Pursued

After making it out of the imperial capital without further setbacks, Arvell, fed up with being trapped in a cramped barrel, finally voiced his displeasure.

"Can I get out of this now? I'm getting sore from being stuck in this barrel."

Jessica and Calen looked at each other once before Jessica walked over to the barrel and sat beside it.

"Prince, please understand that we are doing this for your safety. If your pursuers catch up with the carriage, they will be able to see you. The last thing we need is for them to know where you are."

Arvell, of course, knew this, but he was sleep-deprived and mentally and physically exhausted. Which only served to worsen his mood.

Naturally, he directed his anger and displeasure at the barrel since it gave him cramps simply by being confined within it.

While he might have been incredibly mature for his age, he was still a thirteen-year-old kid, so his tolerance levels were not that high.

However, even adults would have been incredibly irritated if they had gone through the same experiences that Arvell went through the last two days.

Arvell realizing that he had let his irritable mood get the better, took a deep breath to calm himself, but even that was only able to do so much.

He decided to distract himself by talking to Jessica, who he knew was sitting next to him from the sound of her earlier footsteps.

"Jessica, how strong are you and Calen? You were able to kill those two assassins who came after us pretty easily," Arvell inquired.

"This is supposed to be classified information, but honestly, I don't think the Queen would mind if I tell you, as you already know about our existence."

Jessica moved her head to look up at the caravan's roof as if reminiscing about her past.

"Calen and I are both 5th circle magicians that work as the Queen's arms and legs; we work to protect your mother and carry out her will… no matter what. Anything from gathering information to assassinating her enemies."

Arvell thought for a moment before remembering something he had initially been tossed to the back of his mind.

"Were you the ones who killed my stepmother? The Second Queen Consort?" Arvell inquired.

The Second Queen Consort Mirabelle Kelan was the mother of the third princess Listarelle and the second prince Carnis, and while she was caring for her children, she was the textbook definition of an 'evil stepmother.'

She would use any excuse to pick on the members of the royal family that weren't related to her and was widely hated by most of the king's children. However, with her being the princess of a neighbouring kingdom, the king couldn't do much to her if he wanted to have a peaceful relationship with the bordering country. Furthermore, he viewed this as a way to temper his children and allow them to grow mentally strong, so he turned a blind eye to it.

Using her identity as foreign royalty, she repeatedly told her children that since they had the blood of Kelan and Vispia royalty in their bodies, they were superior by birth compared to their half-siblings. Unfortunately, this only served to inflate their ego and cause them to treat everyone with contempt in a similar fashion to their mother.

However, one morning Mirabelle was found dead in the royal courtyard, with the cause of death being a fall.

Her maid was put to death since the cause of Mirabelle's death was reported to be tripping on a puddle of water before falling to her death.

Calen and Jessica were both visibly shocked at Arvell's words, so much so that Calen unconsciously pulled too hard on the reins causing the horses to abruptly slow down, causing the entire caravan to shake.

After realizing his mistake, he quickly urged the horses to return to their original speed.

"Damn, kid, you're pretty sharp for your age," Calen acknowledged.

"Calen, the Queen wanted us to refer to him as prince Arvell remember?" Jessica reminded.

"Yeah, yeah, my bad. But either way, the prince has a good head on his shoulders. But regarding your question about the stunt with the third concubine, the answer is yes."

"I knew that her death seemed way too suspicious to be a mere accident," Arvell voiced, "She shouldn't have just slipped off of a water spill to fall through the balcony to her death; she's not that incompetent even if she was drunk."

Hearing Arvell recount the story, Jessica turned to look at Calen with a scrutinizing glare.

"Ok, ok, I admit the method on how she was assassinated sounds pretty dumb. But, you knew we were in a rush because of what she was planning to do. I didn't have enough time to create a more believable scenario."

"Planning to do?" Arvell inquired.

"It's not important anymore, as the problem's already been dealt with," Jessica responded.

Suddenly the caravan came to an abrupt stop again.

"Calen, what's wrong?" Jessica inquired.

"Fuck… they're here," Calen muttered before swiftly deflecting two daggers flying towards their heads.

Jessica readied herself before peeking at the front of the caravan, only to see 5 masked men standing in front of it.

"We have got you surrounded; either surrender the prince or die," The man coldly voiced out.

"We don't know what you're talking about? Which prince?" Jessica asked while slowly grabbing her dagger from inside of her sleeve.

"Don't play dumb; there is a tracking magic spell on his engagement ring, and we followed it to this location."

'THAT BITCH! Why the hell did she put tracking magic on the engagement ring?' Arvell thought to himself. Since she gave him the engagement ring last year, this was still a full year before his condition was revealed. So then, why would she have done this so early on? While it didn't make sense to Arvell, it did nothing to change the current situation. Either way, they already knew he was here.

Calen looked extremely pissed before muttering a spell under his breath.

"Cloak me in a veil of clouds, and hide me from vision… MIST VIEL"

Jessica followed Calen and began to cast a spell as well.

"Give me a shield to protect myself from my enemies… BARRIER"

A sudden veil of mist rapidly surrounded the nearby vicinity while a thin protective barrier encapsulated the caravan.

"They created a mist with a barrier!" one of the pursuers yelled.

"Attack it with your strongest spells; we should be able to break it in no time," another one responded.

The assassins began to barrage the caravan with magic spells with water, fire and ice arcs repeatedly banging on the barrier.

Using their precious time, Jessica ducked back into the caravan and quickly helped Arvell escape from his wooden cage and confiscated the engagement ring.

"Prince, you need to run; if you stay here, you will get caught up in the crossfire. The barrier won't be able to hold for too long. We will quickly finish them off before catching up to you."

Arvell nodded his head and stealthily slipped out of the back of the caravan, using the mist to keep himself out of sight.

After he got far enough that his footsteps wouldn't alert the assassins, he sprinted forwards, heading in the direction of a nearby river.

However, as he got closer to a river, he felt intense and unbearable pain in his chest which caused him to momentarily stop.

Arvell looked down at his chest only to find a blood-soaked blade.