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A chair went flying across the room, crashing into the wall before shattering into pieces. The man huffed out of breath and crazed. He just left the meeting with the Queen and King of Taycia, and he was enraged. He thought back to their ignorant words as his blood boiled.

"Ran away?" The king aloofly asked.

He kneeled in front of the queen and the king's throne and was discussing the princess's escape.

"Yes! We need to find her quickly; she has no idea how to take care-" Silas started but was cut off by the Queen.

"How do you suppose we find her?" She was busy looking at her manicure to even meet eyes with the guard.

"We have the largest military in the world, in a time of no war we have more than enough spare soldiers to form-" Silas was cut off again.

"Out of the question. I will not send pawns out for little girl." The King scoffed.

Silas was becoming more enraged by the second.

"What will we say about a missing princess? She has many suitors that will not be happy their potential fiancee has just vanished." Silas tried to show how the situation could affect them to view.

The King and Queen only hoped the girl would be good for something, an alliance. Silas thought surely that would cause them to want to find her.

"Say she is studying abroad." The Queen suggested.

"Think of this as a great career opportunity." The king smirked. "Even I, the King, know of the warrior such as yourself. Able to defeat ten men at once, a master of the sword, you can finally move up the ranks instead of being a babysitter for a sniveling brat."

Silas's hand twitched tempted to grab ahold of his sword and hack the King's head off right there.

"Though dear," The queen placed her porcelain hand on her husband. "The girl would be a wonderful pawn for alliances, after all that's why we kept her."

Silas's jaw clenched.

"Hm," The king thought on his wife's words. "Okay, fine. Form a small platoon of men and find the girl, but mention to no one that she is missing, act as a Holy General just checking on the stationed bases. Use that guise to search for our daughter." The king commanded.

Silas was relieved he was given permission to look for his princess, though he would have with or without it.

"You're welcome for the promotion, by the way." The king rested his elbow on his throne with a smirk.

"Yes, you obviously weren't made to be a personal guard if a (Your age) girl could slip past you under your nose." The queen added insult to injury.

"Yes, your majesties, thank you." Silas managed to say without gritting his teeth.

He was quick to leave the throne room and remain calm until he returned to his quarters.

Silas stood hunched over, sick to his stomach. His princess was gone, his light, his happiness, his comfort. Just gone. He obviously blamed himself, he was supposed to be her personal guard and he let her slip out his fingers.

It had only been a few hours, but he was worse for wear.

"(Y/N)..." He stood straight and walked to his desk to pull open his drawer. "Why?" Silas plucked a folded picture for the compartment.

A five-year-old (Y/N) stood smiling and waving at the camera, her other small hand was clasped around his. An eleven-year-old Silas stood beside her, looking stoic with a hint of annoyance. He remembers she was holding so tightly because she was excited to have her picture taken with them.

Silas could feel the ghost of her touch. He remembered that day very well, (Y/N) was wearing pretty plain clothes for being royal because she was playing outside, and her nanny did not want her to dirty the fine fabric.

Even as a child her hair was so long, already to her lower back. She had dragged them all over the garden, and through the forest behind the castle.

At that point, Silas was not her guard but was supposed to be her friend to form a bond that would strengthen his desire to protect her and remain loyal.

His life was planned out for him since the day she was born. And if he was honest, he despised her at the start. He hated the little girl who snatched away his whole life before he even had one. But on this day, he vowed to protect her, for himself.

He pulled out a piece of fabric from his drawer now, a torn piece of (Y/N)'s old pillowcase. He buried his nose in the cloth and inhaled deeply, then shuddered.

He glanced back to the folded picture and a thought struck him. He slowly unfolded the paper and looked at the other young face of the young boy spirit beast. He had not seen him for years, but they were inseparable as children.

As far as Silas knew, he was now working as an assassin for Taycia. He knew the boy felt the same as he did for (Y/N), which is why Silas had a part in reassigning him to a different location. Though he hated to admit, the boy could be very useful now. He quickly sat down at his desk and began to write a letter.