Page 110 of The Stolen Princess
“Your Highness,” Bayler bowed.
“She’s a prisoner now,” the guard holding her said.
Bayler furrowed his brows. “Why?”
“For treason. She’s hiding the weapons that the king made.” He shrugged. “Commander Stoddard’s orders.”
“He’s lying,” Myka said to both of the men. “It’s Commander Stoddard who wants to use the weapons. He killed the king. He told me! He smothered him with a pillow.”
“Sorry,” Bayler said, glancing at her. “I take my orders from the commander.”
“Even if he’s corrupt?”
The guard holding her ignored her. “Where do you want her?”
“Let’s put her in room four.” He looked at Rommel’s blood-stained clothes and sobbing body. “Whoa, is he hurt?”
“No, he’s fine,” Rommel’s guard said.
“I was going to say that we could have Doctor Von check in on him,” Bayler said. “He’s already in room one.”
Why was Doctor Von down in the prison cells?
A long hall stretched out in front of them with doors on both sides. Each door had the same square window in the front of it. As they walked past, the door to the first room opened, and a woman stepped out dressed in the same gray nurse’s outfit that Blanch had worn. Myka tilted her head, trying to see inside. Doctor Von stood over a bed, staring at a file. A cream blanket was spread across a body. The nurse’s eyes went wide when she saw them, and she quickly grabbed the handle, pulling the door shut behind her.
The moment went by so fast, Myka couldn’t be sure what she’d seen, but she thought the body looked like it belonged to a woman.
“Who’s that?” she asked, turning back to the nurse. “Who’s in there?”
The nurse gave a pointed look to the guards, but no one said anything. They kept walking until they were in front of room number four.
The bald guard unlocked the room, and they shoved her inside. There was a small metal cot, a drain on the cement floor, and a bucket that Myka assumed was for things that wouldn’t go down the drain. She didn’t even turn around to fight. She knew what to expect. They would shut the door and lock it. There was no way she could get out.
When Myka was a young girl, she used to read books from the Tolsten House library about princesses who were locked in towers or held hostage. The princess would always find a way to escape. In fact, those books had made escaping seemsoeasy. Where were all the guards watching the place? Or why was the key to the dungeon always an arm’s-length away? It wasn’t believable. Her imprisonment wouldn’t be like that. She’d already escaped once and wouldn’t be able to again.
Tomorrow Stoddard would start torturing her until he got what he wanted. Even if she crumbled and gave him the location of the weapons, he would still kill her. There was no way out of this mess. She wasn’t going to cry about it or complain. Instead, she was going to do the brave thing. She was going to die, and the location of the weapons would die with her. Maybe she hadn’t been a good princess of Tolsten before, but she would be now. Myka would prove, even if it was only to herself, that she was a great ruler—that she was a strong leader, capable of hard things, and better than her father. She would die proud of herself, and Joett’s death wouldn’t be for nothing.
31
Myka
The lights to Myka’s cell had been turned off a long time ago. She didn’t know how late it was or how much time had passed since the guards had thrown her inside. She wondered how Rommel was doing after witnessing his wife’s murder. She wondered about Doctor Von and what he was doing downstairs. Who was the patient he worked on? Her mind flashed back to the conversation she’d overheard between Doctor Von and Stoddard when they were talking about some secret weapon that was “stable.” Myka couldn’t put the pieces together. The only thing she could come up with was that perhaps Doctor Von had created some sort of robot-human that was going to walk around and take over the world. That didn’t seem likely, but at this point, Myka wasn’t ruling anything out.
The lock outside her door shifted, and she sat up. The door opened, and a dim flood of light from the hallway spilled into her room. The first thing she saw was Arco’s white hair.
Great. Was he back for round two of betrayal?
“Get up,” he said in a hushed tone. “We don’t have much time.”
Her eyebrows creased together, and she stared back at him with a blank face.
Arco looked down the hall, then back at her. “What are you doing?” he snapped at her. “We need to get out of here.”
“Are you breaking me out?” she asked.
He waved her to him. “Yes! Come on.”
Myka swung her legs over the side of the cot and rushed to him. “What about Rommel?”
