Leaving the city that surrounded the castle was easier than expected. None of my people attempted to come to our aid, which both relieved and puzzled me. You would think that some of them would have tried to help. Noticing my expression, one of the black figures holding onto me explained. “We told them that we were going to kidnap you and if any of them tried to interfere we would harm you. Your people are very dedicated to you so we knew that they would not try anything that would result in you being harmed.” Reaching the road outside of my kingdom after quite a while of walking, I gazed in awe at the forest that surrounded us. I had never really been allowed outside before other than a couple of trips to close ally kingdoms. After a few minutes of walking in the forest outside of my kingdom, a carriage approached on the road. The black figures tightened their grip on us and pulled us deeper into the forest and out of view of whoever might be in the carriage. I was very curious about who might be in the carriage seeing as the party had ended a long time ago. My curiosity was soon satisfied. Right as it was about to pass us by, the carriage came to an abrupt halt. The men around us tightened their hands on their weapons. I knew that they were praying that the carriage would continue on its way. However, I knew that they were also worried about them getting to my castle too fast. Some of their men might still be inside when this carriage arrived.

When the door to the carriage nearest us opened and a man stepped out, there was a general sigh of relief among all the black figures. The man on the road had short black hair with darker skin and hazel eyes. Guiding us more gently this time, we were led up to the road beside the carriage. The man looked at us happily. “You got them, and it looks like only two of them were injured. Thankfully neither of those injuries look too bad.”

The medic stepped forward. Now that we were out of my kingdom, all of the black clothed figures had taken off their masks and since I had mostly gotten over my shock by now I actually got a good look at him this time. His short brown hair was wind tossed and he looked to be only around twelve years older than me. “No, neither of the injuries to them are bad.” He went over and pointed at Tyler’s arm. “This is the worst injury out of all of us.”

Surprise and delight showed on the man’s face. “None of our people got injured too badly?”

“No. The worst we have is a couple unconscious people who were put in one of their carriages” at this the medic pointed at me, “and they were taken the safe, but longer way back towards our kingdom.”

The man nodded and had just opened his mouth to speak when I broke in. “Excuse me.” Everyone turned and looked at me expectantly. “Who are you?”

The man startled. “Right, I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Milo Bullara and I am the heir to the throne of the biggest eastern kingdom Raetis.”

While this information would have shocked me this morning, it didn’t even faze me now. “Hello Crown Prince Milo.”

He interrupted me. “Please just call me Milo, Princess Ariana.”

A smile quirked my lips. “I will call you Milo if you call me Ari.” Milo blinked in surprise, but nodded. “Anyways, like I was saying before I was interrupted, are we walking the entire way there, or are we all going to somehow fit into that carriage?” I indicated it as best as I could with my hands tied behind my back. That gesture seemed to help him notice for the first time that all of our hands were tied behind our backs.

When he pulled a knife from behind his back and headed towards me, all of my guards reacted instinctively. They were about halfway to us when some of the black figures managed to catch them and hold them back. Milo hastily raised his hands in the air with the knife. “Please do not worry. I am not going to hurt her. I was just going to cut her bonds.” He moved slower this time, very aware that my guards were watching him closely. Glancing to the side, I noticed that Darius looked ready to tackle him if he made even one wrong move. Trying to hold back a smile, I held perfectly still while he cut my ropes. Freed, I rubbed my wrists to try to get some circulation back into them. Biting the inside of my mouth, I waited for the stabbing pain to subside. Milo instructed all of his men to cut the rest of us free. My guards looked at me out of the corners of their eyes as they were being cut loose. I shook my head. There was no way that we would be able to get away from our captors. Not while they had a carriage and greatly outnumbered us.

Coming back over to me, Milo thanked me for not making them chase us all down. It did not really surprise me that he had noticed our interaction. He seemed like the kind of man who noticed every little detail. Darius, who had not spoken for a while, asked “So are we going to walk the whole way there? Also, what should we call your men because it looks like we will be traveling together for a long time.” Turning to him, Milo seemed to appraise him. By the look on his face afterwards, Milo seemed to like what he saw.

