♕✿~♕✿~Chapter 37//: Time's running out♕✿~♕✿~

Ahren's POV

My nerves are working in overdrive as I watch myself getting tailored for my coronation in the mirror.

I'm dressed in a sleek black and red military uniform, one that is disturbingly similar to the one my father wore for his coronation many years back. It feels like I am looking at a ghost, at an imposter of my father. These thoughts make me pale considerably until I actually resemble a ghost.

My stomach turns uncomfortably, making me feel nauseous. My subconscious is telling me, yelling pleadingly at me, to not follow through with today's plans. For some reason, the idea of the coronation happening today isn't settling well with me. But I can't explain these feelings well, so I deem them illogical and do my best to push the thoughts aside.

A knock sounds at the door. I tell whoever is on the other side to come in, and the door opens. In the mirror, I can see Gregory standing in the doorway.

He has an encouraging smile on his face, but it twists and changes until it's a grimace. He clears his throat. "Your Majesty, it's almost time for the coronation to start. You need to be in position," he says gently. I nod numbly, servants rushing around me to make last minute corrections to my uniform. I put on a look of determination on my face, looking into the mirror to see if it's convincing. I can't let anyone think that I'm anything but ready to take my seat on the throne.

I exit the room, walking side by side with Gregory at a quick pace. The hallways are deathly quiet, not a sign of life around on the third floor of the spacious palace. The silence makes me feel more unsettled than I already am.

Gregory and I start to make our descent down the stairs. In my mind, I chant a mantra of distress. I'm not ready, I am ready. I'm not ready, I am ready. Each word is punctuated by another step down towards the throne room where I will be coronated.

We come to a stop on the first floor. As I follow Gregory to the throne room, I take a glance behind my back to look at the colossal doors that lead to the front of the palace, where I know people - ranging from governors from the capital to envoys from the Lakelands and Piedmont - are waiting until it is the time for me to become the king I was born to be.

We reach the throne room, and I take a moment to notice the details of the room. Red and black dominate; deep red colored chairs set out for the guests to sit in, black fabrics draped around the room, and roses placed in eye-catching vases placed strategically around the room. And, of course, the centerpieces of the room: the thrones reserved for the king and queen.

The queen's chair is a simple design, crafted out of diamondglass. But it's easily overshadowed by the king's chair. Although they're made out of the same material, they have completely different looks. Whereas the queen's chair is mundane, the king's chair has been carved into the shape of an inferno, commemorating the Calore monarchy that has been in place for generation upon generation.

I would sit in that throne after today. Before, I had stood behind my father dutifully. But now, I was to take his place as he took his father's place. It made me weak in the legs, and I feared for a second that I would collapse.

The mantra is shouted louder in my head, giving me a headache, as Gregory reminds me of when and how I'm supposed to walk down the aisle to the throne. I can barely comprehend his words over the sound of my own.

I'm not ready, I am ready. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. Oh God, I'm not, someone help me, I don't know what to do as king, I can't do this-

"Do you understand, Your Majesty?" Gregory's words cut off my hurried and frantic thoughts, forcing my attention to snap towards him.

I'm not sure what he said, but I nod nonetheless. "Yes, I understand."

He lets out a breath, looking at ease unlike me. "Good." He places a hand gently on my shoulder. "I know I don't say this enough, but I'm proud of you." My eyes widen a bit in surprise at his words.

"The way you picked yourself back up after everything that has happened to you...It's amazing. And I know this is all happening rapidly, but you've adjusted very well." Gregory smiles at me in a manner that resembles such a fatherly gesture that I'm a bit taken aback by it all. My throat is closing up, and I am finding it difficult to look Gregory in the eye due to the genuineness of his words.

"Thank you, Gregory. I appreciate it," I tell him quietly. He flashes me another smile, patting my shoulder affectionately. I can't help but give a small smile in return.

"Alright. The coronation is going to start soon. Are you ready?" he asks me.

I take in a large breath and let it all out dramatically. I just nod my head in response because I can't properly answer the question in words to him. I am only able to whisper the answer in my head.

I'm not ready. But I have to pretend to be.

Madison's POV

My nerves are threatening to overtake my body as the car pulls to a stop outside of the palace.

We all open our doors, quickly running out. Ahren's coronation would start at any moment. The traffic last night had been horrible, the cars in front us moving at an impossibly slow rate. It had taken a lot of self control for me to verbally not let my frustration out last night.

"Hey! What about my money?" the man yells after us through the open window of his car.

"We'll pay you later!" Lucas yells distractedly back to the man as we make our way to the palace gates. But instead of heading to the entrance of the gate where guards stand tall, Lucas leads us to the side where there are less people around.

"Where are we going?" Damon asks aloud as we make our way to a part of the palace grounds that is deserted and undisturbed.

"I know we won't get past the guards by the gate, so we'll go through another way. When I was just a palace guard, the guys showed me a way to leave the palace secretively. It was a way for us to escape the palace once in a while," Lucas explains to us as we come to a stop in front of a part of the gate that looks relatively normal.

However, I soon realize how it's a way to get inside the palace grounds when Lucas moves away some foliage, revealing a smaller gate that wasn't easily visible before.

The lock on it is rusting, and Lucas pulls it open with ease. He only stops for a moment when the metal creaks a bit. He ushers us to go through the gates.

Nerves flutter through me as I glance around, noting that nobody has seen us enter through this way. From where we were, I could see the main entrance of the gates, still guarded.

Lucas closes the gate and then carefully covers it back up again. He turns to us after doing so and glances around a bit.

"I don't think we can go in through any of the servants' passages. Those can only be opened from the inside, so we'd have to wait until a servant opens the door," Lucas tells us.

