Time Stealers

3. Stephanie

King & Queen

It had been about one week since the three of us started traveling. We would occasionally stop to rest and eat when we came across a pub. But before this we'd been travelling without stopovers and would eat scraps of bread for a meal while I sat behind on which either of their horses, today I'm riding behind Raynold, the younger impolite guy.

Oh, have I mentioned? They had my hands tied behind me. Who would fucking do that to their princess?

They wouldn't even give me more clothing to wear. Obviously, the dress and a coat was not enough in a place with what seems to have an endless amount of snow. I would've demanded more clothing, I'll even endure wearing their own stinky clothes, but the greedy glint in one of the guys eye always stops me.

The days of them helping me to get out of my freezing grave helped me to think clearly unlike the first time I opened my eyes to this place.

I know that they're only helping me because of the prize money that they thought they could get. I don't know where I would've been if they hadn't mistaken me for another person. But what will I do when we get to our destination? Will I just ask help to find my two best friends? Or just go with the flow and act like I'm actually the princess?

Well, this is bullshit. After I survived this travel and occasional blizzards, I needed to plan what I should do to survive. And every plan I thought seems to be ineffective.

I know I have a knack for getting out of different kinds of troubles but I don't know if I can get out of this one. I can't even make escaping from these two an option because I'll surely die. But what should I do when we finally meet the king? Declining that I'm the princess seems too late now, and who knows what would happen to me if they thought these two were trying to deceive them.

"I hope you're ready going home, you're father and the queen have surely missed you." Raynold said leering his face towards mine waiting for me to slip.

I tried my hardest to not glared at him and wished him to hell, I don't think I succeeded I don't even fucking care. As the days passed, I noticed that he seems decided not to trust me that I am the princess. Well, he doesn't seem to trust the other guy named Erwin either. How fucking unfortunate for me to have one of my saviors to be smart.

"Now, now Raynold. Surely the king would be generous to the people who helped his daughter." Erwin said with confidence but I saw that Raynold wasn't so sure about that.

A few more minutes of traveling, a few small houses appeared from my sight, we stopped moving and Erwin removed my bindings before we resumed our journey. From only a handful of houses, we're traveling the road filled with houses around us. There were only few people out of their houses, but a lot of them would gape and point at me as if they haven't seen a beautiful distress woman before.

Ahead of us was a huge castle that was built in the middle of a large lake, a bridge was built connecting the castle gate to the land where the people lived. They had enormous windows and towers with patrolling men on top each carrying a bow and arrows. The banners showed an elegantly designed crescent moon all over the castle.

We stopped in front of the armed men blocking the bridge from unwanted visitors. Erwin stepped down from his horse and proudly explained why we were here. I nervously eyed the growing crowd around us while I try to control the expression on my face.

I can feel my heart rate increasing while I struggled to breath normally. It didn't take very long before we were escorted inside by the soldiers, which I saw made Raynold looked surprise for a split second.