Lord Theodore's Favorite Ritual
Chapter 238: First Life. Alice. (5)

"Yes my Lady" Harley said, careful not to say all she knew because some of the maids rode with them this time, "A guard was allegedly left lying unconscious and we fear it was Prince Theodore’s or his men’s doing." she whispered.

"But how?" Alice asked absentmindedly, she tried her best to appear interested in the conversation while her mind was only reeling, floating elsewhere to a certain boy with blonde hair and sky-blue eyes that tossed her in its depths till she could not escape. She wished not to escape.

"Disguise," Harley spoke still unaware that the mind of her lady was elsewhere or used to be. As soon as Alice heard the word, her mind had stopped racing through the brief moment she had with her saviour. It was now fully focused on Harley’s report.

"I shall believe I heard you correctly when you said disguise, right?" Alice’s question carried unmasked interest this time. The wheels had began turning in her head again and she was already getting an ominous feeling about all of this.

"Yes" the maid affirmed, "The spies somehow got their hands on farm clothes and with those, it was easy for them to blend in with the rest of Springton being that our population is made up of mostly farmers." Harley explained, her fingers playing with the little knitting pin between her fingers, Conrads had gotten it for her, she might not like him but she liked gifts. Loved them.

"And their prince..." with every word Alice spoke, she felt like her heart would explode with a feeling she didn’t want to bother with yet, she needed to know, to confirm her suspicion first, "Was he on a disguise too?" her brows were skyhigh and waiting.

Harley shrugged. "Likely my lady," she offered "No one has heard of anyone in royal colours in the streets so it is possible that he very well might be disguised as any other commoner."

"Oh" was all Alice was able to let out before falling short of words. Harley waved her hand. "But you know, as a warrior prince he would have an unmistakeable aura around him that would easily expose" her point.

Aura!

Alice had felt that commanding and easily dominant aura in the woods, she had brushed it off but she had finally pieced it all together and she now knew the identity of the one who had saved her and had refrained from telling her his name.

It was Prince Theodore. Her saviour was prince Theodore.

The warrior prince from what she was told. Some considered him even a bigger threat than the king of the enemy kingdom. Many myths were created in war and one was that Theodore was able to take on ten swordsmen at a time and would emerge victorious.

Alice had paid little attention to the stories that Harley reported hearing from the soldiers until now. If he was that powerful, what then was he doing at the fields instead of storming the palace?

Why did he save her life then? Was it all a ploy to use her and get to her father?

Could all of this had been planned instead of it being a mere coincidence? Alice was still thinking. She knew that she was dancing carelessly and that was why she tripped so how then did the prince know to save her? Had he been following her the whole time? Did he see when she changed into Harley’s clothes?

Heat crept up her cheeks at that possibility and at that moment, she wished to breathe fire. If Prince Theodore had been spying on her as she got undressed then she wouldn’t mind her father took off his head, the sudden pinch in her heart told her she would mind and that made her redden even more. Harley glanced at her found her red as a ripe tomato, she merely stared at her unsure what to make of her lady’s sudden disposition.

Alice soon calmed herself, telling herself that the prince could not have known and that all of this could have been a simple misunderstanding. There was still no way to ascertain that the boy she met in the waterfalls was infact the prince of the enemy kingdom even though her heart told her he was.

He saved her, he was handsome, knew her name and he-

"My lady" Harley called again, pulling the princess out of her head, but just like before Alice was far away from the present.

The princess had not realized when the transport had made its way from the busy streets of Springton which was now crawling with guards and knights from the king’s charge to a more private path till it stopped at the Castle gates.

It was pushed open and their ride rode in until the destination the princess could step out.

"My Lady we are here" a maid announced again and Alice stired out of her mind and the carriage in a maids attire shocking the castle maids but she ignored their gazes and stood rearranging her attire.

