The infant son of European Royals was kidnapped. They received no ransom note, no leads, and had no idea what became of him. After months without word, the world gave up hope that the prince would ever be found, but for the king and queen, it was the beginning of quest that transformed their lives.
Lack of control was extremely difficult for a person who had been born into a world of humanly reasoned solutions. Every situation had a solution. The famous quote from Alanado's grandfather, Alfonso the Great was;
Crises are nothing more than opportunities for practicing the art of governing.
Alanado came to the throne wondering if any problem existed that could not be fixed with the proper amount of expertise and money. But now, he was beginning to see that he'd been deceived by a false sense of immunity from tragedy. Now he longed for those fixable kinds of troubles. Who would believe that one year after the prince's birth, and all of the prophetic hoopla surrounding it, that his wife would still be racked with inconsolable grief? Who would believe that he, the descendant of generations of proud rules, would find his only hope in what his ancestors and the world considered impossible.