Chapter 1
This is a story, long forgotten, about the King of the Cardiaire Kingdom before he became the king.
In order to fulfill a long plan of his, Prince Edmund became Edmund, royal guard to the King of the Archambault Kingdom.
The King of the Archambault Kingdom, better known as Alec, was renowned for being the most handsome and benevolent man in the kingdom. He often wore clothes that were unsuited to be worn in public by a king.
Alec and Edmund slowly walked outside the palace. It was a big and beautiful place. The outside was always open to the public. The noble ladies would always hurry to the columns of the palace. If they did so and were there at the right time, then they could catch a glimpse of the handsome king and his equally handsome knight.
Right on cue, the two men arrived. As they walked past the swooning ladies, Alec gave them a big smile and waved while Edmund was stoic.
“Oh, His Majesty is as handsome as ever!” cried one of the ladies.
“Yes!” agreed another. “And his knight is handsome too!”
One of the other ladies sighed, “If only I could find myself a man with the looks that His Majesty has. I would be one lucky lady.”
The women continued with their loud conversations. They didn’t care if Alec or Edmund heard; in fact, they hoped they would.
As they continued down the hall, Alec laughed, “Wow, Ed, you’re really popular today!”
Edmund remained stoic as he walked a little slower than Alec.
“They’re not talking about me. They’re talking about you.”
“Hey, I heard some of those ladies mentioning you too!”
“But I’m not the one known as the most wanted man in the kingdom.”
“Hmmm . . . that may be true,” replied Alec. “But there will always be one woman for me.” He paused briefly before adding, “Even if she’s no longer in this world.”
After the unfortunate passing of his father, Alec had risen to power at the age of eighteen. That was also the age he married.
He was twenty when he and his wife had their first child. Unfortunately, she passed away quickly after giving birth. It was the same situation as it had been when he was born.
Alec never knew a mother’s love, but he’d hoped his son would get to, but life had other plans.
His son, Varian, was now five years of age, and everyone had hoped the king would bring in a new lady to be queen, but he quickly dismissed the idea whenever it was brought up. After three years of marriage, he once again became the most wanted bachelor.
“You know, you should start thinking about marriage yourself, Ed.” Alec grinned as he finished, “I mean, you don’t know how long your looks will last.”
“Oh, is that supposed to be an insult, Your Majesty?”
“Of course not, but the world works in mysterious ways. All I’m saying is that you should prepare for marriage soon.”
Edmund was quiet for a moment before he replied, “I do have someone in mind.”
“Oh?” chuckled Alec. “And who might that be?”
Edmund answered, “Someone I’m about to be engaged to.”
“Is that so? Well, you better make me your best man at your wedding!”
“Is that an order?”
“No,” Alec answered. “But I’d have thought you would want your best friend there when you get married.” He began to laugh. “You would have been my best man had I known you earlier.”
“Yes,” replied Edmund. “And it would have been highly inappropriate.”
Edmund gazed at Alec’s shocked expression.
“Who would make a lowly servant their best man?”
“Aw, come on, a lowly servant? Don’t think about yourself that way, or you’ll make me sad.”
“You really need to get more friends, Your Majesty.”
“You are the only friend I need, though. How should I prove it to you?” Alec quickly wrapped his arm around Edmund. “There, now everyone will see how close we are!”
“Your Majesty,” sighed Edmund. “This is highly inappropriate. Your reputation as a royal will be at stake.”
“So what?” asked Alec with such a loud laugh that it echoed through the halls.
“Really,” grumbled Edmund. “I can never win against you.” He sighed, “Why are we even talking about love and marriage anyway?”
“I dunno, you started it.”
“I did not.”
“Oh, well then, those ladies did.”
“You’re truly a fool; you know that? I don’t know how you’ve survived as king for as long as you have.”
“Yeah, yeah,” replied a nonchalant king.
Despite not knowing each other for long, the two acted as if they were brothers. Since their first meeting, Edmund seemed to always be there for Alec, who almost always caused mischief in the palace, even if he hadn’t meant to. The young king was quite the rebellious soul, but even a mischievous and rebellious king had to do his duties.
Alec sat in the boring meeting with Edmund behind him. Around seven noblemen sat alongside him. They were all very old and despite being from different kingdoms, liked to keep up with the old fashion ways.
The bossiest in the room, who had made so much effort to call the meeting stood up to exaggerate his point.
“Do you understand, Your Majesty? We need to do something about that temple!”
Alec sat in his chair staring up at the ceiling. He was glad he had hired a professional painter to paint them. The ceiling showed interesting colors and designs. To a bored child, it would be quite the spectacle.
“Are you listening to me, Your Majesty?”
Alec slowly lowered his head to meet eyes with the aggressive old nobleman. “Yeah, yeah,” he replied in a bored tone. “I’ve already done what I could and moved it. What more do you want me to do?”
The old man slammed his hands against the wooden table. “You can’t solve the problem by simply moving the temple!” he shouted. “It’s still our number one problem, and should I say if left alone it’ll be your kingdom’s downfall?”
Alec’s gaze narrowed; he no longer smiled or acted ignorant. “What are you trying to say, Lord Wilson?”
The temple had always caused problems. It was already a shady place before shady people took over to run it. Most of the leaders there have been thought to have committed heinous crimes. The temple had already been caught for embezzling money and precious jewels in the name of giving to the people.
It was obvious they hated the kingdom’s peasants. They were only interested in business with the richest of the rich and the sleaziest nobles they could find. Alec had already relocated them to the very far outskirts of the kingdom, but the majority of the nobles didn’t like that punishment.
“What do you think I’m saying? I’m telling you if you continue to ignore this problem the kingdom will face a rebellion, and I dare say that if you don’t stop them, they’ll cause problems for my kingdom as well.”
