Chapter 24: Nobles In His Wake.

Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Nobles In His Wake.

It was a clear night, yet deeper in the castle the halls were thick with thunder.

It was the kind born of clangouring armour and the drumming of heavy boots upon stone, but all the same, it swelled up in the late summer air like the ominous, far-off rumble of a rising storm. And when the clouds broke, it rained black and red.

Armoured, breathless guards barrelled down the empty castle hallways; their maroon cloaks billowing out behind them and sweat pouring into their eyes –a blur of crimson hurtling ahead of them like wildfire and leaving them all in its wake.

Khobi tore on blindly, his lungs searing like every next breath might be his last. But he couldn’t afford to rest; couldn’t risk slowing, because there were palace guards already hot on his tail and pursuing him with a fervour he hadn’t known they possessed. This was their hunt, and he was the beast they so coveted –one that they seemed determined would not slip through their grasp again.

It had been Montrel who had spotted him –and Montrel who had first given chase. And to his credit, he’d kept up –nearly apprehending him a handful of times –and hadn’t, even for a moment, let up in his pursuit.

And now Khobi’s legs ached like nothing else, his ankles stung with every heavy stride, and his skin burned like he was sweltering in the midday sun –but he didn’t hate it, and he didn’t let it stop him.

He ached, sure, and his limbs were crying out for him to fall, but he could feel the evening wind on his face, he could hear the echo of men cursing his name with urgency, but without malice. He could feel the thrum of his heart pounding out of his chest, beating in time to the blood churning in his ears –roaring like a gale and burning like fire.

The kind of heat that reminded him that he was alive.

He felt, rather than saw, the desperate hand reaching up from behind him –clawing at him as if to pull him back –and it made him look.

Of course it was Montrel lunging for him –his black, gloved hand outstretched and something wild and focused flickering in his brown eyes.

He was close enough that Khobi could see that ferocity laid bare –could count the beads of sweat racing trails down his jaw, could see in his face that he was a man worthy of being a soldier. The armour he was wearing must have been weighing him down something awful, but he was still keeping pace, and it suddenly struck Khobi that maybe if he hadn’t been –if the circumstances were fairer, so to speak –then he might’ve even caught him by now.

Maybe.

Not a chance, Khobi immediately scoffed to himself, his red eyes flashing defiantly against Montrel’s gaze. And maybe to Montrel they looked like an inferno on a dark horizon, because his expression narrowed to an ominous scowl –one that a parent might wear when they know that a child is about to disobey them.

One that warns all too clearly, don’t you dare.

But he should’ve known better. He should’ve known by now that warnings and threats were futile, because in that moment, with sweat dripping down his face, drenching his long bangs to his forehead and soaking his shirt to his skin, Khobi smirked.

It was fleeting, different from the smug looks the redhead sometimes sent his way when he’d landed a particularly satisfying punch. And if Montrel had been a poetic breed of man, he might have said that whatever had flashed in his eyes right then was lightning, just as fleeting –just as bright –and made the very air around them crackle with static.

But that was all he had the chance to see, because an instant later Khobi shot off down the hallway like an arrow loosed from its string, and Montrel was left clutching at thin air and gawking at the figure slowly pulling ahead.

And that was when he heard the music, and his blood ran cold.

Fuck.

Not here. Not now.

Gods, no. The one place in the castle that they’d been desperate to herd Khobi away from, and he’d found it.

...

Now, Gurdet had been waiting the better part of the evening –and with bated breath, at that –for the whole affair to take a turn for the worst.It wasn’t exactly that he wanted Lord Sprida’s special event to be remembered as a fiasco of cataclysmic proportions and the Lord himself thus regarded as a fool...except that it was.

Not only was the night in sore need of a few unexpected happenings to keep (make) things really interesting, but it was always so much easier to deal with pompous men when they were –at least temporarily –the laughing stock of the castle.In fairness, he would have undoubtedly felt the same regardless of whatever noble family name had been attributed to the event.

He would be among the first to admit (aloud, at least –he knew that it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that the servants privately shared the sentiment) that Crade’s nobility could be quite the insufferable lot sometimes. And as their king, he felt he had every right to wish ridicule upon them every once in a while. Lord Sprida in particular though, had been unfortunate enough to draw undue attention to himself in days of late.

He was a man with a rather loud and grating voice, and the wealth, breeding, and self-importance of a man who was used to always being heard and heeded. So of course, Gurdet took great delight in handling him in much the same way as his wife had, neither hearing nor heeding him.

It was becoming increasingly difficult though, he had to say –the man was wearisomely insistent on arranging a match with the daughter of a man who he’d once sworn himself blue in the face was –although admittedly of noble birth, not of a stock noble enough to be a suitable consort for a queen.

And when Xena wasn’t the topic of conversation, it was her cousin and his outlandish ways –so improper, so common, so unbecoming of a member of the royal family.

Or maybe it was the servants and how they were far too entitled for his tastes, or the fact that the city that lay beyond the castle was a complete eyesore, or that the military standards were plummeting, or how it was a crying disgrace that there were still low-born men who did not know their place.

Or, most recently (and along a similar line, in fact), how much of a right farce it was for a mere pauper to marry true royal blood. Sometimes the man made it particularly difficult to remember that both his daughter and his late wife vehemently disapproved of killing off people just because he was the king and could make that sort of thing happen –but he figured that there wasn’t anything too morally questionable about merely sending him off to Briyagi where his breed of blatant belligerence would not be looked upon favourably. But he just knew that Xena would never let him hear the end of it.

And, more worryingly, Silas might just find that frankness refreshing. Gods, he would probably even play nice just to spite him, the little spider.

In any case, it was perhaps a little fitting, then, that it was the brazen young prince himself –the one without a kingdom or a penny to his name, and who the esteemed Lord Sprida so disapproved of –that quite literally brought the evening crashing down around them. As much as Gurdet detested Silas, he felt like he owed him his sincerest of gratitudes, because Khobi Frost was a gift that just kept on giving.

After all, there was nothing quite like a rebellious young royal wreaking havoc upon an otherwise reasonably uneventful evening.