#silas evander

Prince Damien had just barely finished speaking when a low rumbling sound emerged from somewhere beneath Cal's feet.

No one else seemed to notice, so Cal coughed into his hand. 

… It didn't work.

He coughed again. 

Prince Damien came to rapt attention first, only to immediately get distracted by Princess Matty. "We all know there's a slim chance any plan will work," she said, "but we have to at least try."

The entire group of them burst into scattered conversation, completely drowning out the sound, which still hadn't stopped. 

Damn. Cal was going to have to say something, wasn't he? So, he did. "Everyone, shut up!" 

Everyone, finally, shut the hell up.

A bunch of eyeballs blinked up at him, some wider than others. Notably, Prince Damien had narrowed his, and Sebastian wasn't looking at all because he was still curled in on himself in the corner of the stables, his head in his hands.

Sebastian was likely listening though. Likely being the key word. Because for all Cal knew Sebastian had passed out from blood loss. Cal had noticed earlier Sebastian had a wound at his side, and that the dressing was seeping blood. 

Was Cal going to say anything though?

Hah! Hardly. Sebastian had apparently gotten himself into this mess, and anyway, Cal didn't really like Sebastian. 

It was a pity that Prince Damien was so besotted. Cal sincerely hoped that Damien didn't plan on marrying the moron. Cal couldn't fathom even potentially having to pledge his allegiance to Prince Consort Sebastian Sallow. The mere thought of it made him shudder. 

Oh. Everyone was still waiting for Cal to say something. Oops. 

"Erm," Cal began. "Does anyone else hear that?" 

Unfortunately, Cal's question was a bit tardy because now he didn't hear the low rumbling sound he'd heard earlier at all. In fact, the stables were quieter than ever. Not even the squeak of a mouse or the rustle of a very large spider. 

Cal nearly made an uncharacteristic apology when the floorboards beneath his feet shook. He leapt off the offending spot, only to immediately crouch down and peer through the slats, which he only now realized glowed… orange. 

"Is there a hidden room here?" he whispered as Prince Damien sank to the floor beside him, the floorboards creaking under the additional weight. 

"Not that I'm aware of," Prince Damien said. "But we ought to investigate."

So, investigating was what they set out to do. Together, every last one of them, and all at once. 

Or, they would have if another shout hadn't halted Cal's and Damien's attempts to pry the floorboards up.

"HALT IN THE NAME OF THE KING!"

"Fuck!" Sebastian exclaimed, scrambling up as fast as he could in his injured state, Damien bounding up from the floor beside Cal and racing to Sebastian's side. 

Ah. So Sebastian hadn't passed out after all. Cal wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, although he was leaning on bad. Very bad. Possibly very, very bad. 

Sebastian and Damien whipped out daggers they'd both, apparently, hidden in their boots. 

Oh yes, very, very bad was, indeed, correct.  

No one could say Cal didn't have excellent instincts.

//

"Your Majesty?" one of the royal guards stuttered. A new one, since Damien couldn't quite place his name or title. 

Well, whatever the insufferable guard's name was, Damien did not back down, even though he very much wished this were not happening right now, mostly because he'd never held anything against any of the royal guards until this very moment. A moment that made Damien's breath catch as he was of a mind that they were now a threat to everything he held dear. 

Damien was correct.

"Prince Damien," a very familiar guard—standing to the unidentified one's immediate left—said, far too cheerily for comfort. But this was Sir Garreth, so it was expected. "In the name of your father, please remove yourself from the presence of the criminal."

Damien didn't even breathe. He opened his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by Sebastian. 

"Garreth," Sebastian said, still brandishing his dagger in front of him, "let's be reasonable now."

Garreth guffawed so loudly that his unruly shock of bright red hair shook with the reverberation. Once he managed to regain control of his faculties, Garreth drawled, "Says the murderer." He finished with a final gasping laugh. A pity that he was so well trained he didn't ease from his fighting stance for even half a second.

Damien, dagger also out and at the ready, took a giant step forward. "I command you to let us pass," he said, placing as much gravity in his tone as he could possibly manage. He was surprised at how easily it came, and at how forcefully it emerged from his mouth. 

Sebastian glanced sideways at Damien, his eyes widening an iota, but then he gave his head a slight shake, and adjusted his stance as he rolled his shoulders back. 

"I cannot acquiesce to that request, Your Majesty," Garreth replied, still far too breezily for Damien's comfort. Wasn't Garreth afraid? Did nothing make him flinch? "Your father has made that very clear." 

