30 Days As A Substitute Prince

Hasty feet raced down the palace halls with a bit of a hop in each step, as Zadkiel rushed to know if the news was true.    The buzz had been going around for quite sometime now, but it hadn't come to his knowledge until just now. Zadkiel didn't even hesitate to pursue the truth; he just simply had to know.    "It is true, Mother? That I'll be going away soon?" The question was out before Zadkiel had even stepped fully into his mother's chambers. The hush rumors passing from servant to servant of this 'alleged trip' was simply too good to be true.    But Zadkiel couldn’t bear the suspense. He wanted to know--needed to know it all were accurate.    Could it really be? After 22 years of being locked behind the huge doors of the Imperial Palace, he would be leaving? It all seemed surreal, yet there was a slight nudge telling him that this was finally the time. He was, after all, of age.    "What do you mean, my dear?" Queen Vivian asked as she spun on her heels, a smile immediately brightening her features at the sight of her precious boy. Zadkiel had been and always will be Queen Vivian's most prized and cherished gift of all life, and she believed that everything she did for him was out of pure love.    "Oh mother, do not tease me. Is it true that I am leaving soon? Will I finally be free from these kingdom walls?" Zadkiel's hands grew sweaty as he inched closer to his mother with bright, blue anticipating eyes, and his pearly whites beaming brightly at her.    Vivian sighed contently as she closed the rest of the distance and held his cheeks between her hands. "It will surely pain me to see you go, my love."    "So it is true then? I am to leave Imperial?" he asked with a single raise in the pitch of his voice. The news alone had caused electric waves to surge through Zadkiel's veins, but the confirmation was much greater.    Growing up, he had a quite fulfilling childhood and everything he could ever ask for. He had all the toys a boy could ever want, and he had all the space to play about, frolic and enjoy the freedom of youth. That is, until he started to grow and discovered there was more to life than just what he had known behind the palace walls.    The king and queen had surely gotten their fair share of questions from young Zadkiel. 'Why can't I go to regular school? Why can't I have friends on the outside? Why can't I ride a horse through the gates like the guards always do?'    'It is only for your safety, Zadkiel,' they had told him on many occasions. But he grew deaf to this plea eventually. He was all too curious about what laid on the outside of the huge gates.   The outside.    Oh how Zadkiel dreamt so much to go beyond the huge brown gate that was always guarded by ten men, and the walls that were as high as the largest trees. He'd lay awake at night, plotting new ways how he could get a glimpse of the outside, or just a mere second of freedom without anyone ever knowing.    And he did. On a Saturday evening when he knew the guards would carry the horses beyond the gates, he hid himself in the back of a carriage and was whisked away in the open world beyond the safety of his home. Zadkiel could remember how fun it had been at first, running around the village with kids his age, frolicking in meadows and riding horses through it, despite the hundreds of times he'd fall off.    He could remember climbing an apple tree to the very top, where he sat and shared his fruit with his new friends, telling them stories about the palace that they'd never been in.    He remembered how he found his first experience with actual kids a bit confusing when they all expressed that they had no knowledge that a prince was living in the palace. At 12 years old, Zadkiel was old enough to realize that no one knew that a prince had even existed.    It wasn’t long after when a guard found him, and pulled him kicking and screaming back to his home, where he met a furious King Eric and his weeping mother awaiting him. Zadkiel wasn’t too fond of the moment either, after learning that his existence was kept a secret his whole life. It was that day when he knew that something was wrong with the sense of it all.    It didn’t take a genius to guess that his parents purposely locked him away to keep him as a secret, and it took years for him to finally learn the whole truth behind it, after much pleading, dismissing and threats from his father never to leave the palace again, 'Or else'.    Zadkiel never tried again to learn what that 'or else' meant, but he soon grew comfortable with his living arrangements, only trusting his mother's persistence on his safety.    So, to have this amazing news that he would finally see the outside again, finally interact with people who didn’t work for him and finally have a life that didn’t consist of him viewing what real people did from his bedroom window, was most exhilarating.    He didn’t care for the terms, he only knew that it was long overdue.    "Don’t make haste just yet, Zadkiel. You must know what you are leaving to do." His mother's voice pulled him back to reality, and he only nodded eagerly, knowing he could agree to anything at this point.    All Vivian wanted was to keep a smile on her son's face for as long as she could. But she also knew that he had to know for sure what he needed to do.    "What do you mean?" Zadkiel asked, his excitement simmering down at the sight of his mother's nerves. She took him by the hand and led him to her chair, where he sat in anticipation of what was to come next.    "When you were young, one of the princesses from Oryn was promised to you as your bride when you both shall come of age. You would've known this already." Indeed, he did know it all.    He had been homeschooled all his life, but he learnt about everything that he needed to know about being a prince, and eventually a king. He was trained, taught, skilled and most definitely geared to taking his bride that was promised to him since birth.    Unfortunately, he had always had a stupid hope that when the time comes, he would be able to gain his love on his own, rather than marry someone because their parents arranged it. Nonetheless, he understood a hundred percent and he didn’t refuse.    Finding his own love interest was just another fantasy in his mountain of fantasies he had imagined over the years.    "Princess Aria," he said knowingly, and his mother beamed brightly at him.    "Indeed. Your father and I had just received the letter from King Andrew, that Princess Aria is ready for marriage. Isn’t that lovely?"    Zadkiel gulped as sudden nerves grew in him. “We will need time to get acquainted, will we not?"    "Of course," Vivian waved off. "The wedding is not for another month, my dear. You will have plenty of time."    He nodded slowly as a lump formed in his throat. A bride--his bride was waiting for him somewhere across the ocean. And then it came to him. He would have to travel.    The excitement that had begun to dwindle down grew in him again. "Oryn is a ship trip away, I believe?" he asked and his mother nodded in confirmation. "Will I be going alone? I am quite eligible to do so, Mother," he added quickly. He didn’t want to hurt his dear mother, as he knew she loved to have him under her arms.    But of twenty-two years, he was sure he would be able to manage himself well without them. He had been training to do so all his life, after all.    She offered him a strained smile but held onto his hand lightly. "You will be going with Joshua. We--I trust that he will help you manage quite well," she said surprisingly calmly, when in contrast, the very thought of her son leaving brought a single thought to her head. A thought she had lived with all these years, and had prayed every night that her efforts to keep him safe were not in vain.    Vivian hoped and prayed that she wouldn't find him.    "If this news had somehow become gossip around the palace, I sure hope it hadn’t gone beyond the palace walls," Vivian mumbled to herself, and Zadkiel didn’t miss the fear that grew in her eyes.    "Nothing will hurt me," he assured quickly, not wanting to have her reconsider anything. "No one in the kingdom knows that you bore another son, and I will be in Oryn soon, far away from any danger. You need not to worry."    Zadkiel sealed the deal by pulling her into a long  and needed hug, showing her that she will never lose him. He knew this was hard for her, so he had to appreciate that she wasn’t reluctant.    Still, he couldn't wait for what this new life had in store for him, or what adventure he'd soon be on.