The Prince's Choice ✔

Chapter Forty Three • On The Run

Okay, I don't know how much you guys care but I think it is good news; in about a week or a week and a half I will be DONE with my bachelor and I can't wait to have all my free time focused on this story! It will be pure heaven to be able to sit down with it whenever I want without feeling guilty for not doing school work! (lol) I can't friggin' wait!

-Jade-

You could almost have thought that the city was on fire too. From the screaming people running in the street it was not so different from how the servants had been screaming in the kitchen and corridors.

The air smelled of the smoke spewing out from the castle. Red flames licked the walls of the castle, turning the stone it was made from black with soot. From every little flame, red, orange or yellow, soot arose and was carried off with the wind.

Jade watched as the fire consumed the left wing of the castle, a part she had never ventured to as much as she could or wanted to. It was sad nonetheless. She mourned the books that were most likely consumed by fire right now. If the fire had spread to the library that was...

"I can't believe she set fire to it." Jade whispered airily with her eyes still fixed on the burning stone building she had been forced to consider her home for a while.

Loren grunted something next to her. He too was watching the tragic outcome of a lunatic's doing. It must have been worse for him than Jade of course. She didn't mourn the castle, it was nothing else than a cage for her. For Loren it was a home, a place where he had grown up. Jade glanced sideways at him. There was no sign in his face that told her of an eventual sorrow. Nothing played in his eyes.

"Are you alright, Loren?" Jade whispered and turned her eyes towards the castle again. The screams of a servant girl made chills run down her spine. From the sound of it she was hurting, possibly on fire because she sounded like she was in immense agony. It made Jade grimace.

"Yes." Loren answered shortly. "Come on. We need to find a carriage or horses so we can leave this place."

"Where are we going?" Jade asked and followed Loren who had quickly turned around and started walking towards the direction of the gate Jade had made it through in her failure of an escape. "North?"

Loren shook his head.

"No. It is not safe." He argued as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We will have to travel from place to place. The prince's castle will be the first place they will send guards to find you."

"Find me?" She repeated.

Loren gave her a frown that revealed that he thought she was smarter than this and should be able to figure it out on her own. Jade stared at him with widened eyes, signaling the desperate desire for an explanation. Loren sighed and she thought she saw him roll his eyes at her.

"If the girl manages to convince everyone that you tried to kill the queen, then every soldier in the kingdom will come for you." He explained. "That is why we will not go to the castle in the North."

"Do you think William will believe I did it?" she asked quietly. The fact that she would be hunted down like dog didn't get a place on the list of her worries. All she cared about was if William would believe the rumor or not... She also wanted for Elizabeth to be safe and the servant girl to be... dead. She wasn't proud of it, but she felt a deep desire to see the girl meet her end. A dark part of her mind even wished for it to be William who killed her. So she would understand that her obsession with him was caused by her own insanity and not a realistic outcome.

"No, but I fear the consequences he will face if he goes through with your marriage now." He answered discouragingly." Jade felt a brief moment of relief but it was quickly stifled by Loren's tone.