*~CHAPTER NINE~*
"How can this be?" King Beast questioned to no one in particular. "How did our son end up on the Isle of the Lost?"
It was around two in the morning when the king and queen were woken up from their slumber. At the moment they were in the hearth room—their favorite place in the castle—sitting in their designated chairs dressed in their robes and pajamas while the second in command of the search party was informing them on the news.
"We don't know," the guard admitted. "We do know that he must have been there for a while. From the few minutes we saw, he was dressed in a similar fashion and acted courteous to the other citizens."
"Do the villains or their children know who he is?" Queen Belle wondered.
"It may be possible," he answered reluctantly. "One of the children that he—uh, interacted with said he was the purest thing on the Isle."
"An odd choice of words," the king commented skeptically. "And how exactly did the cameras suddenly start working?"
"We thought somebody heard our pleas and prayers about not having the other candidate become king." The guard shrugged nonchalantly. "It's the only explanation we could come up with."
"When does the search party plan on bringing him home?" The queen further interrogated.
"We were going to keep an eye on him for a couple days," the worker explained. "It's a precaution to make sure it's truly him. We'll be able to listen in on his conversations so it won't take that long to discover if it's him."
"What made you think it was him?"
"We saw his royal ring."
"On him?" King Beast said.
"No," the soldier confessed. "We saw it on a girl he was talking to. We thought he gave it to her as a present."
"Or she stole it from him so he wouldn't know who he was."
"We are leaning toward the latter." Truth be told, the guard didn't want to be the one to tell the king and queen that their son was in a relationship with a villain's daughter. He knew the king would get into one of his temper fits.
"How many will be there to bring him home?" Queen Belle continued, mostly to change the subject.
"Our plans are to have two guards and a familiar face. We don't need the villains wondering why there are a hundred Auradon guards suddenly appearing on the Isle. It's likely they would warn Ben and he'd hide from us."
"I will go," Lumiere, who was standing alone by the door, volunteered. "It would be dangerous to have any of the royal family go to the Isle and it would be dangerous for the villains if we let his childhood friend go instead."
"Ah." Queen Belle shook her head in amusement with a small smile on her face. "Lonnie has gotten better at wielding a sword over the past few years. Do you think he'll remember you? After all, it has been over ten years since he's seen anyone from Auradon."
"We won't know till we try."
"There's supposed to be a shipment to the Isle tomorrow," the guard informed. "If we can determine that he is truly the lost prince by the end of today, then we'll be able to go with or follow the shipment boat on Saturday and bring him home."
Don't get your hopes too high. It will only come crashing down in an unexpected way.