Walking with his face in the old book, the Eldest gracefully shouldered his way through the elk skin door and was gone.

Chapter 3

“Where ye headed, Mik?” Ruddy, the nightshift stable master at Lakeside Castle’s Royal Stables, asked.

“Can’t say,” Mikahl replied. Mikahl was the King of Westland’s personal squire, and the King had told him with much distress in his voice to prepare for a long journey, and to do so quietly. Mikahl was almost certain that by “quietly,” the King meant undetected. Mikahl asked if he should prepare the King’s mount as well, and the answer was firm. “You’ll be going alone, Mik, and the journey will be a long one. No one can suspect you’re leaving.”

The conversation took place a short while ago when Mikahl and the king were alone, just after the feast for the Summer’s Day delegation. The oddness of it was just now starting to sink in. “Just be ready Mik,” King Balton told him. “I’ll try to send for you and give you more instruction later this night.”

All of this was very cryptic to Mikahl. King Balton, the ruler of all of Westland, seemed afraid. The way he’d cleared the entire dining hall and whispered into Mikahl’s ear with wild, darting eyes, was unnerving. To top it off, the King sent Mikahl out through the back of the kitchens so the bulk of the nobility and the castle’s staff would not see him depart. King Balton never acted like this before, at least not around Mikahl. It was all very strange and Mikahl was beginning to worry about the King’s health. The man was fairly old, no one could doubt, but he had never acted like this before. Maybe he’d reached the end of his rope?