by Lisa Daniels
“Is that a threat, Falmen? Are you threatening your king?”
“Not at all, your majesty. Simply noting that you have come here without any protection, which is against protocol. I figured it must be because you trust me so much.”
“You are quite mistaken. I came alone because I did not want you to catch wind and have time to come up with an excuse. A few of your men confessed that they did not know where you went after word got out about Jada, and no one could find you. So where were you?”
“I was searching the passageways. Obviously, I could not send my men to do that without risking your escape route if it were to be needed.”
The king glared at me because there was no possible comeback to that. Instead, he said, “Your trial will take place in one hour. Come prepared.”
I bowed low and held it until I heard his footsteps echoing down the hallway.
The princess was safely away. Arabella had been almost completely forgotten. And the other woman, well, I had no idea about her. I trusted that the shifter tending to her would make sure she was safe. There was little else I could do to help them now. Wrapping up my paperwork, I prepared to go face whatever charge the king planned to throw at me.
The trial was a farce. The king did all of the speaking, and without taking any other testimony besides his own, he passed his judgment. I was to be whipped 25 times, a practice that had been outlawed more than 50 years ago. I had no idea what the king had planned to accomplish with this stunt, but it had not been anything that I could have anticipated.
Holding my head high, I followed one of the king’s personal guards as he led me to the courtyard. This was surprising as I would have thought they would want to do this during the day with a much larger audience. The only explanation I could come up with for the king choosing to do it at night was so that the prince would not have any spies to see it in case I cried out at the lashings. This gave the king complete control of the narrative, or what he had likely hoped was complete control. He could claim that the Captain of the Guards took the whippings like a man, not uttering a cry.
What the narrative would be was certainly not something he could have anticipated.
The king and his favorites sat in a small viewing area. Some looked unsettled, others looked excited, but the king looked smug. The only positive thing I could think could come from what was about to happen was just how quickly that look would change.
I began to remove my armor, when the king called out. Apparently, that was not degrading enough. It made me look too in control. Instead he had one of his personal guards remove my armor. Then he began to undo my shirt.
I knew exactly when the private guard realized my secret because he stopped moving.
The king called out, “What are you waiting for? Remove his shirt now!”
I kept my eyes on the king’s face, waiting for the private guard to speak. It took him a few moments to find his voice. “Um, your majesty, there is a problem.”
“There is no problem. Remove his shirt!”
“But, your majesty—”
“Do it now, or you will be next!”
I heard the man take a deep breath and his hands were shaking just enough that it made my shirt move. I raised my arms as if I were trying to help him, never once taking my eyes off the king. His eyes bore into me, that smug look returning to his face.
For a fraction of a second I lost sight of him as the private guard removed my shirt, but I heard the gasp. Then I saw the king’s face. The look of shock and horror was everything that I had expected, and I etched it into my memory.
Then he stood up, pointing a finger at me. “Arrest her! Arrest her this instant and take her to the bottom!” Everyone else was frozen by the revelation.
I continued to stare at him.
“NOW!” His voice echoed around the room, finally stirring a few of his men to action.
The last thing I saw as I was literally dragged out of the room was the look on the king’s face. There was no way he could hide this. Within a week, my secret would be known across the city. Within a month, he would have lost face with nearly every neighboring country. It was a small consolation for everything I lost in the moment he decided my punishment, but coupled with knowing that I had paid for that day, it would be enough for me, whatever happened.
Chapter 4
Beyond the Bottom of the Dungeon
I didn’t see any of the guards who had served under me as I was shoved and forced to keep going further and further down into the dungeon. The private guard of the king made sure we encountered as few people as possible. They were trying to help the king control what was said about the events of that night, but what they could do was only so much. I wore only the binding around my chest as they dragged me down, and it was clear they were not going to return my shirt. Perhaps they planned to starve me as they had the princess, or they hoped I would freeze down in the depths. It was entirely likely that they were going to lock me down there and forget about me until the king felt like torturing me.
What I did know was that it would be a few days before I would be acknowledged. They were still hunting for the princess. That would be enough to keep the palace buzzing for a few days because the prince would be returning soon. Then word would start to slip out about me. The king would try to scare the people who had witnessed the trial into secrecy, so it would take a little bit of time for word to get out after news about the princess. My absence would make it obvious that something had happened beyond just the princess disappearing, then rumors would start to spread. The truth would be in there somewhere, and if I knew anything about the nobility, it would be what spread the fastest, no matter what the king tried to do.
And I didn’t need to worry about the guards doing anything to me once they got me to the cell. They would be rushing to get back to the king for their instructions. Those kinds of attacks would likely come later. For at least a night or two, I would be left alone.
The guards shoved me down the stairs, occasionally throwing me off balance. After years of teaching men how to fight, they were not able to knock me down, no matter how hard they tried.
