Princess Aria

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen:

Archer left me. Roan left me.

I feel the tears welling up but try to blink them away as I stare at the awful stone floor.

How could they?

"Oh, stop sulking Princess." A familiar voice reaches my ears and I look around the cell, not seeing anyone. "I am here." I follow the sound of the voice and my eyes lands on a figure hunched in a corner.

"The witch?" I ask and she chuckles.

"Call me Sabrina. I do not like being called a witch as these idiots made it seem like a curse." She sounds so young, even though I could not see her face because of the veil she had over her face. "I'll help you, if you help me." She offers.

"How are you going to help me even?" I ask with a sigh. "My friends left me, and I am princess stuck in a cell. My kingdom is going to be taken over by some crazy king who loves to laugh at the most inconvenient time."

"Stop sulking." She says again and I watch as she comes closer. Her dark dress sweeping with her as she comes closer. Her face is now open, and I was right, she is still very young. Probably a few years older than me.

She kneels down next to me and takes the lock in her hands, working on it with small iron sticks. I hear a click and she remove the constraints from my wrist, moving to my legs.

"Lock picking was the first trick that I had learned from my mother." She says, "We are witches, if you want to call it that, but I prefer tricksters." She removes the constraints from my legs as well, looking at me with a kind smile. I realise now that the eerie feeling that I had felt earlier is gone. "We can trick your mind with simple things that anyone can do, but no one had mastered. We do not light candles magically or call storms upon people."

She holds out her hand and I grab it as she pulls me up.

"But I can help you escape a cell." She grins and I frown.

"You got caught already, how sure am I we won't get caught again?" I ask and she laughs lightly, shaking her head and allowing her curls to bounce.

"I wasn't locked up, I was spying."

Oh.

She moves to the cell door now and starts picking at its lock too. It takes longer than the locks, but eventually we hear the click, and the door opens slowly. She grins at me from over her shoulder before stepping out, grabbing my arm, and pulling me with her.

"Just keep quiet, I know you can do that." She says and I nod my head, too scared to speak again. She goes up to one of the walls and start touching and tracing all over. I am very confused.

"Ah." She says before a gap in the wall slides open. She throws me a wink, "Secret passages, this castle has too many." She grabs my arm again and pulls me into the wall, the passage closing behind us.

She grabs the lit candle from the wall and start walking softly, not letting my arm go.

"King Reagan poisoned your father. They were so fidgety because they thought someone would realise what they had tried to do, kill another king, and would get executed." She starts explaining in a low murmur, "I was spying on them because I had realised their plan. I am originally from Denmark, but my father brought me here a few months back."

I hear footsteps coming from the other side of us and armour clashing against one another. We jump behind a rather big statue and crouch down to make sure that we are not seen.

"Man, this thing is so uncomfortable." One of the guards speak, pulling at something and crashing against the other guard who shoves him away.

"Get a grip!" The other one grits and that is when reorganisation kicks in.