“You must be Crown Prince Darius.” A curt nod is all he got in return. “If I can call you Darius, then you can call me Milo.” A smile lit up his face when Darius answered him.

“I can agree to that as long as you answer the questions that I asked you a little while ago.” A laugh burst out of Milo. “Of course. There are two more carriages coming soon so no we will not be walking the whole way there. That would take way too long. Also you can call my men either by their names if they tell you them, or you can call them the Black Renegades. If you want to, you can even shorten that to the Renegades.” The two carriages he had just mentioned rolled up as he finished speaking. “I am very sorry, but I have to separate you all into three groups. That way we will still have you outnumbered in each carriage and will not have to worry about anyone escaping. Ari’s guards will go in the first carriage with Hazel,” Hazel looked to my guards who each gave her a reassuring look. While she had been around them a lot, she had never been alone with them before.

Leaning closer to her I whispered, “They will take care of you. There is no need to worry. I trust them with my life and they have saved my life before.” She nodded and walked over to them slowly, but steadily.

Milo continued, “Darius’s guards will be with Sophia in the second carriage,” She looked scared until Darius and I talked to her and told her that they would treat her with respect, and they would protect her. Walking over to them, she still looked a little worried, but Darius’s guards hurriedly set those worries to rest. “and in the last carriage is Darius, Ari, and Cayden.” The Black Renegades split up as well and ushered us all into a carriage. Around 10 Black Renegades went in the other two carriages while at least 15 got into ours. The carriages were huge and about double the size of the carriages I had at my kingdom. Milo joined Darius, Cayden, and me in the last carriage. The medic went with my guards so that he could help Tyler heal as fast as possible. Tyler claimed that his arm was all better, but the medic did not agree. Darius’s guard that had been injured was looking much better and had insisted that he was fine and did not need the medic anymore.

Starting to rumble along the road, my thoughts were filled with my family. I wondered if their bonds had been taken off yet. I hoped that they did not come after us. Our kingdom did not have enough manpower to track us down and free us. It would just end with more injuries and pain. There had been more than enough of that already. Glancing around the carriage, I noticed that out of all of us Cayden seemed the most relaxed and calm. I wondered why. As if he could sense my gaze upon him, Cayden looked directly into my eyes. “What is it Ari?”

“How are you so calm? This entire time you never seemed to be flustered, mad, or upset.”

Cayden’s laugh was deep and full. “I have been in many rough situations. This is not even the worst thing I have endured.” Wanting to ask what other situations he had been in, but not wanting to upset him, I just kept my mouth shut. “You can ask whatever you want to. If I do not want to answer you then I will just tell you that. There is no point in not asking.”

“Okay, what is the worst situation you have been in? Or if you do not want to answer that one, then what is another bad situation you have been in? It is weird, I have known you my whole life, but I feel like I know nothing about you or what you have gone through.”

Cayden’s smile was full of amusement, sadness, and understanding. “The worst situation I have ever experienced was my parents being killed right in front of me. That is all I will say about it though. Several times in my life I have been taken captive by enemies, or been enslaved. I made sure that no one knows most things about my life and past. It is just better that way. This way you do not feel sad for me and I do not have to dwell on the things that happened a long time ago. Not even your parents know about most of the things that I have done or that I had done to me in my life.”

“How did you meet my parents and get hired as the castle trainer then? Did you save their lives or something? Whenever I asked my parents for the story, they would just tell me that I had to ask you because it was your story to tell. They did not want to break your trust.”

“If I see them again I will be sure to thank them for that. I will not answer that question though. Meeting your parents made my life a lot happier and worth living, but it was a time of desperation and loss as well.” Conversation stopped for a while as everyone in our carriage thought about what the situation must have been like. Most of us could think of a time when we were desperate and were experiencing a loss of some sort.

