A/N: For those of you who wanted to know how Cas was doing... Here's an update on his situation ;)

Unbetad, so sorry for any errors. Enjoy and review, please! :)

PART I

Chapter 4

Castiel stared numbly ahead at the dull bars at the front of his cell, leaning his tired head against the brick wall behind him. He did not know what time of day it was, he never knew, for there were no windows down here, only the gloomy lights of torches.

Time quickly became meaningless in a hellhole like this. He knew it had taken them about a week, travelling along countrysides and foreign places to arrive at this castle, but unfortunately he had no idea where he was. He had been bound and blindfolded for most of the journey here, which had served to make it even more exhausting, but fulfilled its purpose of disorienting him completely. If he ever got out of this dungeon, which was highly unlikely, he would probably never be able to find his way back home.

Upon arrival they had stuck him straight down here, no questions asked. This had very much confused him, for he had expected to be interrogated or used or tormented in some way. But what did he know? Maybe they were just letting him stew for a few days or were planning something far worse. If anything, he did not believe for one second that he was off the hook.

Hours and hours passed, it might have even been days, he could not tell. His only sign of time was when the guards outside his cell were exchanged, which was most likely every few hours, but he couldn't know for sure. Over time he found that he strangely grew more tired and more alert at the same time. Fear could be very tiring and the longer he was locked in here, the more afraid he became. But that fear also served to make him extremely wary and show attention to every detail that changed around him.

After a while of watching, he noticed one time that one of the guards must have a deformed foot, for the way he moved was very clumsy and slow. Another time he realized that it was always the same servant that came down to change the burnt out torches in for new ones. He doubted that such information would help him much in this situation though.

One day however someone finally put an end to his dreary existence of doing nothing more than paying attention to insignificant detail. A group of three soldiers came down into the dungeon and ordered the guards to unlock the door to his cell.

"Get up," one of the soldiers ordered him gruffly. "Apparently our good Lord wants to see you."

He received no further information than this. Castiel's hands were bound before his body and he was then lead out of the cell and up the stairs into the castle. Using his now highly trained abilities of perception (wandering the countryside blindfolded for a week also enabled one to develop a more focused sense of hearing), the young prince paid high attention to everything he encountered on the way, from the small, narrow corridors they passed to several suits of armor that were on display. On the whole the castle didn't seem all that large, definitely a lot smaller than the one he had grown up in in Hemina and it was very dark and gloomy, lacking the artful integration of sunlight that his home possessed.

It did not take them very long to walk from the dungeons to their destination, but then again Castiel wasn't sure if he could completely trust his sense of time. The room they eventually lead him into appeared to be some sort of situation room with a large table set up in the middle and several tablets displaying drawings of maps and graphics and more. There were several people standing around the table, some pouring over piles of parchment, others engaged in deep discussion. All in all it was a weird place to bring a prisoner, Castiel thought.

"My Lord," the soldier standing before him spoke loudly and for a short moment Castiel found himself wondering who would look up for they all looked pretty much the same to him. There were no crowns or jewelry or any special symbol that elevated one of them as the leader. "The prisoner as you requested."

Almost all of the men in the room looked up to see what was happening, but only one of them immediately stepped forward and Castiel guessed that he must be the highest ranking of them all. He was a middle-aged tall and rather thin man with a highly cryptic look on his face. The young prince squared his shoulders as best he could with his bound hands and raised his chin up high to look proud. He would refuse to show them even a single sign of weakness.

"So…" the tall man spoke, giving Castiel a scrutinizing once-over. "This is Castiel…" He stared at him for a moment, before shrugging with a slight smirk. "You're shorter than I expected."

A low rumbling chuckle went through the group of men in the room, but at this point Castiel was way beyond caring about jokes at his expense. "And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?" he said slowly, drowning each syllable in as much sarcasm and disdain as he possibly could.

"Alistair," the man responded carelessly. Evidently he didn't think knowing his name would do the prince much good. He slowly moved forward until he was standing directly in front of Castiel and the latter did his best to not show any signs of discomfort. He could not move away if he wanted to, the soldiers were holding him firmly in place.

"You have spent almost three days in your cell now…" Alistair went on watching him closely, drawling out the words as if he was tasting each one of them. Had it only been three days? It had seemed much longer to him, but maybe that was the idea. "Are we feeling chatty yet?"

Castiel frowned at the man, for he had such a weird way of speaking. It wasn't the language he had learned to use while growing up, not the language of royalty, it was almost common. He wondered who exactly these people were, for he knew nothing whatsoever about them, except that they were wearing the emblem of a long-defeated enemy.

Alistair sighed at his prisoner's silence, acting as if he were too stupid to understand the question. "Are you ready to talk?"

Castiel glared up at him. "I will tell you nothing."

"Oh yes, you will," Alistair responded casually, carelessly as if it were already a given fact. "You're going to tell us everything. Every unprotected crack or crevice in Michael's kingdom, every battle strategy that he has laid out, every town that seems worth mentioning."

Castiel continued to glare at him, not backing down for a second. "No," he said firmly. "I won't do that."

