A/N: This chapter might cause deja vu with people who've already read Beauty and Misery, but Hector does need to find out about what happened during the time span that the story covered. Please bear with me.

Hector couldn't breathe. His mind reeled as he forced himself to digest what Lucius had just told him. Paris – sweet, young, beautiful Paris who had no military training whatsoever because of King Priam had to protect him from what the elder prince had done – was now at the mercy of Achilles. While they'd never actually met in battle before, Hector knew that the Greek's sudden mood swings and violent outburst were just as legendary as his fighting prowess. No one on that ship or in the Myrmidon homeland would defend a foreign prince from his whims; even if such an action wouldn't put their lives in danger, the loyalty of the men to their commander was undisputed. What Paris must be enduring! Black dots were starting to appear before Hector's eyes…

"Prince Hector!" The startled Lucius grabbed him as his knees buckled. Hector shook his head and sucked in some air, attempting to think and breathe properly. Swooning in the streets was not going to help Paris. Information, he needed information; about how this happened, what warnings did they have that it was going to happen, and most importantly, why no one did anything to stop it! A surge of anger rushed through him and he felt as if he could tear the whole city apart with his bare hands in order to find the answers to those pressing questions. It was a shame that the world was still tilting a little, making him sway slightly.

"Sire, perhaps you should sit down," suggested Lucius. The prince had barely nodded in agreement before Lucius determinedly led him to a nearby bench. He watched as his commander bent forward and gripped the edge of the flat stone so tightly that his knuckles turned white. That was a strange sight since Hector was usually so calm and together, as if he'd spent a lifetime learning to control his feelings under the most stressful circumstances. Of course, having a brute abduct a family member was quite possibly the worst and most personal stress that one could suffer. "Do you need me to fetch you a healer?"

Frowning, Hector waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "I don't need herbs, smelling salts, or anything else they would undoubtedly give me to dull my senses," he told him darkly. "What I need right now is to keep my wits about me while you tell me everything you know. How could something like this happen in a palace full of guards and soldiers? How did Achilles even have enough access to Paris to have the opportunity to abduct him? I was certain that Father wouldn't let any Greek even see Paris after Agamemnon tried to force himself on him during that last visit three years ago."

Lucius snarled inwardly at the memory of learning that Hector had to pull that supposedly kingly Greek off of his brother in a corridor, but refused to let it come to the surface. "Prince Paris was present at the nightly banquets but the king – the king would have never let one of them actually talk to him or have any contact with him if he – he had any other choice," he got out as the anguish in Hector's eyes began to break through his resolve to remain strong and collected.

Hector's shoulders hunched as if he were Atlas himself and bearing the weight of the world. It looked to Lucius as if he had just had his spirit broken. Guilt ran through the soldier's entire being and he wanted to cry out, to beg for punishment because he deserved it. Nothing could be worse than feeling the way he did at that moment. "I'm so sorry, my prince!" he cried in shame, falling to his knees before him. "The blame for what happened must fall directly on me."

"What?"

"I have done so much wrong that it is difficult to know where to begin," he confessed, "but I must start with the fact that I knew of Lord Achilles' unsavory intentions toward Prince Paris."

"And what did you do about it?" asked Hector slowly, growing livid when Lucius simply bowed his head. "Nothing? You knew that Achilles was going to take Paris and you did nothing?"

"No!" exclaimed Lucius miserably. "I only knew that he was – interested in him, but never that it was to this extent."

"But you just decided to keep whatever information you had to yourself?" demanded Hector, not gratified in the least with the soldier's act of remorse. He couldn't decide who he blamed more: Lucius, for being so damnably lax in his guard or himself, for trusting the man to protect his loved ones in the first place.

Lucius struggled to compose himself. "I didn't do it out of malice; not mine or anyone else's. Lord Achilles was so underhanded about it that I had no knowledge of any of this until Lord Isidore shared his suspicions with me. He urged me not to publicly accuse him, for he was concerned about what reaction such an action would trigger. To unleash the furor of the Myrmidons while they were in the palace would have caused unspeakable destruction. Nor did I do nothing at all, sire; I challenged Lord Achilles to a duel."

