Kings and Thieves

Chapter 32

**here you guys go. Hope this helps with some unanswered questions.**

Chapter 32

"Prince Tristran fell in love with a farm boy? That's his big secret?" Ari exclaimed. He seemed almost disappointed, as if he was expecting something more explosive.

"Wait, wait. I'm confused," said Aveline. "So all the times that you said Tristran ran away from home, he was with Jamie's brother?"

"Yes," Lyla confirmed. She nearly felt like laughing- maniacally, with tears flooding her cheeks- but laughing. She'd known Tristran's whereabouts the entire time; the answer was hidden in a memory, one she'd carefully hidden from months before. "So that's what he meant by ironic."

"What?"

"Ari, Aveline." Lyla turned to them eagerly. "I never told you this, but a little while ago I caught Tristran sneaking out of the palace. He was with a boy I had never seen before, and they were holding hands." She forced herself to slow down in her excitement. "Tristran made me promise to keep his secret, and I did."

She remembered the scene as clear as day; it was one of those many nights at the palace when she couldn't sleep. She'd been sitting on her favorite perch in the palace; a small marble ledge just perfect for someone her size to dangle her legs over and scan the kingdom at twilight, when the heat had cooled down and the small desert reptiles came out of hiding to scamper around the desert.

Hearing a noise down below, she'd scaled her way down the palace wall in a matter of seconds; only to find Prince Tristran mounting an unknown horse, clasping the rough hand of a boy she had never seen before.

"Promise me you won't say anything," he'd all but begged her, his face white and frantically pleading. "Promise me."

Perhaps that small, pivotal moment in time was why Lyla felt so connected to her royal cousin, why she'd searched for him so determinedly. That small weakness of his had shown her that there was someone else in the palace who didn't want to be there. Someone who longed for something more than the stiff rules they were wrestled into obeying. Someone else who felt... trapped.

"I never did tell anyone," she murmured, dragging herself back to the present.

Her companions were goggling at her with expressions of horror.
"The boy we saw just now," Ari spluttered, "Ben, or whatever... You've seen him with Tristran before? And you didn't think to tell us? Do you know how pertinent that would have been to the investigation?!"

"I know, but I promised him, Ari."

Ari didn't look convinced, so Lyla plowed on. "But, you see, the irony he was talking about in his letter— he meant that this is the second time he's gotten into trouble with that boy, and the second time I've been there to rescue him."

"Ben," Jamie corrected. "He and Tristran seemed happy together... and our parents were ecstatic, of course. This was the perfect scenario; they thought that Ben had somehow seduced the prince, and they would constantly dream up these schemes to live off of Tristran's generosity..." she shook her head. "Ben would have none of it. He didn't like taking Tristran to our village, and he was very secretive about their relationship. He knew that our families would take advantage."

Jamie frowned. "And then one day, Ben was acting strangely. I heard him arguing with our parents for a long time before he went to bed, but I couldn't tell what about. And when I asked him what was wrong, he told me that Tristran was in danger, and that mother and father were a part of it. He asked me to deliver a note to the Queen of Apreuna for him."

Lyla's jaw dropped. "You delivered the anonymous note."

"Ben wrote it. I didn't even know what was inside! I hadn't known it then, but... he was trying to warn her." Jamie looked up, and her eyes were pink and unhappy. "By the time I got back, Ben, everyone... was gone. And then the other royals went missing. I had no idea what was happening, but I knew they were somehow going to use Tristran."