Darius then asked a question that both confused and startled me. “Have you met my parents before Cayden?”

“Yes I have. Many years ago I encountered them when I was traveling around the world. They are very kind and caring people. Great people to be around when you are in need. Have they talked to you about me before?”

“At Ari’s birthday and presence getting party, my parents were talking to her parents and her parents mentioned the name Cayden. Let's just say that my parents were very surprised to know that you were working at their castle as a trainer.”

“Yes, when I met them the last thing I wanted to do was to work under anyone. In fact they even offered me the job to be their castle trainer and I turned them down. Things have happened since I left them though and I learned some important lessons. These lessons taught me that I needed to settle down and start to trust others. Now we are done talking about me. So we can either talk about something else or sit in silence.”

Darius turned to Milo this time. “What is your kingdom like? Do the people all sound and look like you? Is it really different from our kingdoms?”

“All kingdoms are different from your kingdom, but yes our kingdom is very different from any that you have seen before. We do not have all of the weapons and defenses yet that you have. I am not sure that I want my kingdom to have all of those things though. You see, ours may seem old fashioned, but it is very well protected and it serves all of our purposes. In the east we see no point in making our castles look all majestic and shiny as well. No offense or anything, we just do not see the point of it.”

I shrugged. “No offense taken. I do not see the point of it sometimes either. There are definitely some problems with it. Like the wealthiest looking ones will get attacked a lot more than ones that do not look as good.”

Milo pointed at me empathetically. “I am glad that you understand me.” The carriage hit a big bump in the road and we all were bounced around the seats. I ended up on Darius’s lap who was sitting to the right of me, Milo was thrown against the door, and Cayden bounced into one of the Black Renegade guards. He was lucky because the Black Renegade braced him and made sure that he was not going anywhere. Milo hit the door pretty hard, and was now rubbing his shoulder. It was probably bruised. My cheeks were a little pink as I tried to scramble off Darius’s lap as fast as humanly possible. Amusement clear in his eyes, he picked me up and placed me gently back beside him. I tried to apologize, but he just waved me off and told me that it was fine. Not able to look at him now without my cheeks turning pink, I gazed out the window at the scenery. I was grateful that it would be more suspicious to see a carriage in the summer with its windows covered than one with open windows and a bunch of interesting looking people in it as it allowed me to see the world around me.

A flash of bright color outside of the window caught my attention. Peering closer at it, I was not prepared when the door burst open and someone yanked me out of the moving carriage. Screaming, I tried to hold onto either the side of the carriage or someone's arm, but I was not strong enough. Plus, the person yanking at me had all the momentum and weight. Hitting the ground hard, the wind was knocked out of me and I was left gasping for breath. Heaving me up into their arms, my assailant started to run. Struggling as hard as I could to get away, I could hear the Black Renegades, Cayden, Darius, and Milo coming after me. Knowing that the other carriages were probably completely unaware that ours had stopped since it was last in line, we were in a bit of trouble. The person carrying me was strong and very fast. Every one of my attempts to break free were thwarted easily and I was starting to get frustrated. Peering up into the face of the person carrying me, I gasped when I saw lighter violet eyes looking into my darker violet eyes. Hearing the sounds of footsteps behind us growing quieter and quieter, my heart started pounding. Knowing that night was growing near and that we would be nearly impossible to find in the dark, I screamed as long and loud as I could. Having gotten my breath back, it was quite loud and I could have kept screaming for a while, but my kidnapper’s hand covered my mouth after only a couple of seconds.

Now that one of their hands were occupied, I managed to wrench my body to the side and get free. Rolling to my feet, and infinitely grateful that I was not wearing a dress, I started sprinting back to where I thought my friends were. Even though Milo and the Black Renegades had stolen me away from my home, they were more like friends to me than this new person was. Screaming as much as I could while still sprinting, I hoped that my friends could hear me and find me. I did not make it very far before I was caught and slung over my captors right shoulder. Hitting their back got me nowhere and I was just starting to give up when we were tackled to the ground with me on bottom. With the wind knocked out of me again, I did not have much fight left in me. So when someone lifted me up into their arms my struggle was not as good as it needed to be in order to let me escape. When the person holding me spoke, I stopped fighting all together.

