Princess of Thieves

by Bella Beaumont

  Stecker said nothing, of course. Staying quiet was the surest way to get on the bad side of the abusers. It probably wouldn’t do much for his overall health, but seeing that angry, stifled look on Rink’s face as he crept away down the hall was good enough for Stecker.

  His cell was adjacent with cells on both sides. A small hallway ran the length of the cages, down the middle, and across from Stecker were more prison boxes. Some of them were empty—most of them were hidden in shadows.

  The very human smell of rot and feces seemed to permeate in the essence of the jail’s walls, oozing out like a physical thing.

  It made Stecker sick. He vomited off to his side, then crawled toward the bars. He realized that his expulsion of the fish bowl he’d had earlier could have easily been from a concussion just as much as the smell.

  When Rink left his presence—however many hours ago that was, as Stecker had been only half-lucid then—the creepy small man took a guard standing duty with him. The guard hadn’t yet been replaced, which meant only a few sleepy Royal Army soldiers roamed the halls of the jailhouse. They mostly stayed at the front, near the entrance, talking among themselves, as no one ever tried to escape these walls. The circling was just a formality—a ritual—on their part, and no one liked to do it.

  Many of the prisoners in here had been present for years, and they’d gone mad. They’d become accustomed to their holdings, and had long ago given up any chance of escape. The sharp din of bloodcurdling screams and agonized wails filled the room, but Stecker quickly blocked them out of his mind.

  Stecker rested his head against the bars, closing his eyes. He heard a drip somewhere nearby, water or sewage leaking through a stone up above, and that drove him madder than the prisoners screaming.

  He blinked his eyes open rapidly as he began to doze, knowing that it could very well be his last sleep if he did indeed have a concussion.

  “They leave us alone back here. Forgotten,” a voice said to his left, coming from the nearest cell. Stecker turned to the raspy, guttural voice. The man’s cell was adjacent with a stone wall which meant it was the furthest cell on the block.

  Even in the shadows, Stecker could make out the man’s unimaginably long white beard, scraggly and unkempt, with louses and disgusting bugs inside of it. The rest of his face, though it looked scarred—judging by the concave dashes here and there—was hidden beneath darkness.

  “Sometimes they come to talk, but it’s become few and far between these days,” the man said.

  Stecker couldn’t help but notice he had a rather . . . proper tone. He didn’t seem maddened by solitary confinement.

  “Though it is nice to have a neighbor, after all this time.” He croaked a laugh, then coughed. The man sat cross-legged, leaning against the railing just as Stecker was.

  “How long have you been down here?” Stecker asked. Judging by his voice alone, and his beard, he could have either been twenty years old . . . or two hundred. It was hard to say.

  The man gave the barest of shrugs. “I’ve lost track. However long this beard took to grow, I suppose.”

  Stecker frowned. “And how far down does it reach, old man?”

  The man cackled. It sounded unhealthy, like his lungs were stricken with spores and death-dealing disease. “Nearly to my waist, boy.”

  Stecker grunted. “What is your name?” He could not help but feel as though the man’s voice was . . . familiar, somehow. A faint remembrance.

  The man laughed again, then choked on his own cracked lips. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, laddie.”

  “Try me, old timer. I’m liable to believe anything at this point.”

  The man threw something through his bars—a tiny object—and it landed with a metallic clank on the pavestone near Stecker. It rolled unevenly on the lumpy rock then came to fall next to Stecker’s hand. He reached down and picked it up, observed it.

  It was a large ring of some kind—previously gold, now it was filthy and tinny, the color of a bronze coin. On its face was the engraving of a tree, leafless and tall, with a shield covering the front of the trunk.

  Stecker squinted to make out the elaborate engraving on the large ring, then his eyes widened. Mouth dropping open, he shook his head. He took a look through the bars at the shadow, then at the ring, then the man again.

  “Impossible,” he said.

  A humorous snort. “See what I mean about not believing?”

  “B-But . . .” Stecker held up the ring an inch from his eye, up into the “light” above his head—which was little more than a fainter darkness. “This is the Contrus crest.”

