‘You don’t seem awfully concerned that you’re in a cage,’ the guard noted with furrowed eyebrows.
He had moved to the bench that was directly opposite the cage Viktor was in and sat with his arms crossed over his worn leather armour. Viktor was more than happy to leave the guard in his state of confusion because the more confused he was, the easier it would be to eventually escape. But that was a plan that he sincerely hoped he’d never have to try and pull off.
Viktor had spent a fair amount of time in cages over the course of his life. It was just something about being a prince that seemed to make him so kidnappable.
The first time he was kidnapped he was just a few weeks old, but the perpetrator didn’t manage to get very far. He was found after two days after being hidden in a strange wizard tower and was swiftly brought back to the castle.
The second time he was just two months old, and as it turned out, one of the young maids had decided that it would be better to raise him away from ‘damaging’ life that was the capital city. She didn’t make it out of the city gates.
After the ninth time in just three years, the king and queen decided that raising him away from the city might’ve been a good idea after all. Besides, it wasn’t like he was their first born son, so there was no harm in not making him learn any ‘kingly’ duties. Viktor had three older brothers after all, and another two older sisters that were more likely to take the throne than he ever was.
But the kidnappings didn’t seem to stop.
Something about a ‘higher destiny’ and being a ‘gift from the divines’ meant that he was a sought after target. Not that any of them ever came of anything. Viktor would be kidnapped for a few days, at most a week or two, and then he was taken back to one of the estates across Aedria.
It quickly became just a part of life for Viktor. It was actually a welcome change to the usual dry life of being sat in a room all day and not being allowed out for fear of being kidnapped or killed, so he started to view them as miniature holidays.
[to be continued]
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