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Rumors that a challenger to King Freslik’s throne had risen up along the western frontier of the kingdom spread like wildfire. Hope began to sparkle among the peasants of the kingdom as the lineage of Osric, King Freslik’s own nephew, was whispered from village to village. For the first time in a generation, people had hope that things might get better.

In the castle itself, King Freslik stomped around, raging at his councilors and abusing his guards.

“I had that pretender, Osric, at my mercy,” he shouted during one particularly horrible strategy session. “I had an army at my disposal. Why did I not take him then and there and destroy this potential rebellion?”

“You were attempting to show mercy, Your Majesty,” the councilor Argus said with a shrug of his old, stooped shoulders. “Osric returned the princes to you in exchange for his life.”

“The princes,” King Freslik spat. “They are the reasons I am in this position. It’s all their fault. I will visit them at once! ”

The king and a few of his councilors and guards marched their way directly through the castle and up to the princes’ bedchamber. The door was barred with three times as many bars now and chains over the top of the bars. It took three men five minutes to take it all apart and to move the bars so that the king could storm into his sons’ chamber.

But when he smashed open the doors and strode in, expecting to find four of his sons up to no good, he instead found only two of them, the eldest and the youngest, sitting at a table in the center of the room playing chess.

“What is the meaning of this?” the king demanded.

The two princes blinked up at him.

“We were just playing chess,” Prince Rumi said. “Would you care to join us?”

“No, I would not….” The king growled with frustration and looked around the room. “Where are the others? What has happened to the rest of the princes?”

“You lost them along the way, Father,” Prince Obi said with apparent innocence. “They all fell out of the wagon on their way back from the frontier.”

“They did not…that isn’t…you can’t convince me….”

The king’s gaze fell on the window that looked out into one of the castle’s gardens.

“There!” he shouted, pointing at the window. “That’s how they’ve escaped! They’ve climbed out through the window.”

The two remaining princes exchanged wary looks.

“Bar the window at once!” the king shouted. “I won’t have any more of my sons escaping.”

The guards were slow to obey, but they did eventually come forward with planks left over from barring the door to fasten into place over the garden window .

“You’ll live in darkness until I know what happened to the other omegas,” the king growled, glaring at his sons. “I’ll offer a reward throughout all the land for anyone who can tell me where my omega sons are disappearing to. Whoever can solve the mystery will have the right to claim either of your next heats and every other heat after that.”

He grinned with glee as he left his sons to their fate. Not only would offering a prince’s heat motivate the people of his kingdom to tell him what had become of his missing sons, it would make the ones that remained miserable. It was the perfect solution to his embarrassing problem.

I hope you’ve enjoyed Leo and Diamant’s story!