"Who is it?" a wary voice asked through the crack. It had barely opened at all, suggesting that the bolt across the door was likely still in place.
Apparently the special knock had been enough to get the guards' attention, but not enough to gain them entrance. They would still need to identify themselves.
"It is Princess Rose and her stalwart personal knight."
"Haven?" The voice was so soft that Rose thought maybe she had misunderstood.
"Is His Majesty within?" Ethyn asked, his brows knit tight on his forehead.
The door shut, and the scraping of wood let the two know that the barricade across the entrance had been lifted. The hinges swung just enough to admit the young woman and the man with her before they shut soundly again.
"Father!" Everything else in the room faded away as Rose ran into the arms of the king.
His robes were rumpled and bloodied, but from his quick run reaction to her movement, Rose did not think the blood was his. It was strange to see him so dirty.
To be fair, the princess was covered in all sorts of grime and unpleasantness herself, so she had no room to judge even if she wanted to.
In addition to being strangely dressed, Rose was so covered that it took a moment for the king to recognize her. But when she hugged him, there was no doubt in his mind who the young woman could be.
"Daughter! You are safe! Are you hurt? Oh my sweet Rose!" Rhodri held onto the woman, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
"I'm fine, Father." Rose assured him as she squeezed him tighter. "What happened to your crown?!"
Next to where the king had been sitting, the coronation crown lay with a significant dent in one of the golden arches above the purple cap.
"Oh," Rhodri pressed his lips together. "It turns out that thing makes a decent helmet when all was said and done. One man tried to take a piece of my head with his sword and was met with just enough resistance to spare me for another day."
"Oh Father!" Rose hugged the man again.
Pulling away gently, the king moved aside the crown and helped her to sit next to him on the small couch. Just like Rose, Rhodri had a hidden safe room attached to his quarters. But this was somewhere else entirely. How had she never noticed this small nook before?
"Are you sure you aren't badly hurt?" Rhodri touched the woman's neck where a small trickle of blood had gone dry.
Wincing, Rose bit her lip. "Just a few cuts and bruises." She remembered her arm which had already been healed. "Nothing to worry about, I promise. Sir Ethyn protected me. He even caught me when I jumped from the wall! Isn't that right?"
The princess turned to Ethyn, but he was not paying attention to either of the royals. His mouth was hanging open as the two guards in ceremonial garb smiled at him. The knight was stunned speechless.
Rose suddenly realized why. "Mayor Conall? Aiden? Is that you?"
The two men turned to the princess and bowed deeply.
"Your Highness," they greeted her.
"I am sorry for, uh, addressing you inappropriately when you entered," Conall seemed only half-hearted in his apology.
'I did hear him say Haven!' Rose's ears had not deceived her. "All is forgiven. How are you even here?"
"That was going to be my question as well," Ethyn finally mustered. He shot a glance at the king. "If that pleases Your Majesty."
"I am most curious that you both seem to know these men and yet I only just met them after they escorted me here." Rhodri raised both eyebrows so high that they nearly met his hair above.
"I met these men when I went to Rynnlee. Well, that is not exactly true. I already knew Mayor Conall from when I was little. As for Sir Ethyn, he has known them both for years if I am not mistaken." The princess and knight exchanged smiles before Ethyn cleared his throat.
The knight touched his palm to his chest, making a slight bow. He even managed to hide the wince from the pain in his shoulder. "You are correct, Your Highness."
"That actually gives me more questions than answers," the king stroked his beard. "But I will hold them for now. Please continue," Rhodri motioned to the two guards.
Conall opened his mouth to tell some grand tale for the king, but Aiden cut him off. "Thank you, Your Majesty. That is more than generous."
The former soldier saluted his monarch before addressing the princess's question.
"Well, it started when we welcomed a farmer and his family to Rynnlee. He had ridden non-stop to let us know about a group of squatters who had forced him from his land. He told us Silver had saved him from a fire and how grateful he was. The man was a bit frantic, and we tried to calm him as best we could." Aiden himself had taken the man and forced him to rest so that he would be more coherent. "He was dehydrated and hungry as well, which contributed to his delirium."
Conall picked up the tale. "While Aiden was still dealing with the newcomers, uh, Sage arrived with news of an invasion by General Kaarel."
"How did Sage know?" Rose found the mention of the woman particularly fascinating. Her brother seemed quite taken with the female Guardian. It seemed she had played a hand in what happened here as well.
"Sage came after your visit and helped Silver decipher the message which he...obtained. Sage was on her way with him here when they stumbled across Kaarel's group. Sage would have gotten to us before the farmer, but she ran into a little trouble that she didn't want to talk about. Her news combined with the farmer's story were enough to convince Conall and I that we should look into the matter ourselves." Aiden shifted his weight, which the mayor took as his cue to take over.
"We caught up to the group just before they were going to enter the city. We were, uh, looking for Silver, so we took out two of the cronies from Lakyle and took their places. We snooped around, but the Guardian was tucked away somewhere. It wasn't until we, uh, snuck into the palace with Kaarel's men that we found out they had been keeping the Guardian stowed in the back of one of the wagons. By then..." Conall sighed.
Aiden echoed his sentiment with a sad nod. "By then it was too late. We felt our only chance was to follow Silver and look for a chance to free him. There was a problem, though. The men of Lakyle were slowly weeding out their Birilian competition so the only way to hide in plain sight was for them not to see our faces."
"We ran into two of the ceremonial guards who had not yet been captured. After unsuccessfully trying to convince them of the attack...we tied them up and took their places," Conall winced.
"Sorry for that, Your Majesty!" Aiden followed up. "It was the only way."
"To make a long story short. We, uh, eventually decided to sneak down to the dungeon to free the soldiers of Birle. When we went to distract the guards at the entrance, though...two men came out instead! One of them was Sir Ethyn." Conall slapped the man on the back with a laugh. Ethyn groaned.
"We chased you down, but somehow you got away from us," Aiden also smiled. "We figured the man with you was Silver, but we weren't sure. We have never seen him without his cloak before."
"Wait...the men who chased us...it was the two of you?!" Ethyn felt foolish for running from them. But then again. How could he possibly have known?
"It was indeed. And after a lot of searching, we finally caught up to Silver again. He nearly took off our heads before we could tell him who we were. After berating us for putting ourselves in danger, he came up with a plan. Silver found someone to let the Guards out of the dungeon and we took our places by the King's chambers so that we could join the group when they entered the throne room." Aiden finished the story.
Ethyn wished he had known the plan ahead of time, but since he wasn't supposed to be in the throne room at all, it should not have mattered.
In the end, everything had worked out for the best.
"I am with Silver that you were foolish to come." Ethyn frowned as he looked at the friendly faces. He face broke into a grin. "But I'm very glad you did."