“So let them rebel,” replied Alec. “Fifty or so men against a whole army? My knight behind me could take care of them before they could even dream of touching the soil on these grounds. My decision is final. Leave them be.” His eyes narrowed. “If you have a problem with that, then you deal with it.”
Alec quickly stood up and headed towards the door with Edmund following close behind him. “This meeting is dismissed.” As he pulled open the door, he turned to them and said, “Good day, gentlemen.” Before he completely left the room. Edmund shut the door for him while making eye contact with the angriest man.
“Was that okay?” Edmund asked as he hurried to catch up to an angry Alec. Alec could move, but he was quite fast whenever he got angry. “It’s seven to one. Even if you are the king, they can still veto your decision if they choose to.”
“It’s fine,” replied Alec. He swung his robe back. “It’s not like they can go against me. Besides, I doubt the temple even wants to take over this place. There’s nothing of value here anyway.”
“You never know. That Lord Wilson isn’t even from this kingdom, yet he seems to care so much. Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you?”
Alec suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to face his guard. “Tell me, what exactly is making you so concerned about Wilson and this matter?” He glared at Edmund with a cold and sinister expression. “Care to explain it to me, Ed?”
Edmund felt chills go down his spine. He subconsciously reached for the sword by his side. If only the noblemen could see Alec like this. While he was mostly a benevolent and foolish king, on rare occasions, whenever he got angry, he was a fearsome force to be reckoned with.
Before the situation could escalate, the sounds of a small child running and calling for his father rang throughout the halls, interrupting them. The two men turned their attention to the child. A small boy who barely reached the men’s knees came running towards them. He gripped the king’s robe while chanting the word father over and over again. Alec picked him up and held the child close. The boy was the spitting image of him. His identity was obvious to anyone who saw him.
Edmund lowered his hand away from his sword hilt, calmly bowed, and said, “I greet His Highness, the Crown Prince.”
Alec turned to his child. “Varian,” he called softly. “What are you doing here?”
The small boy laughed as he answered, “I wanted to see my father! I got all my studies done so I could come and see you!”
Alec smiled and replied, “Well, how nice is that?”
The boy only smiled in response.
“Are you hungry, kiddo? Let’s go get you something to eat.”
Alec turned to Edmund. He wore the same cold expression again. “I have to take care of this. I’ll talk to you later, Edmund.”
Edmund bowed; Alec must have been very angry with him if he called him by his full name.
After watching them walk away, Edmund took care of his duties for the rest of the day. He mainly just needed to practice his swordsmanship skills. He practiced until the sun was beginning to set, and all the while he done so, he could feel eyes on him.
When he finally finished and put his gear up. He took a cloth and wiped his sweaty face with it. As he turned the corner going in the direction of the king’s room to take his shift to guard him for the night, someone was patiently waiting for him.
“I thought I felt someone’s eyes on me,” said Edmund cooly. His eyes raised to meet his visitor’s. “What do you want, John?”
“Oh, being so cold now, are we?” The man let out a low chuckle. “And that’s Lord Wilson to you while we’re here.”
The same man who fought the king so earnestly during the meeting was now standing with his back leaned against the wall, staring at his knight with a sick grin on his face.
“The king here is a fool.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” sighed Edmund.
“I keep warning him that the temple is going to make a move, and he still won’t listen.”
Edmund didn’t respond as the man let out all his aggression about the king.
“We don’t need them to make a move, not when we’re going to. They’re going to ruin everything we’ve been working so hard for.”
“Yeah,” replied a nonchalant Edmund. “It’s so tragic.”
“Can it with your sarcasm, boy,” spat the man angrily. He tilted his head up to gaze at the sky. “I’ve been working for years with your father to destroy this crippling kingdom, and I won’t stop now because a few greed infested insects in the temple decided to let their stupidity get the better of them.”
Edmund could only listen to the irony the man spoke about. When the man seemed to have calmed down, Edmund finally spoke up. “I don’t care about another group planning to strike against this kingdom. I’ve never held any greed towards this place or its people anyway.”
“Never held any greed towards this place or its people?” The man seemed to have gotten a kick in hearing that. “Oh, come on! I know you better than that.”
When he saw the look of pure disinterest on Edmund’s face, he suddenly flew into a wild frenzy of rage and grabbed ahold of Edmund’s collar. “I have not spent the last thirty years of my life trying to get ahold of this land and its magic. The Archambault’s are not fit to control a kingdom with such power. The only man I’ve ever thought to be worthy of the crown of unfathomable power is your father, and he’s already agreed to this plan. So, yes, you are going to help me as he commanded.”
Edmund stared at Wilson with a blank expression.
“You may be the crown prince back at home, but make no mistake, here I am the higher power. Your father put me in charge of you and that means you will do what I tell you, and that’s final. Are we clear?”
Without any hesitation, Edmund coldly responded, “Yes, Lord Wilson.”
Wilson let go of Edmund’s collar and started away. “I will not stand by whilst the people here continue to advance with their disgusting magic.” Wilson smirked with delight. “Continue with your amazing acting, boy, we’re about to retire that king, and he’s so foolish that he doesn’t even know it yet.”
Wilson knew that the temple wasn’t after the jewels and throne, they were after the same thing he was: power.
The temple wanted to use their small growing power in order to strengthen their ties and commit more heinous acts for the black market. Most of them had been suspected of trafficking at least once. Some even more than others.
While Wilson was only following the orders of his king, he played a large role in getting him interested in the destruction of magical users. Cardiaire and Archambault had always been at odds due to magic. He figured that if he didn’t kill the Archambault King now, his king would order him to sooner or later.