He did not even know all the information that this man was asking of him, because as the youngest Michael would never let him in as much on the planning and scheming as his older brothers, but even if he did, he wouldn't tell them.

"The only question is…" Alistair went on, as if Castiel hadn't said anything. "If you'll do so by mild means or more… enhanced ones." He seemed to contemplate this for a moment, before looking over at the group of men still standing around the table. "My good Azazel," he then said, gesturing toward one of them.

When the man stepped forward out of the crowd, Castiel let out a small gasp of recognition. He hadn't noticed him inside the group but it was him, the yellow-eyed man, the one who had captured him and tormented him by hauling him blindly through foreign lands for a week. The one who had killed Inias. While looking upon him the young prince began to feel a rising mixture of fear and undying hatred.

"You were with the angel for almost a week," Alistair spoke to the yellow-eyed man, who was eying Castiel with a highly interested smirk. "What do you suggest?"

"Oh, very defiant," Azazel responded, but the way he was saying the words sounded almost like he was mocking the prince. "He's gonna be hard to break. I suggest you take him back down to the dungeons and tell the good Mister to start on him right away."

As much as the sound of his words made Castiel feel sick with fear, all of his current senses were occupied with the flaming rage and hatred that he carried toward this man. He wished nothing more than to leap forward and claw into him with his bare hands, releasing even larger pools of blood than had vacated Inias in death.

"All right," Alistair decided and gestured to the soldiers. "Take him back, men."

"Yes, sir," one of them nodded and moved to turn around.

"You will pay!" Castiel heard himself growl, almost as if it wasn't him that was speaking, for the boundless fury was making him feel detached from his own body. "You will pay for what you did to Inias!"

The guards moved to lead him away, but he didn't budge and strained against their grip. "Do you hear me?" he yelled, as the soldiers started dragging him screaming and struggling out of the room. "You will pay!"

The last thing he saw was the yellow-eyed man's amused smirk.

. . .

The spot where Michael's scouts had last caught a glimpse of prince Castiel was at the opposite side of the kingdom, meaning over hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the two Winchester's hometown.

They had both decided not to return back home, but to go on the mission right away because they knew that their father would probably talk them out of it. One did not help angels, not for all the money in the world after the horrible things they had all done to the lower class humans. Principles had always been more important to John than anything else. Even if that meant sacrificing the life of a loved one.

Though the two brothers were both in agreement over the reasons why they had decided to go on the mission anyway, Dean still didn't like the fact that Sam seemed to find it so easy to disobey their father. For him this was a very difficult situation and he was still struggling with it, because there was nothing on earth that deserved more attention than his father's orders. He had been the one to get the town as well as them safely through the past years of hunger, he always knew what was the right thing to do, he was the man they should be following. Going against that was like ignoring one of nature's most basic instincts for Dean and he could not understand how Sammy could just shrug it off like this.

We're grown-ups, Dean, he had said. Dad knows we can take care of ourselves.

These parts of the kingdom weren't completely unfamiliar to them as they had already come down here once on a rather unusual hunt, sent at the request of their Uncle Bobby.

"I know your dad don't want you boys to leave the homestead too far behind," he had said to them in secret. "But if you could check it out off the record… Would mean the world to me."

That had been the first and only time in his life that Dean had ever done something without his father knowing about it, because Bobby was the only person besides Sam that he trusted just as much. The fact had been that the man had an old acquaintance down in these parts that had been struggling with a very unusual haunting terrorizing more than five villages. Bobby would've gone and helped him himself if he hadn't known that he was absolutely indispensable to John's organization of the village, more than the boys were. So the two young Winchesters had travelled down here to take care of it.

Ever since their encounter with King Michael a few days ago, Dean had found himself thinking more and more about what the guy had said about their reputation. Up until now he had not realized how well he and his brother were known in the kingdom for their skills, because they were by far not the only ones that conducted something more than just normal hunting. Even in their own village there were several hunters who had also acquired a few special skills. Jo had recently been getting involved in the business as well, though that was not a development that Dean especially liked to see. It was not because she was a woman, but more the fact that he didn't wish to see the sweet child he had grown up with mindlessly throw herself into situations as dangerous as him and Sam.

He knew for a fact that other villages also sometimes harbored people who were doing the same type of work, so on the whole, he did not understand why he and Sam were apparently so much more famous than the rest of them. Sure, they were good at the job, awesome really, but it still seemed strange.

"Hey, wise guy," Dean said after a while, looking over at his brother that was perched on his horse beside him. "Any luck with that map?"

Sam was almost scowling at the large sheet of parchment he was holding between his wide spread arms. "I'm getting there," he murmured.

"So, that's a no," Dean decided casually.

"Shut up," Sam grunted.

Dean chuckled, prompting his horse to walk further into the forest that they suspected was the target's general direction.

"I know where we are…" Sam mumbled more to himself than to his brother. "I just…"

"…don't know where we're going?" Dean suggested, which earned him an exasperated sigh.

"You wanna try it, Dean?" Sam exclaimed loudly, slamming the map down on the front of his saddle. His horse didn't so much as flinch, it was used to a lot worse. "Cause you're doing pretty well at complaining!"

