Still, they just stared at me. As I looked up at their faces I could see they all looked shocked. Was it because of my elemental magic...?
No that couldn't be it, I mean it was pretty advanced magic, but still, it shouldn't have been enough to make a troop of knights speechless.
Suddenly there was a movement within the group of knights as one knight, who was dressed in completely black armour with a royal-blue and silver cape walked towards me.
He had short pitch-black hair, a sharp jaw and even sharper eyes. He was very handsome and looked just like the illustrations of brave nights I had seen in the books at the village school.
He carried overpowering energy around him. His eyes were zoning in on me as he walked closer to me. As I looked into his eyes I noticed that they were the same colour as mine, the same golden amber colour.
He stopped right in front of me which made me realise how tall he was, maybe six foot five inches, then kneeled down to my height and stared at me for a few moments more. A perplexed frown on his face. His hand then reached out to me and for a moment I thought about pulling away, but for some reason, I didn't. I let his large hand come to rest on my small cheek.
"How old are you?" He asked as he cupped my face in his hands.
I blinked, a little taken aback by the odd question. I didn't feel like he was threatening me, it actually felt like he was being purposefully gentle towards me.
"I am almost seven years old, Sir." At my answer, I saw raw emotion spill out of him, a mixture of relief and joy.
"It's really you, isn't it?" He asked me as if I could really answer a question that I didn't understand.
Just then Nehemia's voice broke through the silence of the forest, "Master! Are you here? Lunch is ready!" She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw all the knights around me.
The man holding my face stood up and turned to her. A smile lit up his brooding face.
"Nehemia. We found you at last." I turned to Nehemia to see her reaction. Her face was mixture shock and glee as her eyes swelled with tears.
"You found us, Your Highness." She said to the black-haired man as happy tears started to spill down her face. I then realised that I hadn't seen Nehemia cry since that night we escaped from those assassins. I also realised that she had just addressed this man as 'Your Highness'. Was he possibly part of the Royal family of Azlantean?
"This boy, he is the one, isn't he?" The black-haired man asked Nehemia gesturing to me. She nodded in reply.
"It's him."
They were starting to really confuse me with all of this 'it's him' talk.
"What's going on?" I asked, speaking up after not being able to put up with the suspense any longer.
"I'm sorry for not telling you sooner Master. " Nehemiah hurriedly wiped away her tears.
"Your full name is Torryn Leonis Rosenheim." She said.
My eyes opened wide at her words and my breath hitched in my throat. For all my life I had thought that Leonis was my surname. What was even more shocking was that Rosenheim was the surname of the Royal family of Azlantean.
"Wait, Rosenheim is my surname?" I asked confused.
"Yes, it is, your highness." She replied as she got down on one knee and kneeled before me.
"Highness?" I asked even more confused.
"Yes." The black-haired man answered me. "You are the missing prince of Azlantean and the heir to the throne." I looked up into his Amber-gold eyes. The same colour as mine, a lightbulb went off in my head, and I realized that this man was probably related to me.
"As well as my nephew." He confirmed my thought with a gentle smile.
Suddenly All of the knights standing around us in the forest got onto one knee and held their right arms over their chests. My brain was going into overdrive at everything that was happening.
"I-I'm your nephew?" I turned to the black-haired man standing next to me.
He chuckled. "I understand that this must be a lot to take in, so let me try and explain everything simply for you."
I nodded eagerly, wanting desperately to understand this mind boggling situation.
He stood there talking and explaining the whole story to me. My full name was Torryn Leonis Rosenheim, and I was the prince of Azlantean. My father is the King of Azlantean, and his name is Alistair Eilish Rosenheim. My uncle who was explaining everything to me was the King's younger brother and his name was Cassian Rosenheim. My mother's name is Verena Rosenheim and she is the Queen of Azlantean.
Six and a half years ago the Queen, who was heavily pregnant with me, travelled South of Azlantean to purchase some plums she had been craving from a small village. She wanted the trip to be discreet so she went at night and only took a few attendants and her most trusted guard, Nehemia. Somehow the information of her trip got leaked and her carriage was ambushed on its way there. The people who ambushed her carriage came very prepared and easily killed all the Queen's attendants. Consequently, after seeing her beloved attendants get slaughtered right in front of her, all the stress caused the Queen to go into early labour with me, and thus I was born in the middle of the chaos.
