In The Welfare Of War 💔{ON HOLD}💔

1. Rescue

Chapter 1: Rescue (4,K)

.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.

General Jace Wayland, protégé of King Valentine.

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Jace looked at the full moon rising through the small window of his cell, sighing with chagrin as he realized that it had been for a full month that he had been held captive. He tried very hard to not think of his men and of the possibility that they could have been captured as well, or even worse, killed by the mercenaries who took him; and he let despair take over him as he leaned his head against the cold wall of his prison cell.

He didn't even know where he was. Whether it was in which country, or in which part of the keep, Jace had absolutely no idea of his location. He knew that he was in a high part of the keep because he could distinctly see the sky every day that passed by. And he also knew that he was rather far away from any stairs because he never heard his keepers' echoing footsteps walking up the stairs in the rare times they came to feed him.

Jace had to say that he was rather surprised that he hadn't been tortured. He had been expecting much, given his high rank in the army, and his close connection to his King. And this was what was destroying him the most. It wasn't so much of being at the mercy of some mercenaries, it wasn't that he had been bested by some lawless criminal. No, what killed Jace the most was that he had let down his King and failed the mission that his monarch had entrusted to him.

"General. After thinking about it very thoroughly, I decided to end this meaningless war with the Garroway Kingdom. I have been advised that the tactic that I had been using ever since the beginning of this war was not good enough, and so I feel like I should follow a new kind of ' Diplomacy' to ensure the peace in our kingdoms," King Valentine told him as they were alone in the vast Council room.

The Garroway Kingdom had declared war for over a decade. Jace had always lived with the threat that war might become less latent and explode at any moment overnight. He never really knew what the two Kings' feud was actually about, he just knew that King Luke Garroway was determined to win, and to kill Jace's King and benefactor, Valentine Morgenstern. Jace knew that several private assassins had been sent against the good King Valentine, and that the General Lucian Graymark was the only reason the monarch had never been harmed- yet.

Several times, the Council tried to convince the King to march on to the Garroway kingdom and crush his kingdom before he could try to ally with any other, or get his army too strong for them; but the King never accepted, always saying that this wouldn't be right or fair. But, maybe this time was different.

"Are you intending on sending peace emissaries?" Jace asked, although he already knew the answer to his question.

King Valentine already went to the Garroway Kingdom during Jace's teenage years, in the hope to finally cease this endless latent war; but it only came to a dead-end. Jace could still remember how upset the King had been when he came back from this journey, and how he had wished that his monarch had let him come with him so he could have been of some moral support for him in this foe country.

The King was everything to Jace. Mostly because Jace had no-one else, but also because Jace deeply cared for his leader. It was the King who caught him stealing when he was ten years old, but the Morgesntern monarch took Jace in. He treated him as a son and provided for him with everything that he could want or need. It was the King who placed Jace in the army forces and asked for his best man to take care of his training. It was the King who made sure that Jace learned how to write and read. It was the King who ensured that Jace's knowledge of foreign politics was flawless. And yet, the King did many things that Jace never thought he would receive.