  The man nodded solemnly. “They’ve kept me around, for some odd reason. I stopped being useful many moons ago . . . and yet they still think I have something to tell them about the Geread Kingdom. Little do they know, I’m just a useless old man these days. This place will soon be the death of me.”

  Stecker barely heard a word the man said. He was still lost in a swirl of his own thoughts. “You’re Torace Contrus.”

  The man grunted, his head bobbing.

  “. . . rightful king of Sefyr Castle.”

  “I hate that it’s called that.”

  “Father to Catera and Ocena . . . Contrus.”

  The man suddenly swooped forward on the floor, dragging his feet with him. His hands closed around the bars, and Stecker could finally see his scar-filled face. He was missing his right eye, and a dark, ragged hole was all that remained, with some type of lice or tiny insects surrounding it. “What do you know of my daughters, boy? Why do you mention them so freely?”

  “C-Catera is . . . is in my, er—”

  “Speak, boy!” Torace bellowed, his face a mask of nightmare-inducing terror.

  “She’s my prisoner, sire! But nothing like . . . nothing like we are Cartherus’ prisoners.”

  “What do you mean? Explain yourself.”

  “Everyone thinks you are dead,” Stecker said, still numb to what was unraveling before him. He shook his head, trying to fight off the pain and the haze floating around his brain. “I am a member of the Solver Siblinghood, my lord. You’ve likely never heard of us, but we were hired to . . . capture the princess. Your eldest daughter. The strangest thing, however, was that upon infiltrating the castle, we learned that Catera wanted to be taken.”

  Torace slumped back, his whole body flattening. He looked like an old bag of bones and nothing more—not the strong, royal king that Stecker remembered as a younger person.

  “Of course I know of the Solver Siblinghood.” He muttered to himself, “What are you doing, Catera? What schemes are you plotting, young lady? You’re a full woman, no doubt, by now . . .”

  “Wait,” Stecker said, taken aback. “How can you possibly know of the Solver Siblinghood? We aren’t exactly . . . infamous, in these parts.”

  Torace scoffed. “Because of my daughter, of course!”

  Confused, Stecker said, “C-Catera?”

  “No, you fool. Ocena.”

  Stecker scratched his head, wincing at the pain at the back of his skull. Tilting his head to his shoulder, he said, “I’m confused, my lord. What does Princess Ocena have to do with us?”

  “You foolish boy,” Torace said, as if speaking to a child. “How did you ever make it this far, I wonder? Ocena tried to escape with one of your boys, of course! How can you not know that? I’ll admit, I’ve forgotten the youth’s name after all this time.”

  Stecker’s eyes bulged. He could think of no one in the Siblinghood who would know Princess Ocena . . . except . . . the one who’d been missing for so long.

  “R-Rinzos?!”

  Torace snapped his fingers. “There it is. My oh my, I’m fucking old. I apologize—it looks like you took quite a beating to your head.”

  Stecker leaned forward on the railing. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but somehow it . . . fit. Alberus’ premiere, favorite “child” in the Siblinghood had gone missing years before. No one knew where he’d gone—he had litera
lly vanished into thin air.

  And now it made sense why Alberus would keep the secret of Rinzos’ whereabouts away from them . . . because he had fallen for the youngest princess! “D-Do you know what happened to him, my lord? To Rinzos, I mean, after he and Ocena’s failed escape?”

  Alberus had always kept hope that Rinzos would one day return—that he would make a grand entrance some day, bursting through the door to save them all when they needed it most. They always asked themselves, What would Rinzos do in a situation like this?

  He had been the strongest, the smartest, the most handsome, the craftiest—the best that the Solver Siblinghood had to offer. He’d been the first member that Stecker could recall, besides Alberus himself.

  And if King Torace Contrus was kept alive after all this time, then what did that say for Rinzos, whose disappearance was equally as questionable—

  “Afraid I do, lad, though you won’t like it. He’s dead.”