It was evident that the ambushers were in fact after me, the baby, and not the queen because they weren't at all interested in my mother, instead, they insisted that she hand me over to them. My mother realised this and ordered Nehemia to run away with me and keep me hidden until the Royal family came to fetch me one day. That was how my first memory of this world was of Nehemia carrying me through a forest in the middle of the night.
Days after that incident, the Royal family located the injured queen and took her back to Azlantean, but unfortunately, the early labour added to the emotional stress of having to send her newborn baby away had taken a serious toll on her physically and mentally. Thus she slipped into a coma that lasted for six years. In all that time nobody was able to tell the Royal family where the prince had gone, all they could do was wait until the Queen woke up for her to tell them where the child was.
As soon as the queen woke up, the first thing she uttered was the direction she had sent Nehemia and the baby prince in. For half a year, the finest knights Azlantean had to offer searched for the prince until the present day when they found me playing with elemental magic by a stream.
It was a long and sad story, that made me feel bad for my mother who had lost her child right after giving birth to him, and bad for my father who had lost both his child and his wife in one chaotic night. Although it was pretty heartbreaking, I didn't have time to sit and mull over it. Apparently, I had a whole Kingdom waiting for my return and I couldn't be late. Nehemia rushed me back to the village to pack all my things and say goodbye to everyone, while all the knights got everything ready to leave for Azlantean.
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"The prince is..." Began Amren who had carefully observed the newfound prince while he talked to Duke Cassian.
"So Gorgeous!" Shrieked Twila as she interrupted Amren.
"Did you see how gorgeous he is Amren? Did you see? Did you?" Shouted Twila excitedly.
Amren ran his fingers through his dark hair and sucked in deep breaths trying to compose himself, he truly hated when Twila got overly excited and started to interrupt him.
"Yes, Twila." Amren groaned. "Nobody can deny that the young prince is quite handsome. However, that was not what I was going to say before you interrupted me." Amren glared at Twila haughtily, which made Twila take a few weary steps backwards.
"The young prince seems to be highly skilled in elemental magic for his age. I've seen professional mages unable to reach that level of control of an element. In addition to that, the prince is quite tall for his age, if I didn't know how old he was I would guess that he was at least ten years of age."
Amren was known to be a cold and hard-hearted knight. He preferred to not to engage with his colleagues and would rather focus on work, furthermore, he was known throughout the knights and the palace for his cold blue eyes and even colder demeanour that told people to 'stay away'.
When he had been assigned to be the young prince's guard ten years ago, he had been proud that his hard work had paid off and he gladly accepted his promotion. However, when the news reached Azlantean about what had happened to the queen and the newborn prince. His dreams of grandeur went up in flames. If there wasn't a prince to guard there was no longer a position for him.
Not only that but the devastation the kingdom felt in having lost its heir and queen in one day was so great. So great that even Amren felt a deep sorrow in his heart. He felt duty-bound to try and do whatever he could to bring the young prince back home. And finally, after half a year of searching, they had found him.
"Well, that's our prince for you!" Twila jumped into the air and did a little dance. "He is just the most beautiful, most gifted, best prince ever!"
Twila's bubbly personality often tended to annoy people, but none got more annoyed by Twila than Amren. Twila's long blonde hair and light blue eyes only added to her joyful demeanour.
"Twila," Cassian called out. "Send word to Azlantean that we have found the prince and are bringing him back home."
"Yes, your Highness!" Twila scurried off to go and send the letter to the Palace at Duke Cassian's request.
"Rhysand, Leopold!" Called out Cassian. "Go prepare the pegasus's, we shall be leaving shortly.
"Yes, Your Highness." They said in unison and then went to spread the pegasus's wings and stretch their legs.
Cassian smiled happily. When the prince had gone missing, Cassian had only been seventeen years old, to the present, the memories of that awful day were etched into his mind. His family had been torn apart by that incident. For ten years he didn't see his older brother, the king, smile nor hear him laugh. Now finally he could bring his nephew back home to where he belonged and his family could be whole again. He was itching to get going.