Blue Blood and Belgium Chocolate

|16| To Safety

I'd like to dedicate this chapter to @estereeglite for her very helpful Greek to English translations (in the comments!) and for nearly always being the first to read and comment on this story. 

It might suck having to wait for the next chapter but it's the readers along the way as I write that make this experience a joy to go through. Thank you so much for believing in me & my stories. 

PRINCE JASPER

The scholar 

I'M AWOKEN BY guards. They're polite about which under any circumstance I'd laugh. But when it's goodness knows what in the morning anyone can easily understand why I'm reluctant to. 

Instead of laughing, I groan, following their polite orders to dress myself. I don't think I moved convincingly enough because I feel a strong arm push me almost out of my bed and on the cold wooden floor. 

I'd spent the whole evening till late reading Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes and it's the one night I'm roused back up only moments after I've slept off. C'est naze. 

"Your Highness, all of you are requested to go to the bunkers."

Bunkers.

The word sends an uncomfortable jolt through me. I blink back the sleep, the unnecessary ramblings my mind has undertaken. I open my eyes to look at the guard who'd awoken me. His eyes don't betray what I'd heard. C'est naze. 

 I'm wide awake, I roll off the bed. Quickly pull on a shirt, not bothering with pants but I did grab them, I'll wear them later.

We're taught to focus on getting there, not about bringing items or changing. 

Though it would be very inappropriate for me to move around in just my boxers. 

"I'm ready."

The guards nod.

They step out, all but one who stays in my bed. Pretending to be me. If this was a kidnapping, it's the best way to catch the kidnapper. All of this is standard code orange lock down.

The guard pretends to be asleep. With a last glance at my bedroom, I move quietly to my twenty five bookshelves.

Every room in the palace, or nearly every room, I can't be too sure about the newer wings; had a secret passage. Some led to other rooms, but the rooms in the bedroom would lead directly to the bunker. 

It's a secret only the Royals knew.

I don't turn on a light, I glance at the bookshelves, all tall and imposing on their own. Each shelf is stacked side by side to each other with next to no space in between.

Except for one. 

I reach for that space, the lever is a little lower near the bottom shelf, a place no one would touch by accident. The dust is soft under my fingers. I press the button. 

When these passageways were first being built, my mother had insisted that no one besides our family to know this. The man who built the passageways died a childless widow in the Palace, living a life of luxury till his secret died with him. 

Her reasoning was simple for it. Something I had grown to appreciate. 

When it came to choosing to save the Queen or save your wife, a soldier would choose their wife.