“If you stopped fighting with me then it would be way easier to carry you to safety.” Peering up at the face above me, I recognized Darius as the one holding me. Relaxing into his arms, I just concentrated on breathing evenly.

“Thank you for saving me Darius. I really owe you one now.” I could barely get the words out because of how little breath I had in my body right now.

He shook his head. “You owe me nothing. I was the one that failed to grab you and haul you back into the safety of the carriage. Instead I just let you get taken without so much as a struggle.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “There is no way you can blame yourself for me getting taken. They came out of nowhere and they had all the momentum, and the weight on their side. Even if you had been prepared for it, I am still not sure if I would have been saveable. They had a presence that seemed to make them stronger and faster than a normal person should be. Honestly I need to get stronger so I can stop being the weak link in this group. The rest of you are so strong and confident. Meanwhile I am always the one that needs to be protected. I hate it, but am not sure how to change that now that we are on the road.”

Darius held me closer and tighter to him. “You are not a weak link in this group. Though if you really want me too, I can help train you along with Cayden while we are traveling to Raetis.” Squealing with delight, I put my arms around his neck and squeezed.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

He laughed. “If I had known that you would have been this happy with me just for saying a couple of words, then I would have said them way sooner.” A loud bang to our left caused me to jump a little in his arms. When a dark figure came out of the darkness, I tried to get down and free up Darius’s arms, but he would not let me. “Calm down. It is just Milo.” Several more shapes appeared from the trees. “Also Cayden, the Black Renegades, and the one who tried to get away with dragging you from a fast moving carriage.”

Seeing the motionless shape that one of the Black Renegades threw to the ground I wondered aloud. “Are they still alive?”

Milo bent down and checked their pulse. “Yep, they are definitely still alive. Not in the best shape, but we got a little angry with them and may have hit them a little bit harder than necessary.”

“Can I hit them later? Maybe when they are all tied up and harmless?” The men all laughed at me, but I was okay with that since they had all just helped save me. “Thank you all for coming and helping me out. I am not sure what would have happened if I had been alone or if you had lost me. How did you find me anyways?”

“We can thank you for that. If it was not for your screaming and making a huge fuss, I am not sure that we would have ever found you.” Milo’s voice was heavy with relief. “I am glad that you are so loud. Never thought I would ever say something like that, but there it is.”

Squirming a bit in my position in Darius’s arms, I said, “You can put me down now Darius. I have finally received my breath back for the second time in the last couple of minutes.”

“That is exactly why I am still carrying you. You have had a pretty rough day and I do not want you to collapse trying to walk back to the carriage.”

“I won't collapse. I am perfectly fine now.” When everyone turned and looked at me with doubt in their eyes I glared at them all. Rolling their eyes at me, everyone turned back to looking at where they were going and started ignoring me. Offended by their obvious disbelief in me, I looked up into Darius’s eyes with a plea in my gaze. Sighing in defeat he put me down to walk the rest of the way to the carriage which was almost in view. Keeping his arm around my shoulders to catch me if I tripped or became dizzy, we started walking quite slowly, but eventually went faster and faster until we were staying up with the rest of the group. Reaching our carriages, we saw the two carriages that had been in front of us coming back towards us. The moment they stopped my guards, Darius’s guards, my maids, and all the Black Renegades flew out and started questioning us. Milo answered all their questions with ease and regality.

Alex was the first to speak up after the explanations were complete. “Ari is going in our carriage now. You can take the prisoner in your carriage.” His tone brooked no argument. Milo, after a slight hesitation, agreed to the change. Surrounded by my guards, I was ushered quickly into their carriage with Hazel. Once inside, the carriage started down the road and the interrogation started.

