didn't feel like it was right to confide in that to George. The prince was just as much of a stranger to him as Dream was, if not more. With Dream, they had been together for at least two days without separation.

"Wait, it just hit me that there isn't anybody in here," Sapnap said with a frown.

George smiled sheepishly. "I'm still the prince, I guess. Someone must've tipped off the kitchen staff that I was going to sneak in and steal some food and so they all left to give me some privacy."

"It's kind of awkward, man."

"I guess."

"I thought this was all because you wanted to escape the princely burden."

"Yeah."

Sapnap just shook his head and smirked. The prince was such a softie that Sapnap wanted to mess with him just for fun.

But the only way that he could have opportunities to mess with him was if he protected him first.