I am a Side Character, right?

| 8 | Two Wrongs Make a Right

Following the prince, we came through the forest until reaching a dead-end. What stood in our way was a huge cliff-face. Spindly and tall stalagmites grew from the rocky ground up to the sky, like large anthills madeof grey and orange stone. In between the hills of stalagmites was a stone door. Or what would have been a door at one time. Half of the two doors had fallen to the ground and the other looked as if the hinges had melded into the archway.

Sebastian turned his body to face me. "After you, my lady." He said as he bowed and gestured to the broken doorway.

I hesitated, smelling a trap. Butat this point it was either be stabbed by the royal siblings or be mauled by adragon, so I decided to move forward. I stepped up onto the threshold of the cliffside cave, hearing it creak, I looked down. The door that had fallen had been trodden upon so much that it had become the threshold to the doorway. Taking in another deep breath, I continued on. 

Stepping down from the entrance door, the two of us came into an unseen hallway. It was too dark to see anything past my fingertips when I spread them out in front of me to feel my way through. Behind me, Sebastian picked up a torch from the ground and used nearby flint to light it. As he lifted the lit torch, the walls and floors of the tunnel flickered into light. Rubble littered the ground, the walls looked carved out, almost if dug by hand, one layer at a time. 

We moved forward, Sebastian a few paces in front, as he had the light. I followed, a few paces behind, my hand running against the cold walls of the cave. It would dive in between the waves of the walls. The history of the cave could be felt in the depth of those waves. I came across a spot in the wall that felt different than the rest. The waves were interrupted by deep ditches cut thicker than a tree trunk. I took a step back and observed them, a chill settling in my spine as I realized what they really were. 

Claw marks of a dragon.

I looked back toward the prince who was walking with a torch a short distance in front. Sebastian and Raymond were both incredibly lucky to have survived that first encounter with the dragon. Sebastians wounds had truly been just a mere scratch. It made me wonder who had not been as lucky. 

Eventually they saw a light at the end of the hallway. Sebastian tossed the torch to the side, its job completed with the sight of the light. As we walked into the light, I lifted my hand and shut my eyes at the sudden brightness. 

My eyes adjusted and I became astonished at what the cave had turned into. It was an arena. The floors like battle-torn ruins, with flattened slats of broken and uneven rocks, barren of any architecture or furnishing. A circle of walls surrounded the battlefield that, like the inside of a beehive, each had an archway entrance to their own cave pathways that spread throughout the mountainous underground, interconnecting and confusing even the most learned of travelers. Sun shone down from the open hole in the ceiling, brightening up the inside of the beehive arena with natural light. It shone down in a large sunray onto the bottom half of a staircase, the upper half long since broken from its path and dissolved into dust.

Following the ray of sunlight to the sky above the hole in the ceiling, I could see the castle peeking out. I could almost recognize the balconies which I had jumped across. This was the chasm I had almost fallen to my death into. Looking back down at the broken rock barrens, I wondered if I would be able to find the knife that Isadora had tossed somewhere down in this cave. The thought made me shudder. Whether from excitement or terror, it was unclear. 

As I reminisced in the memory, Isadora herself appeared from the shadows of the arena. I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sight of her. 

"You managed to convince her." Isadora said, directed toward her brother.