Prince of Time

Chapter Nine - The Young Prince

Castle guards tried to stop them at the gates but Pepper barged past them, uncaring.

“Warriors,” she declared. “Here to protect the prince. Take us to him.”

“You have also been sent? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

They turned and saw a boy standing by the wall, a dark-haired boy with frighteningly intense eyes.

“You’re…the dragon rider from the festival?” Maple furrowed her brow, trying to remember. “The one from the fight.”

“The same,” the boy held out a hand. “I believe we have common cause.”

Maple shook his hand, the way dragon riders greeted one another. For a moment, they each tightened their grip, trying to crush the bones.

The boy quirked a smile. “Allies, for now? I don’t want to have to watch all sides at once. If I’m serving with someone, I cannot have them out to get me.”

“Allies,” Maple agreed. “We can be enemies again once this mess is sorted out. I’m Maple.”

She bowed like a warrior, and he copied with ease, as if the gesture was familiar to him.

“Nicanor,” he announced.

“Pepper,” Pepper stepped in. “Peppermint.”

The three regarded one another for a while, each trying to read another’s weaknesses and gage their strengths.

“Two more,” a guard grunted. “Should be the lot. We’ll take you to his highness.”

Maple glanced at the other two. One was a girl in unicorn-heart silver. She was startlingly pretty, with wide brown eyes and soft blonde hair tied up behind her head, ringlets escaping beside her rose-petal cheeks.

 The other was a rough-clothed boy in brown, his hair seeming to be the same swooping blonde fringe all the way round, save at the front where his mouth was just visible. What his eyes looked like Maple couldn’t possibly begin to guess.

“This way,” the guard ordered. “Fast.”

They were led from the courtyard into the keep and from there it was corridor after corridor, staircase after staircase. For a rough castle in a frontier town, it was luxuriously equipped and Maple had to fight hard not to cower before glaring portraits and velvet wall-hangings.

“Who are you?” a boy stepped out of the shadows. “What do you want?”

He was tall and broad-shouldered, with the condensed muscle of a dragon rider. His skin was darker than most in Merdia, though nothing like that of the desert kingdoms. He was wild-haired, black eyes staring.

  He was also intriguingly beautiful. There was something in the way he stood and the precise layout of his features that made Maple’s knees want to buckle. Blood rushed to her cheeks and she struggled to send it back, to refuse to let herself be awed.

  He looked tragic, too. In the clothes of a common soldier, wild and slightly barbarian, cheeks stained with tears, he was a storybook character from her childhood, a mysterious and wonderful hero.

“Your highness,” the guard bowed.

Prince Tobiah looked at the five young people with mild interest.

“Your new bodyguards,” the guard informed him.

“Interesting,” he said, lightly, his voice in total contrast to his expression. “I suppose nobody of importance would have missed the gathering.”