Stolen by the Rebel King
Chapter 47: Kidnapped

Chapter 47: Kidnapped

"―have her but it’s not like we―"

"Yes."

"―don’t act so high and mighty, mate. Don’t forget. The little lady is still in our hands."

Daphne slowly regained her consciousness. At first, everything sounded like it was ringing, a high-pitched screech resounding in her eardrums. The world looked as though it was covered with flickering black spots and her vision occasionally blurred and refocused.

Bit by bit, her sense of sight and hearing went back to normal. She soon realized that her hands were bound behind her back and her ankles were bound together with a rope. On top of that, she was lying on her side, the angle her head was resting at made her neck impossibly sore.

"Ugh..." she groaned. "My head..."

She squinted, trying to get her eyes to feel a little more comfortable. Right now, they were dry and her eyelids felt like they were stuck together. She could barely open them.

From what she could tell, within the cabin’s dimly lit interior, a solitary figure sat upon a worn wooden table and chair, their silhouette illuminated by the flickering glow of a solitary candle. The dancing flame cast eerie shadows upon the rough-hewn walls, revealing glimpses of the rotting wood.

Before him lay a piece of sodalite, its deep blue hue reflecting the candlelight like a portal to realms unknown. The stone, as Daphne guessed, was a conduit for magical communication. Whoever the speaker was on the other side, she could only make a wild guess. They spoke in hushed voices and whatever she could hear could barely be pieced together to form a proper sentence.

Surrounded by the night, the man’s eyes gleamed with a mixture of weariness and determination. He spoke softly, his words floating on the air like whispers of forgotten incantations.

"You said three days." Her kidnapper hissed, his voice slightly raised, tinged with anger. "Two and a half have gone by."

The other side said something, things that Daphne couldn’t hear still. But one thing was for sure― they hadn’t noticed yet that she was awake.

"A hundred thousand. That was the deal!" This time, her kidnapper’s voice was slightly raised, no longer as hushed as before. Anger coated every syllable, his fist clenched tightly as it hit on the wooden table surface.

Daphne’s squirming stopped, afraid that if she moved, the man would redirect his anger to her instead. Yet, she was well hidden in the shadows. The light hadn’t reached her and her movements were difficult to catch when shielded by the dark.

"―alive and well. Only then―"

"Money first, Your Majesty," the man leered.

At his words, Daphne’s blood chilled.

’Your Majesty’?

Was the man just sarcastic or was he conversing with royalty? Not a lot of people could get their hands on magic crystals across the kingdoms. The only people that could use a slab of sodalite for communication were limited to either royalty or those wealthy enough to get it through illicit means.

And if it were royalty, Daphne greatly doubted that the person the man was conversing with was her lovely husband. With the way he had reacted at the fair when they had encountered the unlawfully sold crystals had been explosive enough for her to understand his stand when it came to the smuggling of crystals.

"You know very well that the mercenaries do not operate by your ’noble’ ways," the mercenary said in a low voice, tinged with warning. "Give my men our gold and then we’ll talk again. Until then, your precious princess’s life is in our hands."

***

"Where is she?!"

A stack of papers flew to the ground, the purple tint surrounding them slowly dissipating. Yet, the ring that was on Atticus’s finger remained glowing, stating clearly that the user had no intention of backing down from magic any time soon.

"Atticus―"

"No, don’t ’Atticus’ me." The king’s eyes were bloodshot. He sharply turned to Jonah, sneering. "Your men had one job. One. Guard her and make sure she is not to leave the palace without my supervision. And yet, she has escaped to who knows where."

"We have reason to believe that she didn’t escape on her own, Your Majesty," one of the knights dared to speak up, his voice basically a squeak.

"Yes," another supplied, "the queen would be unable to find her way out of the palace without external supervision, as per the wards installed previously. Someone would’ve had to bring her out."

"And you think I wouldn’t know that?" Atticus seethed. The two men immediately cowered back.

