The Princess's Secret [completed]

4: Suprise.

* * *
Pasquale.

Pasquale scanned the thick brush, carefully nudging his horse forwards. What was he even looking for? He sighed and forced himself to think of the worst thing that could happen. If the King had been attacked, there had to be evidence.

He watched for anything at all; overturned leaves, scraps of clothing, hoofprints... blood... A stick snapped and he spun his horse around, drawing his sword with lightning speed. Nothing moved.

He shifted in the saddle nervously, not liking how close he was to the border. No-man's-land was the area between the Kingdom of Rayndra and the kingdom of Adrelawin, a span of about fifteen miles, where bandits liked to live among the ruins of an old kingdom that once united the two.

As the story went, a wise King ruled the large kingdom of Roemma, which had an alliance with two other Kingdoms. The Kingdom was one of the greatest, but when the old King died, his adviser tried to steal the throne from the Prince. There was a great battle, in which the Kingdom was destroyed and the followers of the Prince went one way, while the adviser and his followers went the other.

The other two Kingdoms hadn't known who to follow, so the relationship between them and Rayndra had been extremely tense, the slightest thing would have ruined the alliance. At least until Caspian became King...

The scout was pulled from his thoughts when he spotted something in the snow about thirty feet away.

Hoofprints. He followed the prints from a distance, not wanting his horse's prints to confuse the two. Within minutes he located the horse.

It had no rider, and he knew immediately it was the King's famous stallion. He scanned the area, finding no sign of footprints. This was not good.

He momentarily debated finishing his search up to the tower, in case there was something more, but if the King was in as much trouble as it seemed he was, there was no time to lose.

He grabbed the stallion's reins, tied him to a tree, and backtracked, following the horse's tracks to see if there was a clue nearby as to what had happened. Maybe the King had fallen, hit his head, and was lying in the snow somewhere. At least he hoped so...

But the tracks went in strange directions, and there was no telling how long the horse had walked around. He doubled back and retrieved the stallion, heading back to the castle.

* * *
Caspian.

Caspian waited as the man left the cell, carrying the torches out and plunging the cell into darkness. He heard doors slamming as he got further and further away.

It was totally black... and yet... he blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was definitely a light coming from somewhere.

He scanned the cell, squinting. It wasn't a typical cell, much larger and with a high ceiling.

It was odd. It reminded him of a time when he was a knight and had infiltrated a rogue army that was hanging out in the forest on the edge of the kingdom, to find out their intentions.

He'd eventually been discovered and was locked in one of the towers of an abandoned castle.

But that didn't make sense, that land had been converted into a camp for the royal knights. His own men.

He shook his head. It wasn't possible, most of those men were his friends from when he'd fought among them. It had to be an abandoned castle he wasn't aware existed.

He raised his foot behind himself, resting it against the wall as high as he could, straining his fingers. It took a while, but finally his fingers reached the boot, and he grabbed it, searching the seam.