The journey to Whitecliff had been a long, difficult one, Lewis reflected as he leant on the axe handle, looking out at the dark blue sea that was sparkling in the setting sun. In the end, he had lost count of the days as he and Emily headed south.

Their progress had been hugely hindered by the weather when a snowstorm set in for the better part of a week. The storm had kept them trapped inside a derelict barn for several days. Hungry and chilled to the bone, they had eventually been able to leave the barn.

There had been many nights on their journey when they had been cold and hungry, their patience running thin several times. Still, they continued on, normally in silence, for a couple of days after they had argued. Regardless of what had happened, at the end of each day they would huddle together around a small fire for warmth, whether they were speaking or not.

Slowly, the snow had begun to disappear as they headed south, turning to rain as the seasons changed. On the day that Frost had finally given way to Frost Thaw, there had been a huge storm. In the torrential rain, Lewis had been forced to give in to his plan to avoid the main roads. That night, soaked to the core, they rented a room in a tiny inn on the road between Perlinton and Blackfirth.

In the warmth of the inn, they had been able to dry their clothes. The innkeeper’s wife, Mrs. Woodbury, had prepared them the first proper meal that they had eaten in weeks. Lewis had also exchanged a pair of silver coins for a bottle of wine from The Green Valley when Emily hadn’t been looking. That night in their tiny room, they had toasted their freedom, the struggle of the last few weeks forgotten as they finished the bottle between them.

The next morning, they both awoke to find that Mrs. Woodbury had prepared them a hamper to take with them on their journey to Whitecliff. Despite her insistence that she didn’t want anything for it, Lewis had tipped her handsomely from the large bag of coins he had found inside his bag. He had guessed that Edmund had put it in there when he counted it one night to find it was far more than he had ever owned in his life.

Thanks to the money Edmund had given them, they had been able to buy the small, rundown cottage that sat close to the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea that he now stood outside of. In the three weeks that they had been living there, they had managed to tidy up the house until it looked like it had never been empty for years.

When each day dawned, he expected Edmund to show up bearing the answers that he had promised him back in Tristan. Still, each day passed without any sign of him.

The feel of light rain on his face drew Lewis from his thoughts. Leaning the axe against the side of the white stone wall, he bent down, scooping up a heap of the logs that he had been chopping. Kicking the few that he couldn’t manage under the small cover he had made, he walked around to the front of the house, nudging open the door with his shoulder.

Stepping into the warmth, he kicked the door shut behind him. At the sound of the door slamming, Emily looked up from the work surface where she had been chopping carrots. With a smile, she went back to work as Lewis crossed the room to the small wood box that he had made. ‘It’s just starting to rain again,’ he said as he dropped the logs into the box, pulling a couple back out again to throw on the roaring fire.

‘I can’t wait until it warms up,’ Emily sighed as a gust of wind whistled through the tiny crack in one of the windows.

‘Any sign of Edmund when you went into town earlier?’ Lewis asked, appearing at her side, to take one of the pieces of chopped carrot.

‘No,’ she said, slapping his hand away when he reached for another piece. ‘It won’t be long.’

It had turned out that Emily hadn’t been that bad a cook once she had been shown what to do. Although she still seemed to prefer his cooking, she would occasionally take him by surprise and make them dinner.

‘Fine,’ Lewis sighed, kissing her cheek quickly. ‘I’m going to go and get some more firewood; I don’t fancy getting soaked later if there’s another storm.’

‘Alright,’ she said as she scraped the carrots into a heap on the wooden chopping board before dumping them into a cooking pot.

Leaving Emily to her cooking, Lewis slipped outside again, leaving the door ajar so that he could open it when he came back. The light drizzle that he had felt earlier had now turned heavier, the odd piece of hail stinging his skin as the wind whipped it around him.

Grabbing as many logs as he could manage, he hurried back to the front of the house, pushing the door open. As he glanced back to shut it, he saw a dark figure standing under one of the oil lamps at the far end of the small cobbled street that led into town.

