Saving the Princess

by Helena Newbury

  I sighed. “I was working at a refugee center. Miles from the front, my parents figured it was safe and there was no way I was staying in the palace when our people were dying. But then soldiers broke through our lines and by the time we got the warning they were there, kicking down the door. A few of us managed to hide in a storeroom. But I could hear them rounding people up. Telling them to stand up against a wall and—” I swallowed. “I heard the gunshots. I heard the first bodies fall to the floor. They were going to wipe everyone out. Unless—”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Unless I gave them something better,” I said.

  I was back there. I saw myself open the storeroom door, the woman who’d been hiding with me grabbing at my sleeve, trying to pull me back. I could feel the cracked linoleum under my feet as I walked along the hallway, trying to stop my legs from shaking. I was repeating, over and over in my head, something my father had taught me when I was very young. Being royal isn’t about doing what you want. It’s about doing what your people need.

  The soldiers couldn’t hear me approaching. They were already raising their guns to execute the next batch. I had to call out to get their attention. Then I flinched as all the guns swung round to point at me. I put my hands in the air and told them who I was.

  They didn’t believe me at first. I’d been helping in the kitchens and I was dressed in an apron. But then the officer in charge took a closer look at me, cursed and got on the radio. It worked: they were far too busy talking about capturing me and the promotions they’d get to worry about the remaining civilians.

  They pushed me into a chair to wait. I was hoping—praying—that our army would reach us in time. I knew they must be on their way. And then, through the window, I saw distant black dots in the sky. Helicopters, racing towards us. Yes!

  But there was something wrong. The noise was too loud for them to still be that far away. I twisted around….

  A Garmanian helicopter was landing, right outside the refugee center. My whole body went cold, my stomach a tight, hard knot. I was marched outside. I tried to delay, to stumble and trip, but they knew they had to hurry and they all but carried me to the helicopter. I was strapped in. The helicopter lifted off just as our helicopters arrived.

  The last thing I saw of my country was the horrified face of one of our pilots. He was hovering just fifty feet away, but he couldn’t fire, not with me on board. And then we were racing away towards Garmania.

  They wanted to use me as a bargaining chip. But it wasn’t enough for me to just sit in a cell. They wanted me to suffer and they didn’t want anyone to know where I was, to avoid my father mounting a rescue mission. So I was taken to what I later learned was an ancient, abandoned prison, over three hundred years old. It had been built up and up over the years and I was led down into the very depths of it, where the steps changed from concrete to stone, and then to stone worn smooth through centuries of use. We were well below ground: no windows and no light, except for flashlights.

  Finally, the stairs stopped and there was a silence like I’d never known, a kind of pressure in your ears from it being so quiet. I was led along a hallway and we came to a door. I’m not tall, but even for me, the top of the door was only at eye level. People were smaller, hundreds of years ago.

  The soldiers opened the door. The room inside was just bare rock: it hadn’t been built, it had been carved out. The space was about the size and shape of a bathroom on a plane, but with a ceiling that meant you had to stoop.

  They nodded me inside.

  “No,” I said stupidly. “No, I—Not in there!” I was trying to be brave, but my voice cracked on the last word. It was the lack of windows. There wasn’t even a window in the door. The idea of being shut in there, trapped—

  They pushed me inside.

  I was still catching myself on the back wall, the rock scraping my palms, when the door slammed closed and the key turned. Immediately, I was in almost total darkness. There was a hair-thin slit of light at the bottom of the door and a tiny circle of light coming from the keyhole. Both were faint and growing fainter as the soldiers moved away with their flashlights. “No!” I yelled with rising panic. “No! Don’t!” I shoved my face against the door and put my eye against the keyhole, but already, I could barely make them out: they were nearly to the end of the hallway and there was another door there. “DON’T!”

  They closed the door. And the darkness was suddenly total. I couldn’t see where the keyhole was, or detect anything under the door. Just... black.

  I strained my ears, trying to hear over the sound of my own frantic breath. I could just make out their boots, walking away. I was beyond being brave, now, beyond pride. “Don’t leave me here!” I screamed. “Please!”

  And then there was silence.

  24

  Kristina

  I had no way to measure time. There was no night and no day, no change in the temperature. I had to go on hunger and how many times I’d slept. Based on that, they left me for forty-eight hours, the first time.

  By then, I’d been through every possible emotion. I’d cried, I’d cursed, I’d beaten on the wooden door with my fists. I’d fallen asleep and woken thinking it was all a nightmare, then tried to struggle out of bed and felt only damp rock under my hands.

  I didn’t realize the significance of the walls being wet. Not then.

  I’d learned every inch of my cell. The ceiling was low enough that I couldn’t stand up. The length was just too short for me to sit with my legs outstretched, but too narrow for me to sit cross-legged. The floor was as rough-hewn as the walls, lumpy and jagged: there was no way to comfortably lie, even curled up. When I slept, it was through pure exhaustion.

  When I heard someone coming, I thought I might be hallucinating it. So many times, I’d convinced myself I heard helicopters, or footsteps hurrying to rescue me. But this was real: two sets of boots approaching. Just to hear something other than my own breathing and sobbing was glorious. And then I saw their flashlights under the door: only a faint glimmer but my eyes were straining so hard, it was blinding. The door opened and I staggered forward, convinced I was being rescued.