Damien locked eyes with Sebastian and nodded, a brief flick of the head. Sebastian frowned, but nodded in return. Then, faster than a marksman could spot a fox and shout "Tally-ho!" Damien and Sebastian rushed Sir Garreth amid shouts—their own, as well as the shocked cries of their friends milling behind them.

It was a quick skirmish, over before Damien could quite process it, even with Sebastian's injury holding him back. To be fair, Damien and Sebastian, both trained from an early age by the best knights in the kingdom, made a formidable duo, and Sir Garreth had only brought two fellow companions to confront them. 

Or so Damien had thought. 

Matty yelled "Watch out!" as an arrow swooped past Damien's field of vision. Sebastian staggered back just in time to narrowly escape an arrow to the neck. It did slice his cheek though. He grimaced, slapping his free hand to his face, but not uttering a word. Not even a hint of a sound fell from his lips, which verified Damien's suspicion that Sebastian was running on pure adrenaline. 

Garreth grinned, all teeth, from his new position on the floor beside his two fellow guards, their hands bound behind their backs with some fraying rope that a contrite Jaimsen had found laying on the ground. A far less contrite Tori had done the honors of binding them. 

"Did you really think it would only be us?" Garreth said, bursting into another fit of laughter. 

With his free hand, Damien swiped away at a sheen of sweat that had formed on his forehead, then said, "Of course not," swiveling around to lock eyes with Matty and his friends, hoping that at least one of them could detect his panic and provide some sort of reassurance that someone else beside himself had a plan. 

A better plan, as you will. 

Everyone blinked back, remaining perfectly still and silent, except for Jo, whose face went white as a sheet. She blinked once, then wilted like a dying flower onto the straw-dusted floorboards. It happened so quickly that not even Val could intercept her fall. Jo would likely find bruises upon waking. 

Well, so much for that. Help was clearly not in the cards. 

"Damien," Matty said, an atypical cautious lilt in her voice, "we may need to let them go." Her jaw clenched as she tilted her head up and out, a not-so-subtle gesture at the window. 

Damien's stomach dropped as he followed the movement, only to find dozens of knights converging on the stables. Father had apparently sent his best, and then some, including the Commander of his royal guard. 

She stomped forward, barreling through the crowd. Damien braced himself for a stern chastisement. 

"Prince Damien," Commander Weasley—also Garreth's aunt—bellowed, "stand down." As she burst through the throng, she raised her hand, gesturing for the archers to lower their bows and arrows. 

The king's guard was a well-trained regiment. They all did as commanded, which was excellent for Damien. 

Why? Because it provided a perfect distraction. And Damien did not stand down.

He released a primal yell as he dashed forward, placing himself bodily between Commander Weasley, who now stood sentinel at the entrance of the stable, blocking their exit, and Sebastian.

"No one touches Sebastian," Damien snarled, his ferocity surprising even himself.

Commander Weasley rolled her eyes behind her spectacles. "You're outnumbered thirty to one, Your Highness." 

"I don't care!" Damien was a breath away from leaping forward, ready to begin a frantic assault, when a firm hand pressed against the top of his shoulder. Damien growled, whipping his head around to protest, only to discover Sebastian, a frown on his face, a deep furrow indenting his forehead.

"Damien," Sebastian whispered. "No."

Damien's whole body went rigid. "No?" he replied, his eyes filling with tears. He blinked rapidly and shook his head. "What do you mean, no?" he went on, even though he had a horrible feeling he knew exactly what Sebastian meant. 

Damien, yet again, was correct. Why was he always correct about the worst things? 

"It will be alright," Sebastian said, resigned, but not so much that a sliver of hope couldn't bleed through. Sebastian was lying, of course, but it was more of a white lie, a lie of feigned courage, than anything. Damien hated it.

"My father will kill you for what you did," Damien said, keeping his voice as low as he could possibly manage. "It doesn't matter if it was an accident or not. He won't listen to reason."

Sebastian didn't acknowledge Damien's statement. Instead, he said, "I trust you. With my life."

And then, Sebastian did something entirely unexpected. He planted a firm peck to Damien's cheek, a very welcome claiming, but Sebastian was also a commoner kissing a prince, which explained the shocked gasps even his chaste kiss elicited from the crowd. 

As Sebastian finished, he brought his lips to Damien's ear and muttered, "Run," then shoved Damien, hard, away from Sebastian and toward the wall. 

The distraction—because it had very obviously been that, even though the kiss had been quite nice and very much called for—worked, since Commander Weasley sprinted forward and into the stable toward Sebastian, allowing Damien passage through the narrow exit. 

Too bad Damien couldn't move, even if he tried. His jaw had gone totally slack and his mind completely blank. At first. Until a million thoughts burst into life at once. 