Hazel was the first to talk. “Are you okay? That must have hurt to be slammed to the ground that hard twice in a very short amount of time.”

I shook off her worry. “Don’t worry about me. I am fine. Nothing seems to be broken or even bruised. Plus Darius, Milo, Cayden, and all the Black Renegades in my old carriage made sure to save me and prevent further injuries.”

Alex shot me a wry look. “Milo saved you from further injury by slamming you to the ground with our new prisoner on top of you?”

Without even a trace of sarcasm I said, “Yes. The only way to save me was to hurt me. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t done that?”

Tyler glared at the last carriage. “When we stop for the night I am going to have a very long serious talk with the one who attacked you.”

“Only as long as I get to see who it is first before you all mess up their features.” My guards all reluctantly agreed to my demands, but they did not seem too happy about it. Once night had fully fallen and our driver could not see the road clearly in front of them, we pulled off the road and walked quite a ways to make camp. There were several tents set up for all of our different groups. The tents were large enough to fit my guards, my maids, and myself all in one tent. In fact, that is what was insisted upon by all of my staff. Dragging the now conscious prisoner near the fire, everyone waited breathlessly to see if either Darius or me knew them. Staring long and hard at the face in front of me, I furrowed my brow. Something about them seemed familiar, but I could not place them for several minutes. Suddenly, I shot up from my crouched position with realization. “I know who it is!”

Everyone seemed to ask the same question at the exact same time. “Who is it?”

“It is the Crown Prince of Nicuria whose name I do not know. The only reason that I remember him is because his family was the first one that came to see if I had gotten my presence. He certainly has a motive for attacking me though. His family has hated mine for ages. You see, they used to be the most loved and wealthiest kingdom in the south until I received my presence. Now we are the ones first invited to parties and the first ones shown possible suitors.” The Crown Prince of Nicuria spit on my legs. Recoiling in disgust, I winced as Darius slapped him so hard that the Crown Prince of Nicuria’s head snapped to the side. “Wait, do not hurt him anymore. I have some questions I need to ask him.” Darius listened to me even though his eyes were brimming with fury. “What is your name?” When I realized that he was not going to answer me unless I gave him some incentive, I said in a mild tone, “You do realize that no one here likes you right? In fact, most people here can not wait until I give them permission to do whatever they want with you. I am the only one protecting you right now, but that could change in an instant.”

His voice filled with anger, and resentment he muttered, “I am Crown Prince Hunter from the southern kingdom of Nicuria.”

“Good, now we are getting somewhere. Next question. Why did you attack me exactly? Also was that flash of color outside my window?”

A slow smile spread across his face and happiness appeared in his eyes. “I attacked you because your eyes were so dark and because my parents want me to force you into a marriage. We would be the perfect match. After all, we both have presences and are around the same age. I am only three years older than you.”

“I have several reasons why we would be a horrible match. We don’t like the same things, our parents hate each other, and you just tried to kidnap me and force me to do something that I really do not want to do!” Taking a deep breath to calm myself down, I asked my second question again. “What was the flash of color outside of the window in the direction that you grabbed me from? It could not have been you. I saw it right before you grabbed me and it was still far away. Even with your presence you are not that fast.”

The gleam in his eyes got brighter. “You will figure out the answer to that question very soon. I, personally, am really looking forward to when you all find out what that flash of color was.” The Black Renegades started to study our surroundings even closer than they had before. Hunter's laugh rang out. “You are doing too little, too late.” A loud bang filled the sudden silence after that declaration, and colored smoke filled the clearing in a matter of seconds. Dizziness engulfed me and I collapsed to my hands and knees. Shapes in the smoke appeared all around me. Collapsing to the ground, I was unable to resist when someone grabbed me and swung me up onto their shoulder. Hoping that it was someone that I knew and trusted, I closed my eyes and surrendered to the darkness.