The Prince tried to calm himself down, even by going back to Alison’s quarters to be there upon her return…But a knock on the door sounded and then a voice came, “We know she’s not there, little Prince, so come out like a good boy!”

A bad premonition came to Prince Elton then. That perhaps…He had he lost…

Dammit…

Yet, the biggest worry he had…Was if Alison was okay. Everything else can be endured! And…If there was one way to find out what was going on, it was to go out and see what they had planned!

In silence, the Prince followed the advisor out to the King’s throne room and found the room filled with people.

This was…They got the box…The question was…Which box did they obtain?

The Prince halted just a few steps into the room, not that it mattered because they continued on anyway. “And here he is, the one trying to conspire against His Majesty the King. Prince Elton, do you plead guilty in the charge of treason!?”

The Prince saw a box in front of the King and stayed silent as his eyes traveled around to not see his sister. It must be the box that David had…It was plan B. He had not wanted Plan B to happen because that would have meant that Alison had come to trouble…

Where…

The Prince now just searched to where the advisor just moved from…Seeing…

Alison…

There she was, in her thief attire, being held like a prisoner!

The Prince’s heart ached to free her from her binds, but he was in a very harsh predicament right now and really needed to focus.

How did things end up like this!? Where had they taken David? They would have thought him as someone who wouldn’t help their claim so they probably would have just taken him somewhere else for now. Would they really go as far as to kill someone as close he is to a Prince? No, he had thought of this earlier. They would wait until he lost to kill David. The Prince was certain that David was still alive, just…Where was he?

King Lewis did not look at his son as he completely took in this news that the advisor gave him. The King and a number of his advisors and Councillors, who had already been here hours ago, had already even questioned upon where the advisor was at such a time when a meeting was on earlier. Only to find evidence of the Prince’s friend ‘David’ had been holding, something that could be claimed as evidence to support him, the King, as a criminal.

Having opened the box himself, to find the first piece of paper a written testimony of something that he had done a couple of years ago had made him close the box, to have it sit there until now.

Granted, the Prince knew that he had to put at least one thing that was real in that box but…A lot of it was just plain letters that didn’t mean anything at all. He was giving up two criminal acts in the place of many, simply because he had wanted the King to act and to think this way.

One way to get the King to do what you want him to do…Was to give him what he wanted. They could have waited until everyone left but the King was not only angry but also thought that the Prince had nothing left, so…He fell right into the Prince’s trap!

Clenching his hands into fists under his desk, King Lewis now glared at his son.

“Stop!”

Everyone turned to Princess Bethany, with the veil over her face now removed, who was coming in with a box. Right beside her was Cid and two of Prince Elton’s royal guards. The Prince knew that at least twenty elite guards of his had been with his sister all this time that she had left the palace gates…And they were probably just outside the room now.

Princess Bethany glared at her father, bringing the box out in front of her, “Looking for this?”

Not only was she a female, who was entering a male dispute, a male area, she spoke to the king like this?

Her glare and lack of manners totally infuriated the King, “Get her out of here!”

“Those who tried to capture me, and this box, are already in the dungeon. This!” The Princess held up a piece of paper, “This states that they were paid to obtain anything important and to kill ‘the woman’ by Advisor Rick!”

The Prince was startled. Looking over to Alison, he wondered where he went wrong in his calculations!

…The advisor must have thought that she had run away…

That…Her being alive right now…Was it because of the diversion box? Perhaps he wanted more evidence of the Prince…That was it…Thank god…Thank god that Advisor Rick thought Alison would be more of a burden to him and kept her alive!

The crowd let out some gasps. They were thinking more along the lines upon the Princess nearly being killed! She had been attacked! Royalty under attack, wasn’t that treason!? Regicide? Both? What was going on!?

“Nonsense!” Advisor Rick stated. What could they have done to get one of his men to tattle so quickly!? Of course, he completely underestimated Princess Bethany! Not only was the advisor’s men already scared because they found out that they had attempted to kill royalty but Princess Bethany was like some demon woman that scared the hell out of them when she put a knife in between their legs! Since she was getting married, she had to learn what it was that made a man a man and she had the courage to use that knowledge in a threat!

“Don’t make me repeat myself, take this girl out of here!” The King barked.

The Princess walked forward, Cid staying close by her side the whole time, and she said, “This box has evidence of my father’s treachery! Noel Price, a former servant of the King, died several years ago, kept his own box of evidence. Originally, he was only going to use it to get what he wanted, is what this note here says…But he never got that far, did he father…”

“Preposterous! Why are you still here!” The King finally stood up from his chair, then started to descend the stairs in front of him.

