章節 28: Good Soup

Felipe's tip fingers began to bleed as he used all his strength to grip the nail head to pull it out. Nevertheless, he was very determined to do so.

It has been 12 minutes of intense screwing off the nail as it was the best way to loosen it. He didn't want to completely pull the nail out as his main objective was to cut the rags bounding his hands.

'Fuck.' Felipe thought his own blood was making things more slippery; surprisingly, Felipe was not really feeling too much pain; the only way that was possible was because his veins were flooded with Adrenaline.

He was able to grip the nail and just thought before making any attempt to do anything. He began to breathe heavily before he decided to use his whole body to pull, and finally, the nail cave and was pulled halfway; due to how nails were made in Haiti and in there early 19 century in general, the nail was not straight but curved, thus letting the nail behalf inside the wood plank and still have a lot of friction.

'I really fucking hope I don't get tetanus.' Felipe coursed in his mind before accommodating himself and beginning to accommodate himself to start rubbing his hand tides away. Meanwhile, he looked at Prince Henry; he finally calmed down and looked at him with a surprised face.

'This kid… you will be dead in 5 years if your father does nothing… I will help you and your father keep this country for good or bad. It is most likely bad, but democracy doesn't suit the countries that are in misery.' Felipe thought as he kept using the nail as a knife; the nail body was in the shape of a triangle, thus giving him some edge which gave a knife-like edge.

10 minutes later, Felipe became uncomfortable watching the Prince the whole time, so he was now closing his eyes as he was relentlessly moving back and forth his hands, from time to time checking his progress with his fingers—it was small, but it was progressing.

20 minutes later, his whole body was sweating more than it was sitting when he woke up. But it has been paying; the rag bidding his hands was finally giving up. Nevertheless, the last 30 minutes felt like 3 hours to Felipe.

He was clenching his jaw, though the pain distracted the pain of his bleeding fingers, somewhat making the whole situation more bearable than not clenching his jaw; it was a mind trick, making his body concentrate on one pain more than the other.

Of course, the Prince only looked at him with hope; he thought Felipe could take them out of there. But the sudden sound of a person coming them finally made them alert, and Felipe quickly pushed the nail inside and moved to the side to show innocence; plus, the bleeding of his hands was hidden behind his back, so it was not really a way to do much.

Finally, a man entered. He was a former guard from the palace; Felipe remembered him. He expressed wanting to talk and began to silence some words.

The guard smiled as he got close, and with his hand, he roughly took Felipe's mouth to bind. The band brushed his cheek horribly through the process, making Felipe clench his fist due to the pain.

"What do you want?" Felipe asked in French; he, of course, made sure to use 'Tu' instead of 'Vous' when he addressed him. (A/N: in French, 'Tu' and 'Vous' translate to 'You,' but the first one is informal and to people you know, and the latter is formal and to people, you don't know.)

"Heheh, Prince of La Nueva Granada, what a joke." He only mocked Felipe as he was also amused with Felipe.

"… Kiddenaping us will only make you the target of the entire Haitian Kingdom. I don't see how I am even related to this." Felipe asked once again but this time with a more respectful note.

"What happens if you kill a king?" The man asked.

"..." Felipe didn't say anything.

"Their family or their next generation becomes King. It is useless; the only way to destroy a kingdom is from inside, for the King himself to go crazy… for everyone to abandon him and turn against him." The man looked at the Prince. "And the Prince is the most valuable thing for the King. Not even his palace can compare; a father's weakness—their child."

"… What is my role in all of this?" Felipe was still trying to save himself.

"Your head has value, and it was given by the Spaniards." The man said as he smiled with malice, "What better thing to do but hand you over to the Spaniards? They will support our cause and aid us."

"…" Felipe didn't say anything; he had to say he was more worried now. After all, unlike how the King of Haiti saw his own criticisms as a way to improve, the Spanish saw his criticism as a threat to the crown plus, The Aragon Family was always proclaiming themselves as the rightful Heir to the throne of Spain, so instead of being completely silent and mind their own business, the Spanish began a bounty on his head and the head of his father, of course, more valuable alive than dead, it was the same.

"What is your Cause? Are you from the Republic?" Felipe asked as he tried to calm down the kidnapper.

"Aye, it is just a shame you were stranded here at such a time. Maybe this is god actually helping us; they sent you to help us."

"…"

The man finally put back the mouth cover and slowly left. Felipe didn't say anything but just endured the jaw pain. He knew there was no way he could do anything to persuade that man.

His mind was already looking through his possible options; after he was given to the Spanish, he was most likely going to be made to swear never to say anything against the Spanish Empire and renounce any claim to the Spanish throne after he gets released after a lot of negotiating from his father through the British.

He closed his eyes and began to meditate on what he was doing next; try to escape or wait like a lamb to the slaughter and wait for his father to get him out of the Spanish hands.

10 seconds later, he opened his eyes and moved his body all the way back behind the nail. Thankfully, he could remove the nail without much trouble and back again to file off the rags, biding his hands.

The Prince tried to talk to him but actively ignored him; he didn't want to distract himself.

It lasted around 20 more minutes before a genuine sound, and the tension of Felipe's wrist disappeared. The rags were completely off.

Felipe didn't react in time, but it was the screams of happened from the Haitian Prince that made him realize that his hands were actually free, and so he brought them in front o of him to find his hands covered in dried blood; the smell of iron invaded his nostrils in no time.

Nonetheless, Felipe instantly tried to take the binds from his ankles but realized his hands were shaking uncontrollably; he could not do anything.

He decided to do the thing with less need of dexterity, which was using his thumb to take off his mouth bind; the first thing he did was to breathe through his mouth as much as possible as the amount of air that his nose was not able to satisfy his body.

"You must stay silent. Stop shouting, or we both die here," Felipe whispered to the crown prince. Felipe said with a shaky voice as his efforts to escape were showing fruits.

"…" The Prince only nodded as he only nodded and quickly shut his throat.

Felipe put his hands on the ground and closed his eyes to calm himself; just like that, he felt secure enough to maintain his shaking hands at bay.

Opening his eyes up, he used his hand to try untying the ties of his ankles. He did not check if his hands were trembling; he just went for it.

The ties were very tight; he forgot about everything; he ignored any other sound; he just wanted to get rid of the tides preventing his feet from moving freely.

The Prince looked at Felipe with worry and moved his hands up as if trying to tell him it would be better if he untied him first.

Finally, he felt the nod lose, and all the ties lose tension, finally letting blood fully travel through his feet. But simultaneously, he heard the door outside open and shut.

He felt scared, so he quickly tied the nod back again, but this time, without much strength; he also went for his hands and tried to tie them well enough so the knot could fool anyone looking at it. Meanwhile, the Prince was sweating profusely, not because he was making much effort but because he also heard the door open.

Nonetheless, the door opened, and so came a woman with bowls of steaming soup and wooden spoons in each of the bowls. The steam covered the whole room and made the smell of food enter Felip's nostrils. It smelled like really good food.

There were two bowls, of course, 1 for each of them.

The woman put the bowls on the ground and looked at Felipe more than Henry.

And so, she slowly took the vends from Felipe's mouth and began to feed him in complete silence. Felipe gladly drank such soup with the saviour that only gods could enjoy. He drank enthusiastically, and then it was Henry's turn; if he had not seen how Felipe acted, he would have screamed the moment she had taken his mouth cover.

Nonetheless, she fed all the soup to Henry before putting back his mouth bound. She then left in a sneaky way, as if she was not supposed to be there.