Chapter 4 - THE PRINCE WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEADKing Edward's younger brother, Prince Adrian, had died in a hunting accident thirty-five years earlier.
At least, that was the official story.
The prince was twenty-four when he disappeared in the northern forest.
His horse returned without him.
Searchers found blood near a ravine.
A damaged cloak.
And his broken sword.
His body was never recovered.
King Edward had been twenty-three.
He remembered standing beside his father as the search ended.
He remembered the funeral.
The empty coffin.
And the silence that followed.
Now Roland claimed he had seen Adrian alive on the night Eleanor disappeared.
Edward stared at his knight.
"Why would you say such a thing?"
Roland lowered his head.
"Because I recognized him."
The king shook his head.
"Thirty-five years have passed."
Roland nodded.
"Yes."
"Then he would be an old man."
Roland looked directly at him.
"He looked twenty-four."
Ethan felt cold.
The same age Adrian had been when he vanished.
Just as Eleanor remained twenty.
The pattern was impossible to ignore.
People who entered the Sun Gate did not seem to age normally.
Edward turned toward Ethan.
"Can your device show my brother?"
Ethan hesitated.
"I don't have a picture of him."
Roland stepped forward.
"Then perhaps we can find one."
The king looked toward the royal archives.
"Bring the portrait."
One of the soldiers hurried to a side chamber and returned with an old painted panel.
The portrait showed a young man with dark hair and sharp blue eyes.
He wore a black cloak fastened with a silver clasp.
Ethan stared.
He recognized the face.
Not from a history book.
From a photograph on his phone.
He had taken the picture at the university museum two days earlier.
A man stood behind Eleanor during a public lecture.
Ethan barely noticed him at the time.
Now he remembered.
The dark hair.
The sharp eyes.
The same expression.
He opened the image.
His hands began trembling.
"Your Majesty..."
Edward looked toward him.
"What?"
Ethan turned the phone around.
The photograph showed Eleanor standing in a modern lecture hall.
Behind her stood a man who looked exactly like the painted prince.
Edward stepped closer.
His face drained of color.
"Adrian..."
Roland stared.
"It is him."
Ethan swallowed.
"He's alive in my time."
The king sat down slowly.
For thirty-five years, he had believed his brother dead.
For seven years, he had believed his daughter lost.
Now both appeared to be living five hundred years in the future.
But Ethan remembered something else.
During the lecture, Eleanor had introduced the man as her research supervisor.
Dr. Adrian Vale.
Ethan looked toward the king.
"He works with your daughter."
Edward's expression hardened.
"Does she know who he is?"
Ethan shook his head.
"I don't think so."
Roland stepped forward.
"Then he may be controlling her."
Ethan looked toward the photograph.
Adrian's expression was calm.
Almost friendly.
But something about his eyes made Ethan uneasy.
He remembered the lecture.
Adrian had spoken about forgotten civilizations.
Ancient astronomical devices.
And the possibility that medieval legends preserved knowledge of lost technologies.
At the end, he had made a strange statement.
"History is not a straight road. It is a door waiting to be opened."
Ethan had thought it was poetic.
Now he understood.
Adrian knew about the Sun Gate.
Perhaps he had been using it for decades.
Edward rose.
"Why would my brother take my daughter?"
Roland hesitated.
Then answered:
"Because Eleanor is the heir to the throne."
The king frowned.
"What does that have to do with the gate?"
Roland looked toward the royal sun pendant in the photograph.
"Perhaps the pendant is not merely jewelry."
Ethan stared.
The golden sun.
The symbol of the royal family.
The object Eleanor always wore.
He remembered something from the university museum.
A display described the pendant as a ceremonial key.
Most historians assumed the word was symbolic.
But what if it was literal?
Ethan looked toward the king.
"Your Majesty..."
Edward turned.
May you like
Ethan raised the phone.
"I think your daughter's necklace opens the portal."
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