“What is he talking about?” I stopped being just a spectator to their reunion and pushed myself to the centre of attention, demanding an explanation. “Why did he just call you prince?”
The blood in my veins grew thick when Galenor finally turned his attention to me. I expected to find the same love he had gazed at me with for the past week. I expected him to smile, to reach out to hug me or give all pride away and kiss me in front of these males. After all, I was his and he was mine and we were finally free.
Icy cold rage blew through his eyesight, daggers of disgust directed at me.
With a sigh, he closed his eyes for a second, as if the sight of me hurt his eyelids.
“Someone make her shut up,” he waved in annoyance. “Her voice is starting to give me a migraine.”
“Yes, my prince,” I heard Fratnuk’s voice. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a shadow coming towards me, just as pressure collided against the back of my head.
I started losing balance, the daylight around me darkened and my eyes closed on their own accord, forcing my body to fall to the side as my world fell apart.
“Galenor…” I wanted to shout his name, but my mouth would not open.
My back was killing me. There was a sharp stabbing pain digging under my right shoulder blade that made the tendons pulsate with ache and spread it towards my neck and my lower back.
My head pounded, making my vision blurry. With prickled skin, I tried to feel around me through the darkness, the cold seeping through bone and tissue. It was freezing.
Everything around me felt cold, the ground, my skin, the air that entered my lungs like mud water. I started to blink with desperation, trying to remove the cobwebs over my eyes and sharpen my gaze, but no matter how much I tried, things remained draped in darkness.
I searched around, trying to feel my environment and discover more of my surroundings. The ground was wet, with some sharp edges and piles of smooth surface mixed with mud and water. Some sort of cobblestone. My hands instinctively reached around, trying to grasp something to help me stand. Some sort of wall touched my left hand, made from the same smoothness with forgotten edges, frozen at my touch.
I followed it and felt my way around the cold stone, hoping to find some sort of exit. After four steps, the wall curved, leading me to the right side where I continued to follow it blindly, until I reached another bend. Another four steps led me to an opening.
My body eagerly tried to step into the darkness but halted against heavy lines. I felt my way around again to discover tall bars, arched upwards to make some sort of enclosure.
A cell.
I was stuck in a cell.
Why in all the gods would I be stuck in a cell?
The pounding pain at the back of my head forced me into a sitting position, so I clawed against the cobblestone and rested my back against the bars, doing my best to keep my body away from the water on the floor. By the smell of it, nothing around me was clean.
What was happening to me? Who would put me in a cell and why? The last thing I remembered was being in a car and Galenor’s eyes opening to me.
Prince.
Someone make her shut up. Her voice is starting to give me a migraine.
Galenor’s voice dropped the weight of truth over me.
They called him prince.
The male I had fallen in love with, the one I thought was innocent. The one I betrayed my realm for…
Was a liar.
Tears dripped down my cheek, caked in the darkness I found myself wrapped in. My muscles started trembling all over again, but this time, not with the cold. Betrayal weighed heavy on me, chipping away at the pieces of my heart that hadn’t been utterly shattered by the realisation. He’d tricked me. He made me fall in love with him to get free.
Prince, the sound haunted my memories, drilling remorse through my brain.
Prince. Prince. Prince.
“Of course, Your Highness,” a distant voice trembled through the darkness, the sound of opening locks and sliding metal doors shattering the silence of my broken dreams.
A line of torches illuminated the area, allowing my eyes to catch a glimpse of my surroundings. I was indeed locked in a cell. No wider than seven feet, barely allowing me space to stretch my body on the floor, with chipped iron bars and a heavy ceiling, filled with mould, blood and some sort of fungus that had started growing in the corners.
