AN unannounced visit had started it all.
“Bel, darling. Princess Karina of Nigren has arrived. I’ll just go and greet her.”
“Certainly. I’ll wait here.”
One day, the princess of a neighboring kingdom arrived for a visit a full two weeks earlier than scheduled, and Daniel went off to the throne room to formally receive her with a smile.
Everything had been normal up until that point. Before leaving, Daniel smiled gently, kissed my cheek, and looked at me with love in his eyes. He even stroked my face, seeming reluctant to leave my side.
But a few hours later, while I was having a final try-on session of the jewels I was to wear for my wedding, Daniel returned a different person. Face twisted, like a horrible demon.
“Bel. You bitch. How could you...?”
Daniel’s attitude was so alarming, everyone present exchanged anxious glances, including me.
“Your Majesty? What’s wrong?”
“How could you do this? Secretly conspiring with Najir, plotting to stab me in the back?!”
Daniel strode up to me, his face dark with rage. The next instant, I felt a dull pain blossom on my cheekbone. A metallic taste spurted over my tongue.
“Agh!”
Daniel’s actions sent my ladies-in-waiting into a panic and they began to scream. Someone must have dropped a teacup–I could hear it shatter on the hard floor.
“Princess!”
Ed sprang forward from his position in the corner of the room to help me sit up, as Daniel’s strike had sent me flying to the ground. Daniel’s eyes narrowed as he watched. My jewels had spilled all over the floor, and Daniel crunched them mindlessly under his boots as he advanced on us.
“Ah, it makes sense now. You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?!”
“You have a pretty face, but inside, you’re trash. I see it all now. You were conspiring with your home country through him, weren’t you? Acting all innocent with me, and all the while, you were spreading your legs for random men behind my back. You harlot!”
I gaped silently up at Daniel who loomed over me with a ferocious scowl.
Conspiring? Harlot?
As his words sank in, I felt the blood drain from my face.
“I’ve done no such thing!”
I had no idea what was going on.
Me, being unfaithful with Ed? Secretly plotting with my kinsfolk in Najir to have Daniel killed? I swear to all the gods, I would never do such a thing.
“Your Majesty, you are mistaken!”
“Silence! I was a fool to ever trust you. A princess who can’t even use magic… From that alone, it’s clear to me now that Najir was making a mockery of Sunruta all along. You thought I would easily capitulate, all because I’m still a young monarch? Someone lock this wench up in her chambers!”
“What…?”
At a loss for what else to say, I simply stared dumbfounded at Daniel.
My beloved Daniel, who always kissed my cheek so softly and smiled at me so tenderly. Now he was glaring down at me with a steel gaze, his lip curled in utter disgust and hatred.
Why? What was making him look at me this way?
My heart felt suddenly cold. Frozen like ice.
My homeland of Najir is filled with magic. Many citizens are born with intrinsic magical powers, and there are so many magicians there, not to mention the Magical Order of Knights. It’s also a pioneer in the discovery of new forms of magic. In fact, there’s no other country in the world as magically rich as Najir.
And yet, Daniel was right. I couldn’t use magic even though I was the princess. I had an immense amount of innate magical power, but I could never summon it.
I’d studied magical theory extensively and I had the aptitude. Despite that, since I couldn’t actually summon magic, I was effectively considered non-magical.
My lacking practical magic ability was hardly a drawback, though. After all, I was the one and only princess of Najir. And Daniel knew that.
“But you said you didn’t care that I can’t use magic! You said you wanted me to come here either way!”
Hot tears fell down my cheeks.
After all, I’d heard him say those words with my own two ears.
He said that he loved me. He said that he would protect me. He said all that!
Liar! Liar, liar, liar!
Since that day, my memories had become hazy. It’s like I was stuck somewhere between dreams and reality. When did I sleep? When did I eat? The usual rhythms of daily life were lost somewhere in an endless fog.