His eyes glazed over as he recalled everything that happened, mentally changing the parts that he believed led to the youngest prince's abduction. "We fought and I was going to kill him no matter what," he explained. Hector raised his eyebrows in shock. "I believed that even the Greeks would find that I had no other option if we were engaged in combat at the time. It matters not anyway because he got the better of me twice; first by defeating me and then by knocking me unconscious afterwards when I tried to stop him from approaching the royal platform where Prince Paris sat. How I wish now that he would have killed me! At least then he would have been executed for spilling the blood of a noble. But instead, while I lay on the ground oblivious, he demanded his victor's prize."

"And what was that?" asked Hector apprehensively. According to Trojan law, the victor of a duel could select anything they desired – save rule of the land – as a prize. It was strictly honored, even when the victor was a foreigner. Still, he couldn't imagine Priam tolerating anyone asking for Paris as a prize.

"To sit n the place reserved for Lord Isidore at the nightly banquets."

"Right next to Paris," breathed Hector in despair, "and the king could not refuse without insulting the Greek visitors."

Lucius nodded grimly. I kept a close watch on Lord Achilles every evening," he reported. "He never so much as tried to speak to Prince Paris and the prince always found an excuse to leave early and escape from his side. Then, two nights ago, the Myrmidons – all of them – pulled a most deceptive trick and slipped out of the city. We did not even realize that they'd departed until the following morning."

Hector remained silent. The fact that all the Myrmidons played such an active role in the scheme felt ominous and did nothing to soothe his nerves.

"I shouldn't have stopped until he was dead!" lamented Lucius, "even if it meant slaying him in his sleep. Such a thing would have been a great dishonor, but that means nothing now. Damn my honor! What is that compared to the honor of Prince Paris?"

"Paris'…honor?" 'Please Apollo, don't let that mean what I think it means!'

"He was taken from – from his bedchamber," said Lucius, his voice thick with emotion. "The condition of his bedding – it was obvious that he fought with someone while still in bed."

Hector slammed his eyes shut and clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his anguished cry. The images of what might have happened during that struggle came unbidden to his mind. Tears stung his eyes and it took all of his willpower not to fall apart on the spot. "He cannot have – he must be – so scared," he stuttered. "This. Is. Not. Acceptable. What is being done to get him back? What has my father commanded?"

"He – he will be meeting with the nobles to discuss the best course of action," answered Lucius.

"So Achilles takes the youngest prince of Troy and two days later still nothing is being done?" cried Hector. "Paris has already run out of time!"

To this the soldier had no adequate response. Privately, it unsettled him that the king had done so little to rescue his younger son, even though the Trojan army's commander's – Hector – absence was a somewhat understandable excuse. Still, he was a loyal subject and not about to question his liege lord's decisions without sufficient cause.

"The best course of action," Hector continued to marvel. "Well, I'm sure that Paris is much comforted by the fact that Father is taking his time in deciding how to rescue him." He straightened his shoulders. "Where is my father?"

"He is at his private alter," Lucius informed him. "The king has been praying to Apollo since after he dealt with the remaining Greeks."

Without another word, Hector bolted from the bench and took off at a run, racing through the corridors of the palace. A person he passed by would occasionally call out, trying to get his attention, but he was oblivious to everything but getting to his father. Ignoring the cries of protests from the guards posted outside the entryway to Priam's private later, he threw the doors open and rushed inside.

King Priam spun around, startled by the abrupt and noisy entrance of his son. He thought he'd subdued that undignified part of him a long time ago! "Hector!" he exclaimed. "What is the meaning of all this?"

"I just heard about Paris," Hector said hurriedly. "How could something like this happen? Do you have any notion of how we're going to save him? I'm back now; I can –"

"Be silent!" Priam snapped the order that Hector was very much familiar with while waving his hand as if he were batting away an insect. He looked from his son to the guards standing in the doorway. "There are some matters that I need to discuss with the prince. Leave us."

