Queen Odette felt useless. It had been a week now since Mirabel had been kidnapped, and still there was nothing. She’d hashed out the plans for the wedding as much as she could without the actual bride present, and now she didn’t know what to do with herself. The final dress fitting wouldn’t be for a few days still, and all the plans for the wedding were laid out as fully as they could be.

At least - and this thought had been what consoled her for much of the past week - the king had finally contacted Winterthur. The day after their conversation about it, he had been forced to write a letter to the king of Winterthur, King Roell, and explain what had happened. Or, at least, what they suspected had happened.

The investigations had gone almost nowhere up to that point. While search parties had been sent out left and right, and all across the kingdom, hardly a trace could be found. Winterthur was, of course, known for their tracking skills, which was why the queen had been so adamant about contacting them. The kingdom of Winterthur being located in the mountains north of Lucerne, the roads were not the easiest to traverse if one were not native to the kingdom. The people of Winterthur also did much hunting, since their land was not the best for farming. Hence their skills of tracking.

Queen Odette was hopeful that today there would be something to report. In her opinion, they had waited far too long before contacting Winterthur for their assistance. How was one to track someone whose tracks were days old and covered by other tracks? It seemed impossible to her.

But Prince Adrien had arrived only a couple of days after the letter had arrived at his palace. He had been sent by his father in his place, and since it was, after all, his fiancee on the line. He was known to be very good at hunting, though he did it mostly for sport, and Roell promised that if anyone could find their princess, it would be the prince.

Prince Tristen, of course, had taken this as a challenge. The queen sometimes despaired of her son. While she was sure he had good intentions, sometimes the things that motivated him caused her grief. Tristen had made it almost a competition with Adrien, in the end. Fortunately, King Lionel had noticed this and had sent them out separately. Neither would get anything done if they were constantly trying to one up each other.

Of course, the queen didn’t think Adrien would have reciprocated. He was an entirely charming prince, the sort one would read about in fairy tales. He was gallant, he was skilled, and he was handsome. The queen was sure there was some flaw in him, as in all humans, but she had yet to find anything to look down upon in the boy. Or man, she supposed. He was more man than boy, unlike her own son.

Since Adrien had arrived, he had done nothing but search, it seemed. While the queen was grateful for his diligence, she wondered if he perhaps ought to take a short break. Surely he must be wearing thin after nothing but searching for a missing princess. Of course, they were to be married, but it wasn’t as if they knew each other well.

All this only put the prince higher in the queen’s good graces. Even though she had worried before about how well he and Mirabel would get on, her worries had all but dissolved. He was a good man. He would treat her well, the queen was sure.

Currently, though, she was on her way to a meeting about the investigations. She had been invited to sit in, for which she was quite grateful. She didn’t know what else she would do with herself, after all. The opportunity to sit in on a meeting about whatever progress had been made sounded encouraging to her. She could only hope it was. After all, if they were having a meeting about it, that could only mean something good, couldn’t it? One did not call a meeting to discuss failure. It would be pointless.

But nevertheless, there was a meeting to be attended. She walked through the stone halls, her spirits rather more lifted than they had been in several days. It would be a better meeting than those about what food to prepare for the wedding, after all. Those meetings gave her no encouragement at all about her daughter’s whereabouts.

“From what could be discovered, we followed the tracks past the river…” Adrien was speaking, standing over the table with a map beneath his hand, laid flat with weights at each corner. With his other hand, he traced the route they had followed with one finger, drawing an invisible line across the river.

Queen Odette was, of course, highly impressed. She had been doubtful of them finding any tracks at all which they could follow. She was pleased to find that she had been wrong. Once Adrien had been filled in on what they knew - that the kidnappers had carried her out one of the servant’s doors and down a mostly unused road - he had followed the tracks of the cart. He had the remarkable ability to tell how old a pair of tracks was, which made it much easier for him to distinguish which tracks belonged to the kidnappers, despite the surrounding tracks.

“... and from there, they continued into the forest, and across the border.” Adrien looked up, meeting both the king’s and the queen’s eyes in turn. “I’m afraid that the princess has been carried away into Pommern.”

The king looked surprised at this turn of events, while the queen sat and pondered on it for a moment. It made sense, she decided. Their search parties had swept the land without finding more than a trace of the missing princess. If she was in another kingdom, however, that changed things. It changed a great many things, indeed.

“So you mean to tell me that Pommern has abducted my Mirabel?” the king cried out. It must come as a shock to him, of course, having always been such a peaceful king. For someone else to make such an obvious declaration of war against him and his kingdom, it was largely unheard of.

Adrien nodded in response. “I’m afraid that’s definitely a possibility.”

The king shook his head, and sat back in his chair. Adrien straightened from the map and took his own seat, his small speech over. The king looked disturbed by the whole matter.

After a long moment of silence, he spoke. “Why would Pommern do such a thing?”

He might as well have spoken to thin air for all the response he received. No one else in the room had an answer for him. As a matter of fact, most of them were likely contemplating the same question.

Tristen stood then. “Clearly they wish for a war! Why else kidnap our princess?” He had the voice of a leader, the queen had to admit. It carried well, and had a commanding sound to it, unlike his father’s. His father, the king, had always had a rather softer demeanor than most leaders, and a voice to match. It was a voice of peace, and a voice that had served him well.

His soft voice soon followed his son’s, cutting through the silence that had followed the hasty question of the prince. His voice was weary this time, not so full of peace as the queen was accustomed to, but instead old and troubled.

“If it is war they desire, than it is war they shall have.” The queen could not withhold her expression of surprise at the weary statement. It was unlike her husband to agree to a war of any sort, no matter who had started it. It went entirely against his nature.

As she looked at him in such surprise, it struck her suddenly just how old he was. His hair had begun to turn white, the snowy streaks cutting through the blond. It had never seemed so noticeable to her due to his blond hair in the first place; it blended so well, that she had mistaken it for a mere lightening of his hair.

His face had lines on it, she noticed. Tired lines. Had they been there before? She wasn’t sure. Perhaps they were due only to the stress of the last week. Perhaps she had only just noticed them. He looked so tired now, though, that the motherly instinct that was in her urged her to send him off to bed until he was feeling better.

She had to resist, however. Now would not be the best time to play the part of his mother. Perhaps after the meeting, she could insist that he get some sleep. She wasn’t even sure if he had been sleeping lately. It wouldn’t surprise her if he had been staying up most of the night in search of a way to get Mirabel back.

A long silence had followed his quiet words, but now it seemed to register what had actually been said. A look of surprise, perhaps more extreme than that of the queen’s, was etched upon Prince Tristen’s face. Surely he had never expected his father to agree to the notion any more than the queen had.

“Are you sure, sir?” asked Adrien, his own voice quiet as well. It was a grave matter they were discussing, after all. It seemed wrong to break the silence that had followed the king’s words, but they were all glad that someone else had. “Is a war really what is best?”

The king’s eyes met Adrien’s. “She is my daughter. Why ever they stole her, it doesn’t matter. We will get her back. Even if it takes a war.”

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A/N ... not sure what to say here. It's a chapter, things are heating up at the palace. Hope you enjoyed :) I almost forgot to upload today, actually. When you're sick, your brain just flies out the window it seems. Anyway, if you liked it, don't forget to comment and vote, all that jazz. Lovels! xx