Then, after a few months had passed, I was brought before Daniel again. That’s when he told me that Najir was no more and ordered me thrown into the dungeons.
And so, they’d locked me up in a cell like a bird in a cage. No…like a filthy rat in a trap.
At some point, I’d gotten used to the intermingling smells of mold and filth.
The smell of blood, though…that was new.
“Ed?”
I called out softly to the adjacent cell, so the guard stationed by the entrance wouldn’t hear. After a short silence, I heard a hoarse voice answer: “Yes, Princess?”
Nobody ever told him to but, from the first time we met, Ed always addressed me as “Princess.” And he was still calling me that, although I was now nothing more than a common prisoner.
“It’s no good. You’ll die too if you stay here any longer. You should escape. Just…leave me.”
“I cannot leave you, Princess. I swore to protect you to the end, didn’t I?”
“But I don’t think anyone’s coming to save us.”
“They will come.”
Ed’s words silenced me.
We’d been over this, over and over again since being thrown into the dungeon.
Ed assured me daily that help from home was coming. Those words gave me so much hope. Do you have any idea what a comfort you were to me in that dark place?
Ed was originally one of my brother’s childhood friends, and he went on to become an elite member of Najir’s Magical Order of Knights. Once my wedding to Daniel was all arranged, he’d accompanied me from Najir as one of my attendants.
I was surprised when I first learned of the arrangement. Even an overprotected, pampered princess like me had heard tales of Ed’s abilities. He was one of Najir’s finest swordsmen. I felt that sending him along with me was a waste of his talents and surely against our national interests.
But it was my brother, the prince—one of Ed’s closest friends—who insisted. He said that since I was taking so few of my own people with me, I would be in need of a superior guardian.
“I’m so sorry. This all happened to you because you had to come here with me.”
“I pushed for the position. You have nothing to apologize for.”
He was lying. Clearly.
If Ed had stayed in Najir, he would have risen to a prominent position for sure. Instead, he was here with me, rotting in a dank dungeon cell.
Ed had more than enough power to evade ten knights by himself, but with me already taken hostage, he’d had no choice but to surrender.
“I caught a glimpse of the sky while I was being brought back here just now.”
“The sky?”
“Yes. The same sky they see in Najir. I know that everyone you love back home is looking up at that very same sky.”
The same sky…
I felt tears well up in my eyes and pressed my lips together.
From what I’d been able to piece together from fragments of the guards’ conversation, Najir had been taken in a surprise attack and overthrown, the capital city falling. The only silver lining was that the royal family—my parents and brother—and our closest associates had been able to flee. Oddly, our army of magical knights had also disappeared without a trace.
I wondered if Father, Mother, and my brother were safe.
Please, please let them be safe.
Fearing a counterattack by the remnants of the Najir Imperial Armed Guard, the Sunruta invaders were trying desperately to track down those missing. The only reason they hadn’t already executed me was to use me as a bargaining chip in the event of a counterattack.
Ed had been a central figure in the Magical Order of Knights up until a few months ago. He knew exactly what procedures they would follow in a situation like this. Knowing this, the Sunruta forces were torturing Ed day after day so that he’d eventually be forced to spill all the military secrets.
“Ed. Give me your hand.”
Along the rear wall of my cell, there was a grimy drainage ditch. I reached my hand through it towards the back of Ed’s cell.
The drainage ditch ran along each cell’s back wall to allow for dirty water run-off to drain away. Each cell’s floor was slanted to facilitate this. The four-inch-wide drainage channel carved through the cell’s thick stone wall was the only window Ed and I had to each other.
I threaded my arm through the narrow channel and felt Ed’s hand. The warmth of it brought me so much comfort, but again, I felt flooded with self-loathing.
I’d told Ed to escape and leave me, but I needed him so badly. The mere touch of his big hand was so soothing to me, even in this dark and desolate place.
“Princess, do not give in to fear.”
“I won’t.”
“I swear to protect you.”
“Yes. I know. You always do.”