Page 105 of Merciless Prince
My eyelids flutteredopen as cold shivers raced across my skin. I was lying flat on my belly, hands splayed out in front of me on something coarse and itchy.
I took a deep breath and tried to roll over to see where I was, but my limbs were weak and the colors around me were changing into swirling shades of black and red. I recognized the strange sights and sensations from another occasion.
Someone had drugged me.
No, notsomeone.Killian had drugged me, obviously.Again.But why?
I sucked in another breath and tightened my hands into fists, willing myself to snap out of the strange reverie. Finally, I managed to unblur my vision and shakily rise to my feet.
The floor below me was cold and hard, smooth like concrete. A pile of straw lay in one corner, along with a brown burlap sack. I reached down to touch the sack and identified it as the itchy thing I’d woken up on.
Brown and gray stone walls surrounded me, framed out overhead with thick wooden trusses. On one side of the tiny space, there was an arched wooden door with black ironwork on it, and on the opposite side was a floor-to-ceiling window covered with thick bars. The massive Beaumont Castle courtyard that I’d seen from my room lay beyond the bars.
I knew where I was now. Killian had put me in one of the medieval-style prison cells on the far end of the courtyard. If I could poke my head out through the bars and look toward the left, I’d be able to see the replica stocks and pillories in the back corner.
“What the hell?” I muttered to myself, noticing what I was wearing for the first time.
Someone had dressed me as a medieval peasant in a long, brown-skirted dress with a white top and billowy sleeves, headscarf, black boots, and a brown and blue laced corset over the top of the dress.
I gripped the iron bars and looked out into the Beaumont courtyard again, blinking rapidly. All the usual medievalist actors and stall-runners were preparing the place for the day, setting up game booths, food and drink stalls, rides, and other attractions.
“Hello?” I called out, bashing one hand on the bars.
A few of the staff members smiled and waved at me, but none of them approached me.
“Can someone please come over here?” I called out again, frantically waving my hands. “Seriously, I need help!”
They continued to ignore me.
“What the fuck is going on?” I whispered to myself.
I sank back into the pile of straw in the corner and gnawed on the inside of my cheek.
Why would all those people ignore my pleas for help? Surely Killian couldn’t have paid every single one of them off. And what about the castle guests? Busloads of them would arrive to enjoy the medieval reenactments soon, and any one of them could come over to me, hear my story, and contact the police on my behalf.
Someone turned on some jovial tavern-style music, and a loudspeaker announced the opening of the fair. Guests began to trickle in, slowly wandering the grounds to check out the artisanal wares, demonstrations, and historical replicas.
“Hey!” I called out as a pair of teenage girls wandered past me. “I need to get out of here! Can you help me?”
They eyed me and kept walking. “That’s a cool dress,” one of them remarked to the other.
“Yeah, I love those lace-up vest things!” her friend replied. “I wish it was still fashionable to wear stuff like that.”
“Seriously, can one of you lend me a cell phone?” I said. “I’m not supposed to be in here!”
They ignored me and stepped toward a jewelry booth to try on some replica crowns and necklaces.
The fair began to fill up with tourists from the castle, day-tripping families, and kids on school field trips. Some of them approached my cell, but none of them spoke to me, no matter how much I begged and pleaded for them to let me out.
After an hour of this bizarre torment, I spotted a little girl with pale skin and braided brown hair lingering near a game stall, looking wide-eyed and teary as she whipped her head around. She must have wandered away from her parents and lost them.
“Hey!” I called out to her, waving a hand. “Come over here.”
She looked at me for a few seconds. Then she headed over, blue eyes trained on my ridiculous outfit. “I like your dress,” she said shyly.
I smiled and crouched to her eye-level. “Thanks. I’m Shay. What’s your name?”
“Hayley.”
