Hunted Queen

Chapter Twenty Three • Kings of Different Sorts

*Warning! Abusive Content*

-Uldard- 

Hours went by and that scout never came. The night felt as if it was stretched so thinly by now that dawn could break at any moment, but the light of day never came. Strange, he thought. 

Uldard glanced in his son's direction. William had finally stopped pacing back and forth. However, now he was sitting in a chair, brooding. Just sitting there. Saying nothing. Doing nothing but mull over something he did not share aloud. His jaws were set and the joy Uldard had so much enjoyed seeing in his son's eyes, was washed away. There wasn't a trace of it in him now. 

Rowan had stolen his son's highest treasure in an act of cowardice - although Rowan himself would see it as cunning and an effective solution to his problem, which was William. He was breaking him without even touching him.

Jade would have my head if she knew I was thinking of her as a treasure. Belonging to William. To a man. She is no man's possession. He thought to himself and fought back the smirk that was about to surface as he heard his beloved daughter in law lecture him with that playful but bold spark in her eye. Suddenly, he could envision her giving Rowan a piece of her mind as well.

He must have failed in hiding his smirk because William suddenly raised his head and watched directly at him. 

"What?" William growled darkly. Bordering on the edge of blatant disrespect. "What could possibly be amusing you right now, father?" 

"I am not finding anything amusing, my boy." He answered in return and ignored his son's rudeness.

Had it not been for the fact that Jade had been bloody abducted, he would have reminded the man in front of him who had made it possible for him to marry Jade in the first place.  Or was it more correct to refer to him as 'a shell of a man'? Because that was what he seemed to have turned into now that his queen had been ripped from him.

And for the love of everything that was good, Uldard could not determine if his son being so distraught because of the abduction of his queen was a good thing or a bad thing!

Could he lead a kingdom into and out of a war if he allowed himself to turn into whatever shell of himself that Uldard was currently being forced to witness? Could he lead men into battle like this?

Or was it a good thing that William was this upset? It strangely felt like it was. Uldard had spent a lifetime watching a silent, brooding young man who did not find any anything even the slightest exciting. No girl caught his eye, no victory in sparring or battle made his lips twitch into a smile. The only time Uldard could remember seeing his son smile was when he was little and around Elizabeth, or later on when he would drink with Loren and Uldard himself. Then, and only then would a slice of William's happiness show itself. 

Until Jade. He thought as he studied his impatient and waiting son. Thinking of the sight if him when he had come to tell his parents about Jade.

William would never, and will never, let me down when it comes to his duties... but Jade is his most highly treasured... He stopped himself when he was about to think of her as something closely related to 'possession'. She is his only reason to smile nowadays. And how he loved to see his son smile. Would his son have been unfit to rule if he'd never found that captivating and little mouthy thing of a girl? No, but Jade was what was missing in William, and he what missed in her hopefully.

"Then why are you smirking as if there is something amusing you?" William asked when Uldard never said anything to explain himself further. 

"I was thinking of Jade." He admitted and watched the anger drain from his son's face. It broke Uldard's heart instantly. His brows furrowed sadly and he could feel the lines appear in his forehead as he grimaced, sharing in his son's pain but not knowing the peak of intensity in it. From what it seemed like, he was only in the shallows of what his young king was experiencing.