"Nope," Dean smirked cheerfully. "All yours, Sammy."

Sam huffed in annoyance and started digging around in his saddlebag until he extracted a neat little book that contained all of his notes. "All right," he said, quickly flicking through the pages until he found what he was looking for. "I know how Bobby described the place, I just can't find it on the map…" He frowned at his own handwriting and looked back and forth between the book and the map. "We're only a few hours away."

"Yeah, I can't believe you wrote that down just from that one time he told us!" Dean stated in disbelief, shaking his head at his little brother's freakiness. "My God, you're a geek!"

"You know, it might not be the best time to make fun of me for that when it actually works in our favor," Sam retorted, but couldn't hide his amused smirk as he shook his head as well.

The place they were talking about was an old pub somewhere far on the unknown border of the kingdom that Bobby had told them about when informing them about the case they had taken here. Dean remembered him mentioning it too, yet he begrudgingly had to admit that he would never have been able to think of it if Sammy wouldn't always write every fucking thing down in his nerd book. Apparently it was a place where some older hunters sometimes passed through and people knew more about the realms beyond the kingdom than was generally known. It wasn't much, but it was their best shot at the moment.

"So… this should be the right direction we're going in," Sam concluded, finally putting his things away. "Of course there's no telling if this'll help with finding the guy."

Dean snorted. "No, course not," he sighed in irritation. "No more the mighty king could find out before putting his willing human slaves on it!"

"Dean," Sam reproved him, knowing that his brother was just about to start another rant against angels.

"Still can't believe we took this fucking mission, man," Dean grumbled displeased, but Sam ignored him and he knew why. He had uttered that comment far too many times since they had left home for it to be taken seriously any longer.

"I hope Jo's ok," Sam suddenly muttered thoughtfully. "I didn't have time to give her much of an explanation…"

Dean gave him a quick glance, his mind instantly returning to the subject of all the danger Jo could be putting herself in while they were gone. He quickly shook those thoughts off. "Nah, she's gonna be fine," he said certainly. "She's a tough cookie, Sam, she can handle anything."

"Except maybe losing her mother…" Sam murmured sadly.

Dean fell silent for a moment, his thoughts now turning to the very sick Ellen. She had been so full of life when he had been younger, but in the past year she had drifted farther and farther away from herself as the dreadful illness took hold. "Yeah," he agreed grimly. "Let's hope we can stop that from happening."

Sam nodded his agreement and then smiled at something he had evidently just remembered. "Remember when she busted us for stealing the arrows from Rufus' storage?" he asked chuckling.

Dean snorted in amusement, seeing the scene before his eyes as if it had been yesterday. "Sure do," he responded. "I remember when she caught you in Jane's cabin!" He chuckled. "She was pretty damn pissed…"

"Dean, I'm pretty sure that was you," Sam said, giving his brother a stern and incredulous look.

Dean closed his mouth and frowned in confusion. "Right," he murmured affirmatively.

Sam shook his head and gave a slight chuckle at his brother's expense. "I kinda think I know why she was so pissed though," he went on. "You know, cause of Jo."

Dean looked at him dumbly. "What about her?" he wanted to know.

Sam gave him a pointed look that needed no further words.

"Huh?" Dean said, voice heavily filled with incredulity. "Oh, come on, dude, Jo?" He shook his head slightly in disbelief when Sam's gaze didn't waver. "Barking up the wrong tree there, Sammy, she's like my sister," he insisted. "Nothing going on there, I promise you."

He turned his attention ahead to give his horse a light pat on its neck and therefore missed the sad and regretful smile that passed over his brother's face for only a second.

"Besides, when did you get all match-maky, Sam?" Dean wondered aloud. "I mean, it's usually you that hooks up with the ladies, right?"

He had said it in a light tone, trying to make a joke, his mind passing idly to Sarah, but he realized too late that it was a mistake. Sam's expression instantly confirmed that he had hit the nerve of all nerves, the one he had never in a million years intended to target.

"Oh…" Dean murmured regretfully, mentally slapping himself and wishing he could take his mindless comment back. "Look, man…"

Sam bowed his head and suddenly looked so incredibly young and vulnerable, while his fingers played absent-mindedly in his pocket.

"I'm sorry," Dean said honestly. "I didn't mean"-

"It's ok, Dean," Sam cut him off, forcing a weak smile onto his face. "I know you didn't."

Dean knew that Sam was being truthful, that he didn't resent him in any way for what he had said, but he still wished he could've spared his brother the unnecessary anguish. A thoughtful silence now lingered between them as they rode on side by side through the thickening forest.

And thus ended their amicable conversation.

A/N: I'd just like to add a short explanation about the dialogue... I know this is a medieval fic so technically Sam and Dean shouldn't be talking in their same modern slang as they do on the original show. However I decidedly chose to keep their normal language even if it might be a tad unrealistic in the setting cause let's face it, this is a huge part of why we love them so much and without their fun banter they wouldn't really be the Winchesters anymore ;)

Hope this is ok for all of you and thanks so much for reading!