  Stecker felt as though a spear had crashed into his ribs . . . again. The air left his lungs and his body shrank in on itself. Demoralized, he opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  “Executed, son. I can tell that that’s not the . . . climactic reply you were hoping for, and for that, I’m sorry.”

  “How can you be sure, sire?”

  Torace frowned. “Because I witnessed it.” He nudged his chin past Stecker’s cell, to the hallway beyond. “Saw his head roll down that hallway like a melon, after he was beheaded. The guards who picked it up kicked it first, mocking him.”

  Stecker’s eyes burned. He blinked rapidly, staring at Torace unbelievingly. After all this time, the truth comes out! Alberus will be heartbroken—everyone will . . .

  Rinzos is dead. He probably has been for a long time.

  “Does Princess Ocena know?” Stecker found himself asking, the wheels in his mind still trying to turn.

  Torace shrugged. “I assume so, but I’ve no idea. She was told to forget him and . . . I’m afraid she has.”

  Stecker shook his head. “I don’t believe that’s true,” he said, trying to combat the sorrow in Torace’s voice. “But there is dire news you must know, my lord.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your youngest daughter is pregnant, sire.”

  Torace’s head lurched back. “Rinzos?”

  Stecker slowly continued to shake his head. “Nay, my lord . . . erm, do the math of when Rinzos disappeared, it’s impossible—”

  “I can’t do the math when I don’t know how long I’ve been in here, fool!” Torace shouted, his voice hoarse. He coughed, anger filling his face. “If not Rinzos, then wh—”

  He stopped short, his face freezing. “That rotten, evil bastard!” He banged on the bars, causing a dull thud to ring out. “He’d dare lay a hand on my daughter?! On precious Ocena?!”

  Stecker said nothing for a moment, letting the king revel in his rage. He was a broken, old man now. Stecker didn’t know how the man could help, but he found himself speaking nonetheless. “Let me help you escape from here, my lord. We can do right by your daughter. By both of them.”

  “And how do you plan to do that, whelp?” Torace sneered, turning away. He tugged at his filthy pants. “These sticks for legs can hardly move anymore. I’m malnourished and decrepit.”

  Stecker said, “I’ve gotten myself captured so I could help a friend, King. But I can help you, too—”

  “Impossible,” Torace said with a snort. “I’d only bring you down. N-No, I’m better off here. Besides, if I come with you, the entire Royal Guard will be on even higher alert, you see? Sefyr would never allow my escape to go unheeded. I’m his political rival, which means you’d be safer without me.”

  “How can you say that?!” Stecker cried, leaning into the bars. “If Catera learns of this, she’ll have my head!”

  A momentary pause from the king, then an inquisitive look at Stecker. “Why would she care what you . . .” his eyes brightened. “Oh. I see it now.”

  “I love your daughter, my lord. And she loves me. I know we can never marry, but—”

  Torace was chuckling. “You’re like Rinzos incarnate, then? The fool all over again?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You remind me of the idiotic boy. Headstrong, smart, but still too dumb to realize his own mistakes.”

  A frown deepened on Stecker’s face. “My lord, I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but Princess Catera is not one of them. I made a promise to her.”

  “And what was that?”

  Stecker crawled over to his soupy vomit—rancid, yellow, and rank as it pooled between the pavestones. “That I will not die here. That I’ll return to her.”

  “And tell me, brave criminal locked up underneath Sefyr Castle . . . how will you achieve that?”

  Stecker poked through his vomit, grimacing the entire time. He knew it could be worse—at least he didn’t have to sift through his own shit.

  He pushed aside some lumpy pieces of detritus and then clicked his tongue, alarming the king next door. Lifting Somual’s tiny metal key out of the filth, he presented it to Torace Contrus was a knowing smile on his face.

  The former king couldn’t help but throw his head back and cackle.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  As Stecker jimmied the gate of his cell with the strangely-shaped “key” he’d been given, Torace Contrus watched him with a curious eye.

  “What is that contraption?” he asked in a whisper.

  “A friend of mine helped build these cells, sir. This is the contraption that breaks them loose.”