  It was the same two Garmanian soldiers. But at least I was being taken somewhere else. Maybe my father had negotiated for my release. Maybe the war was over—

  They shoved me back in.

  Something metal clanged on the floor. Something else was tossed into the corner. Then the door shut and locked again. I was so frantic not to be locked in there again, I forgot about the height of the cell and cracked my head against it as I leapt forward to hammer on the door. I screamed that I’d do anything, but their footsteps kept walking away. I didn’t understand. Why would they come all the way down here and just put me back in?

  When the precious light and sound had faded away, I crouched down and felt around to see what they’d thrown into my cell. The metal thing was a bucket. There was a plastic bottle of water and four slices of bread.

  Realization sank in. This wasn’t a temporary thing. They were intending to keep me there for as long as they needed to. Weeks. Months. Years.

  For a few hours, my mind refused to accept it. I couldn’t believe that they’d treat a human being like this. But they didn’t come back. This was real.

  My life turned into darkness, broken only by their visits. They seemed to come every three days, leaving just barely enough food and water for me to survive, emptying the bucket and then locking me up again. I tried to reason with them, to befriend them. I spent all my time alone planning what I was going to say to them. But they never spoke, never looked at me with anything other than contempt.

  I had no idea how much time passed. I tried to keep track but it was impossible. I couldn’t make marks on the wall: I couldn’t even see. Instead, the things that broke the routine began to stand out. The time I rolled over in the night and crushed the water bottle: half of my water ration squirted over the floor and by the time they came back, I was delirious from dehydration. O
r the time a nightmare made me kick over the bucket.

  I had no idea what was going on in the outside world. Had it been weeks? Months? What if we’d lost the war and my parents were dead and I was going to be there forever?

  Then, one day, the soldiers didn’t arrive.

  I triple-checked that it had been three days. But I was right, I’d finished off the last of my bread and water the night before. What if...what if they’ve forgotten about me? I’d only ever seen those two soldiers. I knew they’d want to keep my location secret, to make rescue more difficult. How many people even knew I was here?

  What if this was it, and I was going to starve to death down here?

  The fear was so real, so visceral, that I shut down. I just froze there, on my knees. I’d never felt so utterly alone. Something broke inside me, at that moment. Some vital connection was severed.

  The next day, just one of them showed up, stinking of alcohol. As best as I could figure it, they’d gotten drunk the night before and simply not bothered to check on me. It was chilling: I was completely at the mercy of these two men. What if they got ill, or had an accident? What if Lakovia won the war, took the building and shot them, and no one thought to come down into the ancient cells to check for prisoners?

  It went on like this for weeks, the visits growing less and less reliable, the soldiers becoming sullen and unshaved.

  And then it rained.

  I didn’t know it was raining, of course. I didn’t know that Garmania was experiencing the worst storms for a decade. Or that the ancient prison had been built close to the river, which had burst its banks. I didn’t know about the flood water washing three feet deep over the ground outside.

  I only knew that the walls went from damp to wet, and then I could actually feel the water moving under my fingertips, every surface coated, a million tiny waterfalls. I couldn’t see where it was coming in: tiny cracks in the rock above my head, I presumed, because no matter where I pressed my palms, I couldn’t stop it. It started to pool on the floor: the first time I heard my feet splash, I nearly threw up with fear. Then, within minutes, it was creeping over my feet.

  I threw myself against the door. “Help!” I screamed. “HELP!”

  But there was only silence and blackness. The soldiers weren’t even due to visit for another two days. Would they realize the danger? Or were they passed out from drink upstairs? Were they even here?! For all I knew, they didn’t even stay in the building between visits. They might be twenty miles away, far too far to reach me in time.

  The water was up around my knees. I started kicking the door. I know it was futile: I’d tried to break it many times in the first week, before hunger sapped my strength. But there was nothing else to try. I slammed my foot against it again and again but the wood didn’t even bend. And then the water was up around my hips and kicking became impossible. “Help!” I yelled. “Please!”

  The water was freezing, making me pant with cold on top of my fear. The ceiling meant I had to bow my head and the water rose horribly fast towards my face. It passed my waist, my breasts...I arched my back and pressed my face to the ceiling, nose and lips scraping against the rock. “Please! Oh God, please!”

  The water washed into my ears. It lapped at my chin and brushed my lips. “HELP ME!”

  The door opened.

  I fell through the doorway, the water rushing over my head and half-drowning me. Hands were on my wrists, pulling me along, and lights were shining in my face. I was hysterical, babbling, begging them not to lock me up in there again. It was only when we got upstairs that I saw the badges on their uniforms and realized they were Lakovian special forces. I was being rescued.

  They flew me home. A ceasefire was declared two weeks later and a week after that, the war officially ended. Lakovia had been winning for months. We’d captured one of their command centers and that’s what had finally given the military my location.

  I’d been imprisoned for five months. Almost half a year of my life.