Anger, like molten lava coursing through his veins, burned brightly in the king’s eyes and etched deep lines of frustration upon his brow. His jaw clenched tightly, revealing the tension that gripped his entire being.

"We will find her," Jonah calmly said. Having seen one too many of Atticus’s fury, he was more adept than the other knights at handling the situation.

Every fiber of Atticus’s being vibrated with an intensity that threatened to shatter the very foundation of his palace. The walls around him seemed to tremble in fear, mirroring his inner turmoil. His fists, once gentle and playful, now clenched with a vice-like grip, aching to release the pent-up frustration that raged within.

His thoughts were a tumultuous storm, swirling with a maelstrom of emotions. He knew that she was angry with him for pretending to be ill but he hadn’t thought that she would escape yet again.

After that night.... After that kiss....

Atticus’s jaw tightened then unclenched, repeating the action multiple times. The glow of his obsidian ring died down. In the end, he was also to blame for letting his guard down around her. He didn’t know why but it came so naturally to relax when she was nearby. He had nearly forgotten their circumstances.

He was her captor and she wasn’t with him out of her own free will. Their marriage was nothing more than a farce. How foolish had Atticus been to have let Daphne worm her way into his heart. It had brought on nothing but trouble.

Maybe she was skilled in the art of magic, after all. Perhaps it was just unlike his brothers and sisters; instead of pyromancy, she was skilled in the art of beguiling and bewitching the human mind, to bend and manipulate people’s thoughts and emotions to her desires.

Yes, that must be it. How else could he explain what had fogged his mind and robbed him of his clarity so easily?

"You left the palace briefly in the afternoon," Jonah said. "Did you see anything outside?"

"If I did," Atticus’s eyelid twitched in displeasure, "wouldn’t you think that I would’ve looked into it already?"

"Then she might’ve left after you have, Your Majesty," the first knight that had previously spoken murmured, his voice a little shaky.

"Or before," Jonah said, a finger at his chin, deep in thought. "We had a visitor today."

Atticus’s gaze sharpened. "Who?"

"Make a lucky guess," Jonah said. "He was the entire reason you had the luxury of pretending to be poisoned in order to garner pity."

Just then, a knock sounded on the door to Atticus’s office. All four men in the room turned to look, silence filling the air.

"Come in," Atticus ordered.

The door was quickly pushed open and a man stepped in. The expression on his face was grave and wary.

He had heard the commotion even from downstairs and knew that the king wasn’t in a good mood. True enough, the knight’s heart sank as he beheld the wrath that ignited in his king’s eyes. Fear gripped his every fiber, as the king’s anger, a tempestuous storm, threatened to consume all in its path.

It was best to make his report and leave as soon as possible.

"Your Majesty, there is a man requesting your presence."

The brows on Atticus’s face furrowed. "Send him away. Can’t you see I am busy?"

"It’s Lord Attonson, Your Majesty," the man clarified. Atticus’s expression darkened. "He said that there is something important he needs to report and must see you at once."

"Lord Attonson?" Jonah echoed, confused. Then, something clicked in his mind as his eyes widened like saucers. The look of cogs turning in his mind was visible on Jonah’s face.

Jonah finally remembered. Eugene Attonson had indeed been in the palace earlier this morning. He had been here to check in on the king’s well-being after hearing rumors that he had been poisoned.

That brought a scoff out of Jonah’s lips. In the end, it was still because of Atticus’s own unwise decision of pretending to be ill that had brought the rat into the palace. Just that this time, it had managed to successfully sneak the cheese out the walls.

The knight turned a shade paler as Atticus’s face turned gloomier by the second. The latter looked like a volcano about to explode. There was no doubt in Jonah’s mind that he, too, had figured out what Eugene Attonson was in the palace to talk about this time around.

True enough, the knight then cleared his throat and continued.

"It’s regarding the queen."