chapter 16

The following morning Arya had her servants prepare for Cedrics departure. Arya was surprised to learn Cedric was leaving all of a sudden. Considering he was scheduled to leave with Aston anyway in 2 days.

He could've just said and left with him, whatever it was that was making him leave must have been serious. Arya wondered of it had anything to do with the sea border incident. She wasn't aware of the things Cedric dealt nor was she in a position to ask him.

Aston was the last to learn of Cedrics' early departure. He woke to see from his bedroom window the commotion of servants preparing a carriage outside and his mother as well as his father who was dressed as if he was leaving. Aston quickly left his room and ran to go outside. "You're already leaving dad?" He asked out of breath as he made it to his parents.

Cedric had on an shameful look on his face he had known Cedric would be dissapointed in him.

"I'm sorry Aston something came up at work. " He explained as he went to Aston and knelt down to his level to make eye contact with him.

Aston sighed in dissapointment looking at the ground not wanting to look him in the eye ."But I'm also leaving in 2 days can't you wait and go with me?"

"I'm not going to the castle Aston, I'm dealing with something else that's urgent which is why I have to go now."

"But it's going to be a long time before I get to play with you again." He complained.

Arya felt bad watching Aston complain. However she couldn't help but be kind of glad he was leaving. Even though she pitied Aston Since that night they kissed they hadn't had a real conversation with one another. They were just being awkward and acting weird around each other.

Arya thought it was best they took some time apart as they forgot what happened that night.

When Cedric finished talking to Aston hoping he now understood. However, Aston was still dissatisfied looking grumpy with his arms folded. Cedric let out a dissapointed sigh as he stood up.

Arya internally laughed at Astons' tantrum as she watched them and noticed Cedrics collar wasn't done properly as he stood up.

"Oh your tie and collar aren't done properly." Arya pointed out as she got closer to him and reached out to fix it.

She placed her hands on the collar as she adjusted the puff tie. It was after a moment when was done when she realized she'd just touched Cedric without warning in public, as all the servants were watching. What the two of them did in private was one thing, but in public and to all the servants present he was the emperor so she couldn't

"I apologize for suddenly touching you I did it without think-"

" It's fine." Cedric interrupted her. She quickly puther hands down as she moved away to stand next to Aston embarrassed.

"Mum your face is red" Aston pointed

"No, it's not!" She yelled as she covered Astons mouth with her hand to stop him from continuing to speak.

Cedric found himself relieved. He thought Arya more resented He was glad to she still cared for him. Perhaps the next time they met they could rediscuss their conversation from that night.

However until then he would have to take care of strange events that were going on in the kingdom. The wall was breached, imperial messages were getting lost and a prison was broken into. They all could have been unrelated events but it was too strange to be coincidence.

Aside from the breached sea wall, imperial letters had gone missing in the past and prisoners from the Azir prison had escaped once before. However, the fact that this was happening just two weeks after the wall breach, Cedric had an eerie feeling.

Cedric turned to look at Sir Aaron who was inspecting the knights that were preparing to leave with him. He thought deeply for a moment then called Sir Aaron to him.

"Change of plans, Sir Aaron I want you tonstay here with Aston and protect him until he returns to the castle."

"Sire?" He asked slightly confused.

Cedric drew closer to him "Until I make sense of what's going on, I want to be cautious."

"Understood your majesty." He accepted his change in schedule.

Once everything was set Cedric and a few of his knights left the Varez estate. The rest of the knights that stayed including Sir Aaron were meant to protect Aston. Arya and Aston waved goodbye to Cedric

It didn't take him to long to get to the Azir prison as it was on the way to the capital from Aryas' town. It was a maximum security prison where those who had been tried for serious of fences were taken. If a prisoner had escaped from there the empire would be in a state of panic.

When he and his entourage disembarked all the guards of the prison that were duty at the entrance bowed as Cedric walked into the facility.

Cedric was met with the prison officer who was in charge of the prison who was waiting just inside the entrance.

"Officer Mang." Cedric greeted the officer.

"Your majesty, thank you for coming at such short notice." he greeted with a bow. "Please come to my office this way." he directed Cedric.

Cedrics' knights waited at the entrance ready for the next order when needed. Once in the office, Officer Mang had Cedric take a seat and he handed him some files that contained the report on the events that had taken place. As Osric began to take a look at the files he gave an order.

"Officer Mang, take me through what happened."

"Of course, the night before last, just before midnight multiple guards that were on duty suddenly stopped sending update messages down to the inspection office below."

The Azir prison had a system where guards on duty would send update tickets, on the situation of the place they were stationed, every half hour through a ticket system in place on every floor.

"Noticing this strange occurrence myself and some guards went to check what the problem was. To our surprise all the guards at these posts were lying on the floor asleep, when we tried to wake them up they didn't. It was as if they had been drugged. We suspected a prisoner had escaped but all the guards had the the keys to open up the security gates still tied to their uniform belts."

Each prison floor level had multiple security gates that had to be unlocked to move around the prisons, the guard on duty of a specific section of the prison had a key had to unlock on only his section of the prision ward. So if he wanted to move to the next section he had to ask the guard on duty of that section to open up for him. Although it was monotonous and time consuming, it ensured that an escaped prisoner had a hard time escaping.

"There was no indication that any of the security gates were used in the escape as all the guards had their respective keys. No windows were broken, no escape tunnels were dug. It was baffling. We immediately did a headcount of all the prisoners and they added up."