The Prince moved to be in front of his sister, and said, “You are also the one that was behind the Truvelle family stealing, are you not father?”

“Truvelle family?”

“Truvelle…I haven’t heard that name in a long time!”

Advisor Rick could see that the Prince was trying to turn everything around and had to stop him! “This is getting out of hand. As you see people, the Prince and Princess are just trying to stop the truth, look, they even used a thief and made me think of her as my own granddaughter!”

The crowd now all looked confused…

The Prince sighed and walked towards Alison, guards stopping him from unbinding her.

“It is time to decide. Are you a criminal’s guards or mine?” The Prince stared at the guards and even turned into a circle, looking at the rest of them in the room.

Upon turning back to Alison, he wasn’t stopped when unbinding her, holding her to his side.

“She is a thief, an impersonator!” Someone yelled.

The Prince turned and smiled towards the noise, “Perhaps but…Her real identity is a victim, which I will rectify as innocent! This woman here…Is Alison Truvelle, my original fiancé!”

Again, the crowd let out a few gasps…Especially that of Alison…

He knew…

As the Prince frowned and looked at Cid, to see him shake his head, the Prince then looked at Advisor Rick, “Where’s David?”

Advisor Rick was thinking terribly hard upon how to get out of this mess. With the crowd here, it could still go both ways but…It seemed he just couldn’t come up with anything to tip the board in his favor…

“Where’s David!?” The Prince yelled.

Advisor Rick looked at the Prince and shrugged, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m still trying to understand how you think you can make everyone think of you as innocent when you are really the criminal.”

“Likewise!” Said Prince Elton.

Prince Elton only had one thing left at this moment. Well, at least one thing he could think of in this instant circumstance.

Looking at Bethany, Prince Elton saw her smile cheekily, and so he said, “Royal Mother, I promise you as not only your son but as the next ruler of Rangcew, that you will be unharmed and will remain a royal with whatever you need, tell us of what you have seen or heard…”

The Queen suddenly entered, making the crowd a bit displeased…This was a meeting for men! Why is there two women here now! No, now there was three!

“Silence!” Prince Elton stated.

And just as he thought, the Queen brought out a crown, “I was told to lock this up and never get it out, this is what the King used against the Truvelle family to gain their wealth.”

A servant came in then and threw three books on the floor. “And this is what the money went too.”

Advisor Rick fell to the floor and wished that he had just stayed silent. He wished that he had not become so popular in the last couple of days, so that he could just disappear right now…

With the King being found guilty, the crowd will lean towards what he’s doing with the King as guilty too and so…

It was time to run!

“Don’t let him get away!” Prince Elton yelled at the guards.

Alison pushed the Prince away, “Go, get him!”

The Prince frowned and wanted to tend to her, but she shook her head.

He didn’t leave, having faith in his guards but no longer held her in his arms.

Alison walked two steps forwards, towards the King. “Kneel and apologize to my family!”

There was an aura about her that seemed to suddenly stand out and now that they had been told of her true identity, people started to try and remember the little girl that was ever so doted upon all those years ago.

“Are you asking a King to kneel, little girl!?” The King asked, hardly containing his anger. He simply did not believe that he had done anything wrong, let alone believe that she was of the family of Truvelle.

“Yes!” Alison easily answered.

“Do you see, gentlemen, how I am being treated here?” The King asked the crowd.

Alison took another two steps towards the King, and then said, “If you will not apologize, I will grant you what you deserve for your crimes.”

“You will…Grant me?” The King then went into hysterical laughter…To him, it was the funniest thing that he had heard in a long time. Someone was granting him to do what!?

Alison’s desire to directly kill this man was so hard to contain that she had clenched her hands enough to start bleeding in her palms. The man was not going to apologize…

She wanted to yell and scream at him, tell him that he was a nasty man who deserved nothing! That he needs a particular part of his body cut off and should be put in a dungeon with a small one meal a day, and unable to kill himself!

Her eyesight grew blurry and Alison fought to stop a sob from coming out. Her family memories finally came back to her and she remembered them.

All these years she had put these memories away, not wanting them to taunt her. She was such a cry baby after they had left, and she had to put them away otherwise she would have died through starvation!

Now…They streamed to her mind, making her fall to the ground and tears fell down her face.

Mother, Father…Finally, our name has been changed to that of fallen stealers, to that of…Innocence…

While Alison cried, practically unaware of the King getting into such a furious predicament, where his title isn’t saving him, he even ended up saying, “So what if I did those things! I am your King! I am going back to my chambers!”