The further down we went, the worse the conditions were. It was only after we had passed the lowest level I had been on that I started to remember the rumors. Of course, I could not put stock in all of them, but there was very likely a grain of truth in there somewhere. Some said that there was a pit at the bottom that had a large monster that ate the people who were banished there. Others said that it was a bottomless abyss that prisoners would fall down forever. Some said that the bottom of the dungeons was a torture chamber where people were tormented in unbelievable ways that were too horrific to describe.
All of them were too far-fetched to be true. If there were tortures at the bottom, they would have to come up at the end of the day, and no one ever went half the distance to the bottom. There was no one taking supplies down either, so I knew there was no truth to it. The idea that the palace, and thereby the entire city, could be located on an abyss was laughable. Finally, the idea that a monster resided at the bottom in a cavern was the most likely, but seemed impossible for the same reason as tortures. There was no food or resources sent down to take care of a monster.
I reminded myself that it was likely that the bottom was really no different than the rest of the dungeons. The worst thing about it was how far down it was. Leaving the people in the bottom to starve would make sense. As far as I knew, no one had been sent to the bottom in decades, which was what resulted in so many myths and legends about it.
I said nothing, even keeping my mouth shut as they shoved me down the stairs. After a while, they got bored of the exercise and started griping about having to haul a worthless woman so far away. They joked about how there were better ways to teach me by leaving me at the surface. Not that they would go against the king’s orders.
The descent took about an hour, by which time the guards had stopped talking entirely. They were no doubt thinking about how long
it would take them to get back to the top. It soon became apparent that even they did not know what to expect. They each had a torch, which didn’t provide nearly as much light as was needed so far under the ground. There were no halls or cells, so they split up and began to look around for wherever I was to be placed until the king called for me. One kept a hand on my arm, dragging me around with him. The other guard called out, and my captor pulled me toward the sounds of the other man’s voice.
At his feet was a trap door.
“Are we supposed to shove her in that?”
“He said the bottom.”
The other shrugged, then reached down and opened the wooden door. It creaked ominously, and the sound from below echoed. A cold blast of air shocked me.
“Does the king know what is down there?”
“How should I know that?” The other guard was clearly annoyed.
“Well, if he wants to bring her up and torture her later, will that be possible?”
“I tell you what, you jump down there and figure it out.”
“I’m not going down there.”
“Then shut up and just push her in.”
“It’s on you if the king wants her later and we find her broken body.”
“Whatever. All we have to do is say that was the bottom, so we were following orders. Besides, after what she did, do you think he will ever want to see her again?”
“Yeah,” the other guard nodded. Without any warning, he pulled me toward the open door and sent me plummeting down. The shock was quickly replaced by my instincts, and I tucked my body, planning to roll once I hit, hoping that it wasn’t too deep and that I would be able to figure out when to roll before impact.
Suddenly, I felt my body go very cold as I plunged into water. Scrambling back to the surface, I gasped for air. The door had already been closed, leaving me in complete darkness.
A raspy voice spoke in the darkness, “What do we have here?” There was a rumbling sound, and I began to spin around, willing my eyes to adjust enough to see. The voice was much closer as it said, “A woman? How far has the country descended into madness to send a woman down here? Or is it something you did that would make them choose to kill you like this?”
I shivered a little, not certain what to say. Something scooped under me and pulled me out, carrying me away from the water.
A few seconds later, I was gently placed on land.
“Here you go. Dry off.”
I felt something soft against my skin. Automatically, my hands grasped it and pulled it around myself as I shivered uncontrollably.
“Perhaps that is not enough. I apologize, but I have nothing else to offer for warmth. Except myself.”
My teeth chattered as I said, “It is qui-quite alright. I’ll b-b-b-be fine.”
I could almost hear the sarcasm through the silence that followed. “Either you are a fool or you wish to die.”
Pulling the softness around me, I tried to respond. My body was so cold that I couldn’t even manage to open my mouth enough to answer.
“You shall have to forgive me later. I am not about to watch a woman die down here.”
The next thing I knew, the wrap was removed and the feel of human skin pressed against me. As much as I wanted to push him away, my body reacted on its own. The warmth was too tempting and I pressed against it.
“Your instincts are much better than your mind. Follow that to survive.” Arms wrapped around me, then the softness. “You may as well sleep for now. I will make sure you wake later.”
My body began to give into the exhaustion of the last week. It had been too full, too stressful, and now I could feel my body beginning to go into shock from the cold. If I didn’t wake up, that would be fine. There was nothing else for me to live for, nothing else for me to accomplish. Closing my eyes, I completely dropped my guard for the first time in over 15 years.
Chapter 5
A History Worth Forgetting
Time had no relevance at the bottom of the dungeon. In the darkness, there was no difference between night and day.
It was not the first time I had experienced such a pitiful existence.
