Page 11 of A Bond of Fire and Roses

From what I’d discovered at the time, the Hallowed Dragon Palace is mostly like every other palace, except for two major elements. The first is the fact it is a fortress, designed to be impregnable. The second is the dungeons, where they keep their prisoners, but more importantly, their dragons. The floorplan itself covered three large parchments and spanned for several miles beneath the city grounds. The tunnels used to transport livestock to the dragons carried all the way over to the city gates. If I’m to get out of here, those tunnels are my best bet. I need to find them to make sure they’re still accessible.

I pull myself from the bath, reluctant to leave its warm embrace. I have no idea when I’ll next get to bathe like this. But freedom is more important than comfort. Comfort can easily be given, whereas freedom can only be won. Or taken back from those who took it away from you in the first place. Either way, freedom isn’t something so easily obtained most of the time.

Sometimes, you’ve got to fight for it.

And that’s all I can do now, really...

Fight.

I dry slowly, savouring the way the towel practically caresses my body, then I place them in the wash basket before turning to face the vanity. This could be my last chance to experience something like this for a very long time. My reflection takes me by surprise, as it always does, but I try hard not to focus on it. I’m going to enjoy this moment of pampering. Goddess knows I deserve it.

I pull out several of the products and gently massage them into my skin despite that it almost feels silly to be using them. It’s not like they’ll erase the decade-long bags under my eyes, or the trauma buried deep within my bones. But they smell nice, and it’s been so long since I’ve been able to smell nice like this.

I’m still worthy of things that make me feel pretty inside.

I spray my body with a small bottle of lavender mist and then twist my hair into a loose braid down my back. My eyes stray down to my reflection and tears well in my eyes, briefly distorting my vision.

I’m still worthy, period.

I step back into the bedroom and really look at it for a moment. It’s a room fit for a queen and reminds me somewhat of my mother’s private bedroom. Soft furnishings, floral wallpaper and thick fur rugs on the wood floor. At the other side stands another door that leads to a massive walk-in clothing chamber. It’s almost the same size and length as the main room. I open the wardrobe, surprised to find a variety of items and not a single gold dress in sight. What surprises me the most is the leggings. I take a pair of them out, running my fingers over the soft, black material. Fur lines the inside of them, yet they’re completely weightless in my hand. My parents would never let me wear something like this. Princesses were only ever allowed to walk around in pretty dresses and ball gowns. My mother would often reprimand me when I trudged into the house with mud on my skirts from playing in the gardens. I always hated wearing those stupid dresses. Now I’d give anything to hold one of them again and smell her scent. To even just hear her shouting at me to act more like a princess and not a stable hand.

A matching tunic hangs beside the leggings. I pull both items on and secure the tunic with a rose gold belt found in one of the many accessories hanging inside another wardrobe. Each section of the clothing chamber is divided by occasion—gowns for formal events, outdoor garments for hunting and riding, and everyday wear, which is where I found the leggings and tunic. A final wardrobe stands alone by the window, its doors gilded in intricate details. It’s empty when I open it, but the gold railings and level of detail on the outside tell me that it must be important. Royal attire, maybe.

Pity I won’t find out. I don’t plan on sticking around for that long.

I slide on a pair of brown boots and fasten the laces from my foot all the way to my lower thigh. They’re just as light as the leggings and tunic, and equally comfortable. The fashion here is so different from when my parents had ruled. Their taste was more about how many jewels you could hold on to your body and buttons made of diamonds or jewels. So many buttons. I remember feeling like a bag of coins at formal events, my clothes jingling when I walked.

The thing I hated most was the small but sharply cut gems the servants would weave painfully into my hair. It had all felt uncomfortable and unnecessary to me, but to my parents, it was all about tradition. And they really cared about upholding traditions, especially the royal ones.

My steps are soundless as I walk to the door. I can do this. I am not a weak princess, born to be captured and bred for what children I can have with him. I want to be free, and I have to give myself every chance.

Or I die.

If not the death of my body, but my soul will die if I’m forced to be his wife. My handshakes as I turn the handle and the door just opens to an empty corridor. Sounds echo from the south of a vast corridor, filled with steel knight statues and framed paintings that look old—and priceless. But nothing alive is in the corridor. I can barely believe I’m getting a moment of good luck before I run straight to the servant stairs I spot at the end of the corridor and slip inside. The room has three doors and a hatch on the floor, just like I suspected it might do. The blueprints I saw said there were escape hatches into the tunnels in every servant quarter because they wanted their servants to have a chance to escape if war came. My father laughed when he was told about this and claimed it was a weakness to want the weak to escape.

He was wrong for that. I’m now the weak he once laughed at needing an escape and I just know he would be happy I am getting a chance at all. He’d tell me to run. The hatch is heavy, and my hands slip several times as I lug it open until it slams on the floor, and I brush my hands on my tunic. Heat blows into my face when I look down and see nothing but a staircase leading into something hot and glowing red at the bottom. I don’t give myself a second to talk myself out of this mad plan before I climb down the warm wooden stairs and drop down onto a rough stone pathway—through a lava pit. Lava pours in rivers on either side of the path and spits embers occasionally. I trust in the gods, in the bit of luck they have already given me, before I start walking fast down the pathway. The path empties out into a stone tiled dome, and there are four tunnel entrances to choose from.

Crap, which one?

I rub my arms as I take them in, listening for any clue of which way I should go or even just a little sunlight, but there is nothing but darkness in each one. Left. I’m going to take the far left one. I don’t know why I choose it but every second I pause is a second closer to the king finding I’m missing and figuring out where I am. I take one step into the tunnel, only for a gate to suddenly begin to slam down behind me. Thick hands wrap around my waist, yanking me out of the tunnel just as the gate slams down in front of me and lava floods the tunnel, brushing against the gate where I was just standing.

Breathless, I turn and come face to face with a furious Erax. “Do you want to burn to death, Mist?” He moves so close, our lips inches away. His eyes flicker over my face, down to my lips, just for a second. Something twists in the depths of his eyes. Lava pours closer to us, but neither one of us moves out of its way. “This place is full of traps designed to kill you. None of these tunnels lead out. There is a secret door, you utter fool.”

“I’d rather be a brave fool trying to escape you, then you’re stupid and quiet wife!” I snarl right back at him.

I step away, but he grips my wrist, tugging me against his body. My heart races as he runs his hand through my hair and shakes his head. “I don’t want you to be silent and stupid, Mist. Just my queen, like our kingdom’s need. I don’t want you either, but I will not let you go.”

Liar. “You won’t get me.”

He smirks and lets me go, walking away from me. “We will see. Stop trying to disappear like mist. I’ll see you anywhere.”

CHAPTER FIVE

ERAX

There are still ash marks on my hands, sourly reminding me of the stupidity of my new bride. I turn the corner of the corridor and towards the royal quarters, past my room…Why would she try to escape again so soon? And why, in the name of Ciagid, would she go down there where there was nothing but certain death awaiting her? I told her about the traps, but she clearly doesn’t trust me.

Can’t really blame her for that, though.

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