Oh My, I Messed Up the Story

It took Charles four horribly undignified days of staking out the back wall for him to spot Alpheus and Catherine escaping. They were playfully squabbling about something he couldn't quite catch but it was clear that they were both amused.

His heart constricted. How dare she smile so prettily at that buffoon! How dare she jump into his arms to get over the wall! Had she lost her mind?

He followed them anyway. They held hands and talked as they walked away from the palace, though he was too far away to hear what was being said. Both of them were dressed like commoners so if you didn't already know they were royalty it would be impossible to tell.

Charles would have thought they would stop somewhere downtown but they kept walking. For miles. He was getting slightly winded from keeping up with them but pushed forward regardless.

Finding out what they were up to would put the final nail in Alpheus' coffin. He wanted to ensure that happened personally.

The two of them wandered into the poorer part of the capital, which was about as far from the palace as one could get while still being in the city. What on earth would possess them to come here?

On the very last row of houses in the slum, a small herd of black haired children greeted them with big smiles and showed them into the house. Charles had never seen so many people with black hair in one place.

His hair was dark too but that was only because his maternal grandmother had been a foreigner. Hair like this wasn't common in Annalaias. The only other person he had seen with it before today was Alpheus.

He dared to get close enough to the windows of the house to peek inside. A group of people—almost entirely with black hair—was crowded inside a tiny living room. Only Catherine's and one other man's golden hair were different.

Charles had no idea what they were talking about but the atmosphere was cheery. Everyone there seemed quite close.

Upon further inspection, he realized that all of the dark haired people in the room also had the same gray eyes as the prince. If they were all related to royalty, why were they in the slums? Something about this did not add up properly.

He needed to tell Sigmund what he saw right away. Perhaps he would be able to make sense of this.

***

Sigmund was as baffled as Charles had been. The only conclusion he could come to was that those people were all foreigners…but that did not explain why Alpheus looked like them. He was the son of the king and queen.

Members of the royal family of Annalaias frequently married foreigners in order to strengthen political ties—like Rosenia and Mariela—so it wasn't too suspicious unless you thought about how none of their other children looked like Alpheus either.

Charles had been young the last time he saw the princesses before they were married off to allied countries but they all had much lighter hair like Sigmund and Franz. This didn't make sense at all.

Sigmund's eyes narrowed. "I do believe I need to have a long conversation with my father."

Unfortunately, that was difficult to do. The king had fallen ill recently and was not the most lucid. He might have better luck speaking with the queen but she was as tight-lipped as she was regal. Getting information out of her would not be easy either.

"Putting that aside for now…what do you intend to do about Franz? Court opens in slightly over two weeks and we still do not know exactly what he is planning," Charles pointed out.

His friend's hand curled into a fist on top of the desk and his expression grew much darker. This was one of his sorest points. Try as he might, Franz's true plans always evaded him.

"No, we do not. Since Mariela's pregnancy was announced he has not left the palace nearly as often as he used to. All of his correspondence is handled by a royal guard he trusts implicitly, Sir Luken Marino. My spies have not seen so much as a single line written on those messages."

Charles wished the second prince was less careful. They would have already figured out his plans by now if he was not the most paranoid person on earth.

Alpheus was not nearly so careful. If he was, he would have noticed someone following him earlier today. And all of the other times Sigmund's spies trailed them partway to town. For someone who might very well be working with his brother, he had none of his common sense.

"Do you think whatever Alpheus is up to is connected to Franz's plan?" Charles asked.

There had to be a connection somewhere. He and Catherine spent far too much time supposedly visiting Mariela. That would provide plenty of time for all of them to plot together. However, it did raise the question of what Alpheus was getting out of it.

Charles had known him for many years because of how much time he spent in the palace with Sigmund. The third prince was a gloomy, apathetic person who did not care about anything that happened either within the palace or outside of it. All of his time was spent alone.

At least, that was how it was until Catherine came along. With her sharp political mind…had she convinced her husband to work with Franz? Why would she do that?

"I do," Sigmund said darkly. "I also believe that whatever it is, Katie is behind it. She changed him for the worse. He was much easier to control before she came along. He never would have dared to defy me before."

Charles didn't like that one bit. He could see it too. That dull, depressed prince had become lively under his wife's influence. He had the feeling that if she wanted something that Alpheus would move heaven and earth to make it happen.

The real question was what Catherine wanted. What had made her side with the second prince instead of the crown prince? What potentially brilliant ideas had she given him? How much danger was Sigmund's position in?

"You promised not to touch her," he said slowly, suddenly unsure. "Even if she is an instigator…you won't do anything to Catherine, will you Sigmund?"

His friend's expression hardened and softened so rapidly Charles wasn't sure whether or not he had imagined it. He seemed perfectly calm when he spoke. "You know I am a man of my word, old friend. I promised Katie to you no matter what she has been involved in and I intend to make that happen."