Soon after arriving at the bottom, I had no idea whether I was awake or asleep because my dreams and reality had little difference. The sound of war was the only thing that helped me make a distinction between waking and dreaming. When I was awake, the world around me was largely silent.
There was comfort, though, when I woke. A warmth pressed itself against me as I lay there, feeling both feverish and cold. Sometimes a calming voice would let me know I was awake as it sang in a language that I didn’t know. Other times, it would soothe me as a hand gently wiped my brow. The warmth against my back was what caught my attention most when the man was silent. Though very firm, it was not uncomfortable, perhaps because of the warmth. I enjoyed being awake, despite the darkness. It was peaceful, something that I had not known in what felt like forever. I had nothing to fear and no worries to address anymore. Despite my hazy state of mind, I knew that the life I had lived as the Captain of the Guard had ended. Now I was just myself, a lone woman in a harsh world. But even down there in the depths of the bottom of the dungeon did not seem nearly so bad as the world I had known before my time as the captain.
When I slept, I went back to the place that I had never really left.
I had been born in a small island country that was far from the shores of any countries. When a huge storm destroyed almost everything, many of the survivors left. I was only four at the time and did not remember much. A neighbor had found me cowering against my dead father and took me away. I wish I could say that it was out of the kindness of his heart, but the man definitely was anything but kind. Eight years after leaving that island, I ran away from the abusive home and wandered along the streets, keeping to the forest whenever I heard anyone on the road. I was not going to return to that man.
When I reached a small city, I found it much easier to survive on the streets. As long as people thought I was a boy, the abuse was easier to manage. I learned to fight and scrap like anyone else who lived in the gutters of a city.
Then came the war. I was 15 at the time, and thought that joining the military where I would be fed regularly and have a bed to sleep in would be a welcome change. If I had to fight with a weapon, that was more than what I had on the street. It could not possibly be any worse than the life I was living.
I was very wrong.
The next two and a half years I spent fighting in far-off places with people I didn’t know and who spoke a language I could not understand. The daily scenes of dismemberment and death ate away at me, and I found it nearly impossible to pull myself up in the morning to face it again. I learned that to protect myself from worse, I had to hide the fact that I was a woman. I began to bind my chest to make myself appear muscular instead of busty.
During one skirmish, I was critically injured, and my comrades left me for dead. I waited for the vultures or the enemy to finish me off as I lay there staring into the clear, blue sky. It was the first peaceful moment that I could remember. The belief that it was the end, and that soon I would no longer want or need anything.
A warm voice spoke, and I tried to lift my sword as my eyes tried to find the source. A sword came into view as I felt pressure on my own sword. I felt it be kicked away as a man stood over me. His clear grey eyes looked down at me, then he tilted his head. I did not understand what he said, but he quickly put his sword away and yelled something to people behind him. Seconds later, he lifted me up.
Despite the pain it caused me, I screamed and tried to push him away. The man merely sighed and looked down at me. His words meant nothing to me, but the tone was gentle, almost calming. The anger, resentment, and cruelty that I was accustomed to seeing was lacking from his eyes. At the time I did not recognize pity.
Looking at him later, I would realize that the man wasn’t that much older than me. He dressed my wounds and chatted at me in his strange language. I kept waiting for
him to decide that I was well enough that he could claim me. But he didn’t. Months passed and his only interest in me was nursing me back to health and getting me away from the fields of battle. He took to calling me his little falcon. I was slightly taller than the average woman, so I had no idea what about me had made him select that epithet. I never even thought to ask.
I would later learn that he was not actually a soldier, but a healer. He had been asked to help in the fight when it reached his lands, and the man had obliged.
Over time, I began to understand bits and pieces of his conversations, mostly because he would gesticulate wildly to make sure I understood what he meant. Occasionally he would get visitors, and it was when they were present that I learned his name: Phinean Falmen. The look of shock on his face when I first called him by his name had been imprinted on my memory, and I could still recall it at will, even if the edges of that memory were a little blurred.
When I was able to move on my own, he refused to let me return to the fighting, stating that it was no place for me. Even with a dagger to his throat, the man insisted that I couldn’t leave, his gentle tones more disarming than any weapon a soldier carries.
After a while, I began to understand that I didn’t have to return to the fighting. That Phinean was not only willing to let me stay, but that he would never kick me off of his lands. His parents had died the year before the fighting reached his home, and he had been left in control of a large place. Of course, his parents had taught him what he needed to know, but that did not lessen the pain of losing them. Servants bustled around the place, which I did not even realize until I had been there for months. Phinean would not let anyone else take care of me, and he made sure that I was well before introducing me to anyone else. Later I would suspect it was because he was afraid of my reaction if I woke to a room full of people, but he never offered a reason. He was thoughtful, kind, and compassionate, none of which made any sense to me. Wild and unapologetic, I treated him as I had the other people of the streets in the city and my fellow fighters on the battlefield. He took it all with a smile and a look of pity in his eyes.