After the doors slammed shut Priam turned his cold eyes back to his son. "Hector," he lectured, his facial features pinched with disapproval. This was always the way that he spoke to him when he was displeased with something that he'd done and it made Hector feel like a child standing in the shadow of a giant. "Your display was disgraceful. Ranting like a madman, bursting into a sacred place, and – by Apollo, your eyes are red. Have you been crying?"

Hector winched at his father's tone and hastily wiped his eyes. "One of the soldiers –"

"What? It is not enough that you break down but you must also show your weakness in public?" Priam interrupted, his voice saturated with condescension. "This may be a new low for you, and that is quite a feat indeed. You are thirty years old, not a child; and I expect you to act with a little more decorum."

"I am sorry, Father," apologized Hector as he took deep breaths in an effort to calm himself. "My only excuse is that I was so surprised by the news of what happened to Paris. Is there any information that you thought was best to keep from the army? Do you know for sure that he is with Achilles?"

"Your brother," said Priam grimly, "was taken two nights ago by Achilles, of that we are certain. I don't know what condition he is in now, but it is painfully evident that whatever occurred at the time of his abduction was extremely violent. Lord Isidore's two personal guards were found slaughtered on his bedchamber floor."

"Lord Isidore's guards? What were they doing there?"

Priam cast a condemning glare his way. "I image that they were doing what the guards trained by you and under your command could not," he replied. "That guard at his door was so incompetent that he was knocked unconscious before he even got a good look at the attackers; but what else should I have expected from one of your troops? We wouldn't even know for certain the identity of his abductor if it weren't for that urchin servant."

"Julian?" interrupted Hector, recalling the loyal servant child that waited on Paris in the evenings before he retired to bed.

"Don't interrupt," scolded Priam with a snap in his tone. "Yes, I believe that's his name, the worthless little piece of filth. He was found cowering behind the dressing curtain in your brother's bedchamber. No one knows what all he witnessed or why he didn't even try to go for help, but at least he named the attacker. 'Lord Achilles took the prince' is all that he's said and no bribe or threat can convince him to tell more."

That was something that Hector could understand. Priam was not compassionate and patient; and the guards and soldiers could get downright vicious when the well being of a member of the royal family was at stake. The ten-year-old boy was probably terrified. "Perhaps I could coax a few more words out of him," he volunteered with desperate eagerness. "Where is Julian now?"

"That is none of your concern."

"None of my concern?!" blurted out Hector.

"I will handle this," Priam proclaimed darkly as his territorial instincts heightened. "Paris is mine to protect and govern."

"Well you haven't been doing a very good job of it lately, now have you?" shrieked Hector, who was becoming quite hysterical. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that he'd regret this but he couldn't stop the words from flying out of his mouth. "It was you who invited Achilles here! You even let him sit next to Paris at the feasts every single night. How could you not see that his intentions were not honorable? Did you really believe that he'd act in a rational and civil manner when he was denied what he desired, or were you so obsessed with hording more power that you were willing to let that slip? Did you even bother to watch him at all? How could you let that Grecian monster waltz out of the palace, through the city gates, down to the beach, and onto a ship with a battered Paris in tow?"

Priam backhanded his son. Hector tasted blood in his mouth. "How dare you?" the kind hissed. "It was not I that trained the gate guards to apparently let anyone leave the city no matter what. I wasn't the one who was so inept at bending some ignorant Greek 'king' to this will of Troy that I was delayed from returning when I was needed most. Do not blame me for your own failures, Hector, for they are many."

He narrowed his eyes. "I have done everything in my vast power to protect Paris from the moment he was born," Priam continued. "I protect him from your sin, did I not? Imagine the scorn, ridicule, and shame he would receive if everyone knew your little secret."

Hector bowed his head, ashamed to look his father in the eye as he remembered his own selfish intentions toward the boy.

"Andromache is in the main garden with Astyanax," Priam told him coldly. "Go there and cease your attempts to gain access to Paris. I will never let that happen. Attend to Astyanax, YOUR son, and I will attend to Paris, MY son. Get out of my sight."

Too worn down to argue any longer, Hector turned silently and left the room.

To be continued…

A/N: FYI (just in case), I know nothing about specific Trojan law and that whole "victor's prize" thing was just a plot device - absolutely fictional.