  “A key?”

  “Of sorts.” Stecker slid the flat end of the apparatus underneath the oval keyhole in the door of the gate, which happened to have a sliver that the key could punch into—hidden if you weren’t looking for it. He then lifted it back and forth in a seesaw motion, and the keyhole contraption itself began to lift away from the gate.

  After a few minutes of finagling, the keyhole fell forward, leaning out from the gate, releasing its hold over the bars. It was as if the key given to him by Somual was a failsafe for the cells; a master-key that could be used in case the other keys were lost.

  Before swinging the door open with a smirk, Stecker said, “It’s not the first time I’ve been in these cells, my lord. Now, where are the guards?”

  Torace gazed around bemusedly. “It does seem rather quiet in here, doesn’t it? They’re probably set to begin their rounds in a few minutes, if memory serves correct. So, that leaves you—”

  “A few minutes. Got it.” He winked at the old king, then his face grew long. “How will I prove to everyone that you’re still alive, my lord? How will I prove it to Catera? Please, you must come with me.”

  Torace, who was still reclined on the floor of his cell, gestured to his legs. “Won’t happen, lad. As for my identity . . . you’re holding it in your other hand. Only one of those rings was made, and it’s for the Protector of the Realm. I’ve hidden it in my cell for a long time, because I always felt there would be some moment . . . a right time to uncover it. And alas . . .”

  “Here we are.”

  “Indeed.” Torace had a yearning look on his face as Stecker easily slid out from behind the opened gate of his cell.

  Stecker paused before crouching low. “I won’t forget you, my lord.”

  “I’d hope not.” The old king cleared his raspy throat. “I’ll tell you what you can do, boy, since I won’t go with you now.”

  Stecker raised a brow.

  Torace’s scarred, one-eyed face was filled with murderous intent—a scarier face Stecker had never seen, the jowls drooping like a hound from hell, his scars seething all over his face.

  “Tear down this king, boy. Destroy him. And once you’ve freed the people of this city from his tyranny—once you’ve saved my daughter Ocena . . . then you can come back and free me.”

  Stecker nodded glumly. “Deal, my lord.”

  “Good. Boy.”

  Stecker paused, flinch
ing. “I haven’t yet told you my name. Wouldn’t you like to know it, to know the man who rescued your youngest daughter?”

  Torace snorted at Stecker’s arrogance. “No, lad, I wouldn’t. For I fear for the man who would break my daughter’s heart—and I’m talking about Catera, here—and that man had best fear me, too. That man had best hope I don’t know his name, you understand?”

  Stecker gulped. He made an invisible toast in the air, raising the king’s crest-bearing ring. “Here’s to staying on your good side, good King Contrus.”

  Then he dashed away and disappeared into the gloom.

  STECKER MARKED TWO guards in the small jailhouse. The king was right, the place did seem severely undermanned, and it was quite baffling. Here were housed enemies of the state, the most dangerous criminals in Sefyr, and they were guarded by a man who lazily walked down the halls—not even bothering to check inside the cells—and another sitting against a wall at the front, against cracked stone stairs leading up into darkness.

  Stecker crept through the hall, cells on either side of him. The moans and groans of prisoners wafted to his ears. At one point, he saw torchlight turning the corner. Eyes wide, he looked back and forth, but saw no way to escape the incoming man.

  At the last moment, the guard turned at the T intersection . . . in the other direction, his back toward Stecker.

  Breathing heavily, the thief looked straight ahead at the cell directly in front of him—

  And was staring into the tired face of Dered, up against the bars, holding them tightly. His eyes were incredibly large and severe in his head.

  Stecker put a finger over his lips in the universal sign to be quiet. Dered bared his teeth at the man, and Stecker wondered if he was making a terrible mistake trying to help him.

  He presented his key apparatus and began working on the lock, regardless of the danger.

  Just as the guard at the other end of the hall was turning to start heading in his direction, Stecker freed the lock, opened the door, and scooted inside the cell, closing it swiftly behind him.