"So should we go through the front doors of the palace?" I ask Lucas doubtfully. I wasn't exactly keen on doing so, if I'm being honest.

But Lucas nods in response to my question. "I think that's our only option right now. Even though it's not exactly the best."

We start to make our way to the front of the palace, where I can see a group of people already gathered, the women dressed in extravagant gowns and the men dressed in sharp suits. Two palace guards stand by at the door, not letting anyone in yet.

My breaths come out in short puffs, a result of my high level of adrenaline and the blood pumping fast through my body. As we walk up to the group of people waiting to be let in, my eyes roam around the area warily, trying to find the predatory face of Nathan. I couldn't see him anywhere, but I was still on edge. For all I knew, he could be watching me right now.

The chatter of the people around us intensify as the guards open up the palace doors. The first few guests closest to the door walk up, handing the guard something. After a quick glance at the paper, the guards let them in.

My eyes stay rooted to the piece of card that is handed to the guards by each guest. I turn to Lucas and Damon worriedly.

"Don't tell me this is an invitation-only event," I whisper to them, gesturing to the cards.

Damon curses. "It's like every time we're close to reaching the palace, an obstacle gets in the way," he grumbles. Troubled, I glance back at the palace guards, my mind looking for a solution.

"What do we do now?" I ask them.

"Maybe we can-" Damon starts but I cut him off, already knowing what he's going to say.

"We can't steal invitations. These people are obviously Silvers, and they'll knock us down in a second if we try to attack them and steal their invitation. And we wouldn't even be let in if we got an invitation based on the way we're dressed." I gesture to our clothes, which have been through some rough times, and then gesture to the clean and new outfits of the men and women around us.

Lucas lets out a sigh. "Then there's only one way for us to get through. Or at least stop Nathan from killing Ahren." He looks at me. "We have to just tell the guards about this threat. I mean, that has to be enough to cause alarm after the recent assassinations of the king and queen."

It was our best option. As the line moves on, more people walking into the palace, I start to prepare what I'm going to say.

When we reach the guards by the doors, they look at us with a mixture of disgust and suspicion.

I start talking before they can order us to leave. "We don't have any invitations to the coronation, but we need to get inside. There's someone trying to ki-"

One of the guards cuts me off. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Only political figures are allowed to attend this coronation; citizens can watch it on T.V."

None of us move. "I'm telling you, there's someone who's going to kill-"

"Ma'am, you can leave either by choice or by force," the guard tells me.

Panic is starting to settle in. "I need to get in. I'm Mad-"

Once again, the guard cuts me off, not letting me finish a sentence. With a curt gesture to another set of guards inside, the pair walks towards us with quick, terse movements.

"There's someone that's going to kill the prince!" I exclaim as one of them grabs me, starting to drag me back from the palace doors. I dig my feet into the ground, trying to stay put, but the guard simply jerks me back with such an unbelievable amount of strength that I stumble and almost fall. Just from that simple action, I can tell the man is strongarm. I had no chance to escape his grip.

The guard snorts, and then looks at me patronizingly. "There are many guards stationed around the palace, and everyone who has entered the palace has been thoroughly checked. No one is going to attack the prince."

I shake my head furtively as I struggle to stand back up and walk on my own two feet instead of being dragged like a rag doll. Damon and Lucas both have one guard walking behind them closely, prodding them to move with their guns.

"You don't understand," I tell the guards around us. "This man is much more conniving and evil than any other person I've met. My name is Madis-"

"Stop talking, lady," the guard grumbles in annoyance as he starts to drag me more quickly down the path that leads to the surrounding walls of the palace.

I'm ready to pummel the guard and make him listen to me when I notice Lucas swiftly whisper something to Damon with a quick glance at the guards around us. They share a look, nodding to each other.

And then they attack the guard escorting them out, and all hell breaks loose.

Damon punches the man holding him, eliciting a shout of pain from the guard and making him fall to the ground, holding a hand to his eye. When the guard dragging me turns sharply around to see what has happened, Lucas rushes forward and grabs his arm, twisting it and making the man shriek and let me go. I move away from the scuffling pair.

When I see the guard about to hit Lucas, I take matters into my own hand and kick him hard in the knee. He goes down to the ground, groaning in pain, but he lunges towards me. I kick his face this time, knocking him down the ground where he stays still with a hand to his face, curled up in a fetal position.

Lucas, Damon, and I don't hesitate to leave the hurt guards behind, running back to the entrance of the palace. The fight hadn't alerted the guards located at the front of the palace doors, so we walk calmly over to them as if nothing has happened.

Before we do, though, Damon hands me one of the guns strapped to his belt. I gingerly take it, looking at him with wide eyes.

"Why are you giving this to me?" I ask, turning the gun over in my hand.

"Lucas and I are going to create a chance for you to slip past the guards, and then you need to go in to warn the people inside about Nathan. I'm just giving you the gun in case anything bad happens," Damon explains to me.

The gun feels heavy in my hand. It's a familiar yet foreign item, and I can't decide if I'm comfortable with it or not. But I know I'll need it if I come face to face with Nathan. Still, I don't feel any more confident that I will be able to defeat him if it comes to that.

Because as much as I didn't like it, I was playing Nathan's game and playing by his rules. And for all I knew, I could be walking into a trap he's set up.

♕✿~♕✿~♕✿~♕✿~♕✿~

GUYS, THE ENDING IS SO CLOSE.

I honestly can't believe it. The whole idea is crazy that the end is near. Ahren and Madison's story is almost over.

The next chapter will be published soon since I am finally on fall break!! Hallelujah. I really need this break. School this week has been killing me. All of my teachers suddenly decided to have midterms all on the same day 😵

Anyways, have a great rest of your week. Keep a watch out for the next update!

Glass_Sword