“Your Majesty,” one of my guards spoke up. “They were together.”
One glance over his shoulder had the king spinning around to face me. “Princess Arie? It can’t be...” his voice rose. “What are you doing with that criminal? Does your father know you’re here?”
As he spoke, the voices in the room rose and the thoughts about me doubled in intensity, making me wince.
A light came into the king’s eyes.King Amir’s guards were here searching for someone just a few days prior.“Detain her,” he said aloud to his men, “I’ll deal with her shortly.”As soon as I find out why they were looking for her.
The guards tugged me after Kadin, down the same halls we’d just trespassed earlier, but this time we turned down the stairs toward the dungeons instead of the treasury.
As the guards unlocked the massive door to the dungeon, we caught up to Kadin and his captors, where they were shoving him inside a cell.
The dank stone and cold, wet air reeked of stale urine. It was pitch-black except for small crevices lit up by a torch here and there. I was thrust into the cell on the opposite side.
The door creaked as it closed. Keys jingled in the lock as the bolts clicked into place.
The light faded as the guards left, until only the tiniest sliver of light slipped in from a far away torch. At the top of the stairs, the heavy door crashed shut, sealing my fate.
I shivered.
“Is it true?” Kadin’s soft voice spoke into the darkness. There was a pause. “Are you really a princess?”
He’d overheard after all.
I gripped the bars of the cage. Did it even matter now? King Gaspar would undoubtedly send me home. I’d never see Kadin again. So why did the sound of betrayal in his voice hurt so much?
“Kadin?” another man’s voice sounded from a nearby cell. “Is that you?”
“Daichi, you’re in here too?” Kadin’s voice rose, almost cheerful, as if we weren’t reuniting with him in a cell. “We were worried about you.”
An oomph sounded as one of them ran into the cell bars between them, followed by hands clapping each other on the back.
I moved carefully through my own dark cell, until my fingers brushed the opposite wall. I slid down to sit on the floor and lean against it.
“There was this pretty girl,” Daichi mumbled. “I’m sorry. I wanted to impress her, you know—I didn’t say anything I swear! But then they threw me in here, and they were asking so many questions. Don’t worry, I told them I was alone!”
Kadin’s sigh reached me. “Did they ask?”
Daichi paused. “No... but, I thought that’s what they meant—wait, did they not know that already? I’m sorry, boss! This is all my fault, I didn’t mean to give you up—”
“It’s okay,” Kadin cut him off. “Everyone else got out. We’ll be out of here soon too, don’t worry.”
“Do you really believe that?” I snapped from the corner. Nobody broke out of prison. I’d been a fool to come here.
“Maybe the better question is, do I believe I’ve been in the presence of royalty all this time?” Kadin’s voice challenged me, and I regretted speaking up. “You never answered me,PrincessArie. Is it true that you’re the daughter of a king?”
“No,” I lied, sighing and shrugging before I remembered he couldn’t see it. “I think he was just trying to turn us against each other. To see if I’d give you up.” I wondered if that sounded as weak as Kadin’s ‘found it on a table’ excuse earlier.
“That’s brilliant,” Daichi’s voice floated over to me in awe. “You know, you could actually be a princess if you wanted to be. I saw you from the kitchens—you looked like one.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks, Daichi.”
He accepted my words immediately and his thoughts turned from me to something else, likely how we would escape these small cells. But I could almost feel Kadin’s eyes on me in the dark.
“It’s funny really,” I added for good measure, ridiculing the idea with a small laugh. “I’m no princess.”
In the silence that followed, Kadin’s thoughts whispered,You are, though, aren’t you?
Even though he didn’t know of my Gift, it felt as if he was thinking directly at me.