Run? Why would Damien run? If he ran, Sebastian would be captured. Damien couldn't—Damien wouldn't—

"Run, Damien!" Sebastian shouted, as he was wrestled to the ground by Commander Weasley. "Find evidence!" 

Find… evidence. Right. Evidence. Evidence of… what? 

Wait. Wait one goddamned moment.

Could there be evidence of Sebastian's innocence? 

There must be. There must be! 

That did it. Damien snapped back to life, his mind alert once more, his whole body tingling from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. 

Of course there was evidence. There simply had to be! 

And if there was evidence, Damien was the best person to find it. 

He stumbled forward, dagger still in hand, amidst the shouting and general commotion of complete and utter pandemonium unfolding behind him. 

Damien didn't glance back as he broke free from the stables, his mission consuming him entirely: Find evidence. Save Sebastian. 

//

Princess Matty hadn't been certain what that was all about, but she was certain that it couldn't have gone according to plan, chiefly because Sebastian, the dim-witted dolt, had been captured. And rather easily at that. 

She let out a long-suffering sigh. It figured. Although, to be fair, it was probably inevitable. Hard to ignore an entire flock of nobles and landed gentry exiting a castle inundated with every single knight in the kingdom. 

Silly, really. They probably should have been more careful.

Ah well. Too late now. 

Matty barely had a chance to speak with Commander Weasley—who had (somewhat hilariously) been clutching a bound Sebastian by the scruff of his neck—assuring the commander that Matty would return to the castle soon, after confirming Countess Jo had recovered from her faint, when it came to Matty's attention that Cal had resumed prying up the floorboards at their feet. 

"What are you doing?" she hissed. 

Cal shrugged, then smiled as the first floorboard he'd been working away at loosened. He yanked, falling backward onto his arse when the entire board came up with it. 

Silas dropped down to help, replacing Damien's earlier crouched position. Prince Ale followed suit. It didn't take the three of them long to pry up enough floorboards for a body to drop down to whatever awaited them below.

A body meaning Matty, of course. 

Because she had to investigate, right? Especially now that she could hear voices. They were muffled, the words indecipherable, but they were voices nonetheless. A mystery, and likely a good one. Princess Matty couldn't resist a good old-fashioned mystery. 

She hiked up her heavy skirts to the protestations of both Killian—Matty shot him a smug glare in reply—and Jo, who was now awake and recovered from her faint. Matty ignored Jo as she peered over the edge of the hole, then, not even a hint of hesitation, leaped, hoping that the drop wouldn't be too far. 

Matty let out a sigh of relief when the ground greeted her sooner rather than later. Her knees barely even ached when her feet hit the dirt. She didn't even need to call out for the others to follow her lead.

Cal came next, swiftly followed by Killian, Silas, and Prince Ale, then a frowning Jo, who had clearly been pushed by Val, who came down shortly thereafter. 

Interestingly enough, once Matty had her bearings, she came to the conclusion that they were in a hidden corridor of sorts. Surprising, surely, because it seemed man-made, as well as used regularly, since torches lined the stone walls. 

Lit torches. 

Matty whipped around, bringing a finger to her lips to address a terribly loud clanking behind her, only to realize it was the sound of Tori's and Jaimsen's armor as they, too, dropped to the floor. They exchanged twin looks of apology, then started stripping off their armor to the decidedly quieter cloth garments they wore beneath, setting each metal piece gently on the dirt at their feet. 

Good timing, too, since the earlier voices picked back up. While they remained soft, the words were faintly decipherable now.

"You fool of a boy," a man grumbled. "Escape is futile."

Matty recognized that deep, gravelly voice. She didn't have long to process that unfortunate revelation though before she also recognized the voice of the respondent. 

"But sir," Leander Prewett groused groggily, "why am I here? I thought I was dead." 

"That was the plan," the head of the royal knight-in-training's guard, Sir Solomon, Sebastian's uncle, said. 

Princess Matty would have gulped if her mouth hadn't gone completely dry. 

[ Read chapter ten ➡️ ]

Matty & Killian - A Princess and an infatuated Duke

James and Tori - Twin Knights. And a very infatuated Countess named Poppy

Damien and Sebastian - A Prince and a banished Knight - Secret love

Callan and Val - An Earl and his Countess

Alyn - A strong-willed Countess -------------- Theo - A lone Herbologist

Silas and Jo - An Earl supporting his Countess's aspirations

Ale and Ellie - A Prince who has had his heart stolen by a charismatic Bandit

Hope you all enjoyed!