"This is not good," I whispered.
"Run!" Daniel shouted.
Before we could move, soldiers surrounded us from every direction.
Daniel suddenly knelt beside me, bowing his head with his right hand pressed firmly against his chest.
"What is he doing?" I thought, frozen in place.
"I pledge upon the royal throne of Asvky to fight and protect you with my life," he declared.
"Don't let them escape! Bring me the princess!" the commanding man ordered.
Like a swarm of bees, the soldiers rushed toward us.
Daniel drew his sword immediately. But I knew he couldn't survive against so many.
Still, he fought like a hero, blocking every strike and refusing to fall.
"Run, my lady. I can't go with you," he said, breath ragged.
He was exhausted, but he kept fighting just to buy us time.
Guilt clenched my chest as I turned and ran with my maids, leaving him behind.
We didn't stop until we reached an alley leading into the castle dungeon.
"My lady, I know of a secret passage that leads outside the castle," Lydia said, pointing toward the stairs descending into the dungeon.
I frowned. I didn't understand how she knew of a secret passage I had never been told about.
But there was no time for questions.
The dungeon was dark, damp, and suffocating. Dust thickened the air, and rats scattered at every step. Bones lay strewn across the ground, some so old they seemed forgotten by time.
The deeper we went, the heavier the unease in my chest became.
Something was wrong.
I noticed Lydia slowing behind us. Each time I looked back, she seemed farther away.
My suspicion grew, but I kept moving.
Suddenly, a net dropped from above.
We were trapped.
"Lydia?" I gasped, struggling against the ropes. "What is this?"
She stood above us, her expression cold.
"Now you'll know what it feels like," she said with a cruel smile. "To live like a slave."
"What have I ever done to you?" I cried. "I treated you like a friend."
Her eyes hardened.
"You had everything," she snapped. "Beauty, luxury, comfort… while I had nothing but scraps."
"That's not true," I said quickly, though my voice shook.
"It's too late," she said flatly.
She turned away, then paused at the stairs.
"I'll be right back, princess. Enjoy your comfort while it lasts," she laughed before disappearing into the shadows.
I broke down then. Not loudly, but silently, as everything inside me cracked at once.
Everything had happened too fast.
Minutes later, Lydia returned with four armed guards.
I recognized them immediately, the same soldiers from the attack.
Traitors.
"Get them down," Lydia ordered.
The guards loosened the net, and we crashed onto the cold stone floor.
"What should we do with them?" one asked.
"Take the princess to the master," she said coldly, pointing at me. "And behead those two."
I froze.
No.
I looked at my maids, expecting panic, pleading, anything.
But they only bowed their heads in silence.
"No! You can't do this!" I shouted.
Lydia didn't react.
"Tie her up and shut her mouth," she ordered.
Rough hands seized me. My arms were bound behind my back, and a dirty cloth was forced into my mouth.
I was dragged through the castle corridors toward the throne room.
Each step felt heavier than the last, like the ground itself resisted me.
The doors loomed ahead, tall, carved, familiar. I had walked through them countless times as a child, laughing, running ahead of my father, certain nothing could ever change as long as these doors stood.
Now they felt like the lid of a sealed coffin.
The doors opened.
Cold air hit my skin.
My heart stopped before my feet did.
The throne room was no longer ours.
A strange man sat upon my father's throne.
A jagged scar cut across his face from his left eye to his right brow, like a wound that never healed. He didn't look like a visitor. He looked settled, as if the throne had been waiting for him all along.
My breath caught.
My father's throne.
My throat tightened as memories struck too fast to hold, my father's voice, his hand on my shoulder, the sound of his footsteps echoing through this room.
Gone.
All gone.
My knees weakened, but the guards held me upright.
I wanted to speak. I couldn't.
The man's gaze moved to me slowly.
Not curious. Not surprised.
Interested.
Like I was something delivered to him, not someone who belonged in this room.
And for the first time, I understood something I didn't want to accept.
I wasn't being brought to a throne room.
I was being delivered to what came after it.