It was practically all over now…Well, in the way of who was a criminal and what they had done.

Yet, for Alison, who cuddled up to Bethany, she knew it was just one big mountain that she had climbed, this mountain had been long and hard, she was finally able to see the end of the path, which was putting her family to rest properly…

She knew though, that she still had at least one more mountain in front of her. That mountain in front of her were answers to her questions, it was a path that would require forgiveness, a path that held her heart…Did she really want to travel that mountain?

***

“Nothing?” Elton asked, a hand to the window.

“Nothing, Your Majesty.” The guard answered.

There had been no official crowning day, but the Prince had indeed become King within just a few days after the former King Lewis was found guilty of his crimes.

Since then King Elton had been busy but there were always two things that plagued his mind the most and that was... Alison and David.

Both had disappeared, having not returned, along with his soul.

He knew already that Alison may not want to be his bride, he knew that she may not want anything to do with him at all but…It hurt…

She had left him at her first opportunity. He had wanted to formally get her family buried, he was already fixing up her old residence…He…He had wanted to marry her at the same time Cid and his sister were getting married but…

She had not returned…

David was the other big problem. He was last known to be protecting a box on his orders, and since then there was no news!

Advisor Rick had been detained but had not given any kind of information down upon the whereabouts of David, laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world!

Well, Advisor Rick had many things on his plate now, being involved in a number of crimes himself, so he had nothing left to lose…Perhaps he was a sadist and liked the Prince suffering at his friend’s disappearance…

It was actually a bit worrying when David’s father had come to him personally, completely upset about his son’s disappearance. Elton had to settle Benjamin, yet in his heart he was also in turmoil!

David had fought with his parents the last time that he had seen them. They had tried once again about telling him to not be in the black market and that he had lied to them…So, the last time that they saw each other the words had not been pleasant and they had also been tired making a substitute box, which makes it all that much more regrettable, especially for Elton…

It’s understandable how they want him back again! Hell, he himself wanted the angry child back too!

He was the most loyal person that he had ever met and…It was his fault that David was a part of the black market. Why hadn’t David just told his parents that, to get them to blame him instead? Now…How could he tell that to them? How could he tell them that not only was he in the black market on his orders but that he was taken while doing a mission on his orders as well…

King Elton did not have the courage. He had let his best friend down completely…

…But Alison…He cannot forget her…He can’t forget how he first met her again and how she had stolen from him. He can’t forget how she had wanted money just to tell them some information. How she had stayed in her family’s home all this time. How, when she was young, that she had laughed at him! He wished to touch her soft skin, make her smile, to see her excitement…

The hardest thing, yet also one of the easiest things that he wished for…Was for her happiness. He knew that she may be happy being away from him and he was not going to beg for her back if she were…He just wished that…Her happiness was with him though, that was all…

Milo found it difficult to go without Alison as well…

For one day a mouse near him had been hard to tolerate, but it seems that the similarity, of them both loving Alison, made a bond between man and mouse.

Milo often stays with Elton day and night, simply because of that one night that he had stayed with Alison. Alison’s disappearance happened to Milo as well and so all Milo seems to look like his thinking is, ‘If I stay close to him, will Alison return?’.

They both missed her, they both wished for her happiness, for her sorrows to pass and her life to be full, yet…She seemed to not include them lately in her plans.

Both man and mouse were miserable!

Just another day in the throne room, yet it was starting to get more and more louder as the days went on. The Advisor’s wanted the Prince to have a Queen. So far, King Elton had been able to prolong the discussion of a new Queen because his mother was still there helping him happily but…It seems he might not be able to wait too much longer.

“Finalizing the previous King’s acts is first, Advisor Burke. I’d like close the book and have the country move forward as soon as possible.” King Elton stated.

He had many advisors listening to him already, having secretly shown himself to them before King Lewis lost his throne but…He of course did not have all the advisors or councilors on his side…Well, nothing was perfect but still…It is them that is making him angry!

He doesn’t want a Princess from another country! He wanted Alison!

“But…They already sent word, Your Majesty! They arrive within the week…Actually, it seems they already were on their way here…” Said Advisor Burke.

Prince Elton considered the time of travel between the countries and frowned. The advisor was right, they must have left earlier.

Then, a Princess was on the way and there was no way to stop it…

Could it be that they had been told by the previous King?

“Seems a bit rude to suddenly turn up in another country without that of an envoy to state it first!”

And so, another discussion was started, and Elton sighed…

In the end they had to let it go, simply because the wedding was just too close and they did not want to have political problems with other countries at the present point in time!

***