For a second, he paused, watching as the figure stood perfectly still. Shaking his head, he pushed the door shut with his shoulder. Putting it down as nothing, he dropped the logs into the wood box.

‘The storm got there first, then,’ Emily said with a laugh as she looked up at him from beside the fire.

‘As always,’ Lewis sighed. The weather had been so unpredictable in Whitecliff lately that he had been caught out by a storm on a number of occasions. For some reason, Emily seemed to enjoy seeing him get soaked. ‘I’m going to get changed.’

Peeling the soaked shirt away from his skin, he unbuttoned it as he headed for the wardrobe in the small bedroom. After they had arrived in Whitecliff, they had spent a small portion of the money that Edmund had left them on new clothes. The tattered remains of the guard uniforms they had been wearing when they were caught were discarded. The only reminder of Tristan that had remained was the blue dress that Emily had been wearing the night they had met.

Just as he pulled a black short-sleeved shirt off one of the shelves, there was a loud banging at the door.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

‘I’ll get it!’ Emily called from the other room.

‘Wait! Lewis shouted back as he remembered the suspicious figure standing in the street. Darting back into the main room, he found Emily reaching for the door handle. ‘Hold on,’ he said quietly, grabbing the knife she had been using to cut the vegetables and tucking it into the waistband at the back of his trousers.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, watching him pull on the shirt, her hand still resting on the door handle.

‘I saw someone standing in the street in the rain when I came in a minute ago,’ he replied.

‘You don’t think they found us, do you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lewis said quietly as he moved her away from the door. Just as he reached for the handle, there was a second loud knock. With a glance over his shoulder at her, he opened the door an inch.

Standing in front of him was a figure wrapped in a dark coat, the hood pulled up to hide their face. ‘At last,’ he said. As he pulled the hood down, he stepped slightly forward into the light. It was Edmund. ‘I thought I was never going to find you.’

‘Edmund,’ Emily said, ushering Lewis aside as she let him in, slamming the door shut on the storm that was now raging outside. ‘I’m sorry, we weren’t sure who it could be.’

‘It’s alright; I don’t blame you. You’ve had enough trouble to have earned the right to be cautious,’ Edmund replied as he took the seat Emily offered him.

‘How did you find us?’ Lewis asked, pulling the knife from his waistband and setting it down on the chopping board again. If Edmund could find them, then who knew how easily one of their enemies could find them?

‘With great difficulty, I assure you,’ Edmund said as he watched Emily bustle around in front of the fire, making them all a drink.

‘But if you were able to find us, then surely someone else might be able to,’ Lewis said, voicing his concern.

‘It’s good that you are on your guard, Lewis, but I’m sure it would take them a long time to find you,’ Edmund said. ‘You forget that I knew where you were going, and it still took me this long to find you. You did well covering your tracks, very well.’

‘You said that you would answer my questions in Whitecliff,’ Lewis said as he sat down opposite Edmund.

‘I did,’ he replied. ‘If I remember correctly, you asked me why I was helping you escape.’

‘Why?’

‘I believed that Emily was innocent,’ Edmund said after a moment. ‘It had already taken everything I had to get her a trial; there was no way that I would be able to get her off of the charge, though.’

‘So, I was just a tool to secure her escape?’ Lewis asked.

‘To some, it could seem that way, but I figured that if she wasn’t guilty, then you weren’t guilty of helping a criminal escape,’ Edmund explained. ‘Neither of you should have been in that jail in the first place. I hope you don’t regret that I helped you escape.

‘No,’ Emily said before Lewis could respond as she stood up. ‘You must be hungry.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble,’ Edmund replied as Emily pulled out a couple of extra carrots to make an extra serving for him.

‘It’s no trouble,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s the least we can do after you came all this way to answer our questions.’

‘There was a man in the jail, Charles Hargrove; why was he there?’ Lewis asked as Emily began chopping the carrots, leaving him and Edmund to sit beside the fire.

‘I don’t know exactly,’ Edmund said quietly. ‘When they found Sebastian’s body, things became frantic. Anthony took charge, as he was supposed to be the heir to the throne. He sent guards into the city to find him before I found out what had happened.’

