Jylan was, quite literally, going insane.
It was spring.
But it didn't feel like spring.
It felt miserable.
He stared at a forgotten piece of paper on his desk as the rain roared outside the window, which was, for no particular reason, open and allowing cold air in. The curtains were drenched and wet, but still, the window was open. Jylan turned his eyes back to the paper. On it read,
"Prince Sebastian. Wanted Dead or Alive for treason."
How had things ended up like this?
Jylan sighed and rested head miserably on his arms.
Everything was such a mess.
Alright! Wait! Stop screaming at me in confusion! I'll tell you what happened! God, my eardrums!
First, after Sebastian had left in the middle of the night, Jylan hadn't been able to sleep the whole night and had simply stared at the ceiling.
Second, after he had left, the advisors had finally grabbed all of his power for themselves, and the first thing they had done was brush Jylan out of their way. As I said, Jylan was almost as powerful as a prince. Almost. That one word had ruined everything.
Anyway, The advisors had used all the other kingdoms to outvote him into going solo. That meant the dukedom was now all alone - all of his connections had been flushed down the drain in an instant. The dukedom was, of course, self-sufficient, which was why things were still running smoothly after being cut off - which was good - Jylan would have exploded if he had to deal with any more thing.
Anyway. So. The dukedom was alone now.
On top of that, the advisors had passed that poster, the one now lying on his desk, that guaranteed a hefty price for Sebastian's head. To be frank, Jylan thought that beautiful head was worth much more than 10,000 coins, but that wasn't the main point here.
This was a checkmate.
Jylan crossed out a couple of words on another document that was also on his desk, trying to take his mind off everything. It only worked halfway, because even though he was distracted, he ended up writing "Sebastian" instead of "Scalene".
He sighed and turned to the window yet again. The sky was a dark grey, and the raindrops had made a sizable puddle on the floor.
"Where are you, Sebastian.."