Harley stepped out next and the first face she saw was Conrad and she instantly regretted it. Luckily, he was looking less jovial this time. Her face reddened as she clutched her gift. She wondered what had happened to shut up that ocean of a mouth. All she was told was that someone was found unconscious. Did anybody die? Was there more to this than she was being told?

Thesame thought crossed Alice mind immediately at Conrads expression, Did Theodore do something to her people?

Conrad helped the ladies down and some of them still had the heart to giggle at him and the knight even returned it with a smile of his own but nothing more. Alice suddenly felt like something bad was about to happen.

Her eyes guarded she faced Conrad, "Thank you Conrad" her gratitude as she looked around at the unneccesary amount of security "I think I can make it to my room without you or your men, sir Conrad"

Harley nodded, trying to be as courteous as she could be to him while supporting her lady.

"You will have to wait here my lady" Conrad answered briskly. He did not appear to be joking and this new side of him was creeping her and the princess out, sending chills down their spine as the remaining maids went ahead.

"For what?" Alice sounded more like a spoiled child than a princess at that moment but she did not care. She wanted to take of these clothes, bathe and sleep and if it were possible, stop thinking about the damn prince.

Conrad gave no reply but he did not need to. The next couple of seconds went by fast and soon the king arrived in his full armour along with a bunch of his own special guard and some soldiers. Alice was left speechless.

"Princess Alice" her father called and she was forced to step forward, trying to do so with as much grace as she could muster despite being so physically and mentally exhausted in a maids attire and no shawl.

"Yes father" the second she said that, she knew she had slipped again. The day just kept getting better and better, didn’t it?

Albert glared at her lightly before facing the quickly assembled soldiers, "Look to your people" the king started as he gestured that she turned to the soldiers on all sides.

She did, noting their neat uniforms, their orderliness, their height and the dangerous weapons they had sheathed. Other than that, they was nothing peculiar about this bunch and she did not know what her father was trying to do and that unsettled her.

"What is it you see?" her father asked looking at her intently, reminding her subtly to not embarrass herself and thereby embarrass him.

She gulped, standing straighter.

She was too exhausted to play this game but in order to please her father, she obliged, took a deep breath and started forming the right words in her head. It would take something really good to impress her father at this point because she could tell that he was already in a bad mood and she wouldn’t be a disgrace.

"I see strength" she began, raising her voice with each word "I see courage, I see unity, I see the sun of Springton that would crush her enemies in its heat. I see an army that would make its king proud, I see a king that has done that for them. I see victory!" She yelled the last words like a battlecry and every soldier chorused it. If only they knew that what she truly saw was an hot bathe, a plate of Harley’s cooking and a glass of rum she’d never had. She did not like thinking or talking about war but her father always made her do it so she had to learn how to be extremely convincing.

"My princess has spoken well" Albert took over from where she stopped and Alice could only wonder when it was all going to end. "The army of Springton will rise like the dawn of spring and bring fiery defeat to all who seek to question our might"

She was thinking about what that would mean for the enemy kingdom, for Prince Theodore’s family. What did defeat truly mean? From what she knew, wars did not always have to end in bloodshed. Both parties could reach a truce and agree to live in peace with one another.

Alice was certain she wasn’t being told everything about the war, not even by Harley. Her father had ordered that no one should ever bring up the talk about begining of the war in her prescence as he claimed that it was unnecessary and that only ending the war should be discussed.

"And the prince of Firseria have matched into our lands" the king had purposefully let his calm mask slip to show his disgusting, a sight that made many of the soldiers to feel uneasy "He dared to walk in our streets disguised as a farm boy, making us look like fools to the other kingdoms and to our people" Alfred spoke each word with venom in his voice as he recounted simple things that Theodore did and make it look treasonous even to her. He had the soldiers riled up and ready for attack as any good commander would.

"Bring Prince Theodore to me" he barked orders, his voice thundering like the feet of the knights that marched choruses.

"Dead or alive" he added and Alice wished her heart died at that instruction but no instead her heart started to beat ten thousand times faster, her chest hurting as her heart thundered like woode boots thump.

She had to do something.