As soon as he left the queen and the princess, Aeden rushed quickly to accomplish what the queen asked of him. The cook was willing enough to give him the food once she heard the queen's request. "A hunting trip? I suppose it's a nice idea with the weather and all. I wish they would give me these requests in advance, though. It's hard enough to meet demands around here sometimes..." After agreeing to help the cook get the food together, he eventually left with a nice pack of supplies to last them for a while, even managing to sneak in a bit extra when she wasn't looking to keep her from asking questions. With that in hand, he ran up to the queen's quarters to find the money she directed him to get, finding it in a nice purse. 

As he attempted to steal back to the servants' quarters, he found himself stopped in the hall by a loud commotion. Hiding himself, he listened carefully to hear what was going on. 

[i]"Bring them to the dungeon. We execute the Queen tomorrow for adultery and Genevieve the following day for impersonation of a member of my royal family." 

Aeden froze in horror, realizing that he had been too late to get them out without trouble. [i]E..execution? Tomorrow?[/i] He wondered at how cold the king could act toward the women he had called his wife and daughter for so long. [i]I wonder if Master Blackshine would have done such a thing...[/i] Quickly, he shook the offending thought out of his head. He just couldn't see him acting like this without some hesitation, though he wondered if that could have just been his devotion to the late royal that made him want to think the best of him. 

Now wasn't the time for such musings, though. He had to figure out how to get them out of the dungeons. and probably how to avoid detection, since he obviously had not been careful enough before. Swallowing thickly, he made himself scarce before the king and the guards could see him as they approached. As much as it pained him to allow the people he had sworn to protect to be caught without doing anything about it, he knew that he wouldn't be much help if they had him imprisoned or killed as well. 

"I'll be back," he whispered, vanishing into the shadows of the castle halls. He had some extra plans to make. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A few hours later, the servant was walking down to the dungeons, carrying a large tray. Meeting the guards in the room at the room just at the bottom of the stairs, he told them that the cook had sent down dinner for them. Actually convincing them of why such a thing had been done would take him a bit, but he had enough experience from working in the castle for so long to keep him confident. " Come on, I need somebody to take it or goodness knows what she'll do to me. I know it's strange that she's doing this now, but she already had it mostly prepared before she heard the news and now she's ticked that nobody's going to eat it. It's good food, too, so I say we go along with it and enjoy our lucky share of gourmet cooking tonight..." 

Several minutes later, the guards were passed out and their keys were gone. Having easily slipped through the heavy door with their aid, Aeden proceeded down into the dark room were the kingdom's worst criminals were normally kept.