  I went on TV and gave speeches, praising the brave soldiers who’d rescued me, celebrating our victory, reassuring the people that it was all over. I was okay, I told them, and we should all look to the future.

  Except...inside, I wasn’t okay. Something had broken inside me that went beyond just the nightmares. I’d been alone on some deep, indescribable level. And now, even in a room full of people, I was still alone. And I’d be alone forever.

  I finished my story and opened my eyes. Garrett had been silent throughout but his arms, locked around me, had given me the strength to keep talking. I could feel the tension in his body. His pain, at what I’d gone through. I was spent, emotionally exhausted. But telling him had helped. The wounds had been re-opened but maybe they had a chance to heal, now. And however weak I was, there was something I had to tell him.

  “I was alone until I met you,” I whispered.

  And his arms cinched even tighter around me, a steel wall that nothing could penetrate. And we just sat there in the starlight and we knew. We didn’t have to say it. We knew how we felt about each other.

  And we knew it was the cruelest trick fate could play. The one man who made me feel protected, who made me feel not alone: and it was someone I could never be with. Someone I’d be saying goodbye to within days or hours. The one man I ached for and he’d never kiss me. But at least I could be not alone, just for a little while. I pressed myself back against his chest, letting his warmth soak into me.

  “When I heard the assassin’s accent on the plane, I couldn’t believe it,” I said. “I thought it was all over. Now it could all start up again. It’s not just about what happened to me. It’s my whole country. All those people who died. We can’t let it happen again.”

  I felt him nod. He was sick of war, too.

  Something came out, then, that I’d never told anyone. “I told myself, after the war, that I didn’t hate them. I told myself we were all the same. I couldn't judge a whole country just by the actions of its leader, or what he ordered his troops to do. I told myself they weren't bad people. But...what if I was wrong?” I twisted around so that I could look into his eyes. “What do you think?”

  He looked helplessly back at me. The anger and pain flared bright in his eyes. “I'm just a soldier, Your Highness.”

  “You're a lot more than that. You've been to war. Did you hate them?”

  “I want to say no,” he said at last. “Like you said, it's a minority, not the whole country. But I guess I did, at times.”

  I hung my head. “After I was rescued, in those last few weeks of the war...sometimes, late at night when I was crying in bed...I wanted my father to just launch everything we had at them. Every plane, every missile. I wanted him to wipe them out. Does that make me a bad person?”

  “No,” he said. “That makes you human.” He pulled me even tighter to him and for a long time he just held me like that as silent tears rolled down my cheeks.

  When he eventually broke the silence, his tone was lighter. “Got a little good news for you. Didn’t get a chance to tell you last night, but I got a plan to get you home. There’s a guy called Barney, in New York. A pilot. Met him in Iraq, he flew us on missions a whole bunch of times. Anyway, when he came home, he set up a cargo freight business, flying packages from the US to Europe. And...well, not everything he does is completely legit.”

  Hope was slowly rising in me. “A smuggler?”

  “He bends some laws,” Garrett allowed. “He’ll be able to sneak you onto a plane and make a stop in Lakovia. But we can’t risk going to him until we know we’ve got rid of the traitor. If the assassins get wind of this, they’ll just wait for us at Barney’s place. Hell, they could shoot the plane down. So we gotta deal with this first, but I will get you home.”

  The last of my tears dried and I nodded. “Thank you,” I whispered. But even as I said it, my stomach twisted. Home. Back to Lakovia where I belonged.

  Without him.

  I decided something, in that moment. If we
had to say goodbye soon, there was something I had to do first. I twisted around to look at him again. “You helped me,” I whispered. “You saved me. You make me feel not alone. I want to help you. Something happened to you, too, didn’t it? Something you can’t forget.”

  He looked away.

  “Tell me,” I begged. “Let me try and help.”

  He still wouldn’t look at me. “Don’t deserve that,” he mumbled.

  “You’re a good man!”

  “Your Highness,” he said tightly. “You don’t know what I am.”

  “Then tell me!”

  He finally looked at me. I could see the indecision on his face but this was more open than I’d ever seen him. “Please, Garrett!”

  He opened his mouth to speak. And froze, listening. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  I listened. I did hear it. A sound I’d heard before, in the war, but it made no sense here. It was a whistle, rapidly descending through the scale. We stared at each other, eyes widening.

  The sound of incoming artillery, falling through the air straight towards us.

  25

  Garrett

  For a second, I thought I was having a flashback. That made more sense than incoming artillery here, now, in Texas. But the Princess could hear it too. She’d grabbed hold of my shirt in both fists, terrified. I didn’t know how, but war had found us both again, and it was going to steal her from me—

  I grabbed her and threw her down in the hay, then covered her body with mine. The whistle became a scream. I braced myself and closed my eyes—

  The round hit the roof right above our heads but there was no explosion. Just a dull whump. What the hell? I rolled over and looked up.

  The cracks in the roof had turned a blinding white, so bright it hurt to look. As I watched, something fell through one of the cracks. No, not fell: dripped, each drop trailing fire.

  It landed in the hay and erupted into flames. More drips were falling all around us. The Princess rolled out of the way, breathless, as one of them just missed her. Fires were starting everywhere. “What is it?!”