‘Why would Anthony want him, though?’

‘There was a rumour for many years that Charles Hargrove and Sebastian knew about an unknown heir to the throne,’ Edmund said. ‘I don’t know what his intentions are, but he desperately wants to find him. He doesn’t know that he already had him, though.’

‘He did?’ Lewis asked.

‘He did,’ Edmund confirmed. ‘But you escaped.’

‘What?’

‘You were the heir that Sebastian sent Emily to find. I didn’t realise it when I first saw you, but now I can see the likenesses,’ Edmund said. ‘I knew your father all his life. Twenty or so years ago, when he found out about my brother Thomas’ exile, he left Tristan; he didn’t want anything to do with running the kingdom.

‘For many years, no one saw him, and then it was only a select few. Occasionally, he would join one of our hunting parties at Sebastian's invitation. There was a rumour that, in his new life away from Tristan, he had a son. That son, it turns out, does exist, and he is sitting before me.’

‘You think that I am the heir to the throne?’ Lewis asked after a moment of silence. ‘I think you’ve got the wrong person.’

‘I don’t think I have,’ Edmund said.

‘Is that why you came here? To drag me back to Tristan?’ Lewis demanded.

‘Amongst others, Tristan needs its rightful heir.’

‘No,’ Lewis said simply, just as Emily set down a bowl of stew in front of each of them.

‘Anthony is running the city into the ground; hardly a day goes by now without someone protesting about something,’ Edmund said, thanking Emily for the food.

‘I don’t want anything to do with Tristan anymore,’ Lewis said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I understand,’ said Edmund disappointedly.

‘You do?’

‘All through history, there have been people in the family who haven’t been interested in the crown. Your father was one of them,’ Edmund said. ‘Some people want the crown more than others.’

‘Did you know him well?’ Emily asked as she joined them.

‘When he was growing up, I would like to think I did,’ Edmund said. ‘After he moved to the forest twenty years ago, I rarely saw him.’

‘Except for the hunting trips?’ Lewis asked.

‘On several occasions he joined us on our hunting trips,’ Edmund confirmed. ‘He never spoke about his life outside of Tristan. We all asked, but he always avoided the topic.’

‘Before the guards took my grandfather away, he said that my father’s death wasn’t what it looked like,’ Lewis said slowly, trying to gauge Edmund’s reaction. ‘He said that my father’s death wasn’t an accident. Someone murdered him.’

At Lewis’ words, Edmund froze, his fork falling onto the plate of half-eaten stew. For a moment, he sat in silence, considering Lewis carefully.

‘No one is sure what happened in the forest that day,’ Edmund said. ‘As far as I know, it was a tragic accident.’

‘You said that some people want the crown more than others,’ Lewis said quickly. ‘Do you know anyone that might murder the heir to the throne for their own gain?’

‘That is a very serious accusation,’ Edmund said, setting his unfinished meal aside and getting to his feet. ‘What happened to your father isn’t important right now, though. Tristan needs its rightful heir before the kingdom collapses.’

‘The answer is still no, I’m afraid,’ Lewis said as he stood up as well.

‘Very well,’ Edmund said. ‘I will be in Whitecliff for a few more days if you change your mind.’

‘I’m sure it won't, but alright,’ Lewis said.

‘Your father was a good man,’ Edmund said as he headed towards the door. ‘At least he was when I knew him.’

Nodding in Emily’s direction, he opened the door, stepping outside into the raging storm. As the door snapped shut against the howling wind, Lewis sat down again, pulling his plate towards him again. What would his father have done if they had been living in the forest and Edmund had turned up to tell him that Sebastian had died?

Lost in his thoughts, he pushed a chunk of meat around the plate with his fork. Why had his father kept everything secret for him all those years? Did he think that Lewis wouldn’t be able to handle it?

‘Are you alright?’ Emily asked gently as she placed a hand on top of his.

‘I’m fine,’ Lewis said with a weak smile as he looked up from his food, his eyes finding Emily’s. ‘Just thinking.’