Princess in Chains

The wood beneath her body was rough against her skin as Raiga joustled back and forth in the dark of the lonely prison wagon. She clutched her bound hands to her chest, protecting something infinitely more precious hidden beneath her dress. It was dirty and torn after days of running and hiding in the woods, but Raiga held her head high nonetheless. Even in the dirtiest of rags I would still be a princess. Even with a man with no royal blood in his veins on my throne, I am still a princess.

The wagon finally stopped after what seemed like hours. The door slid open, letting in a shaft of light. The man who had captured her paused in the doorway for a moment before moving forward and lifting the blindfold from her eyes.

Raiga blinked away the brightness of the light after so much time in darkness. Her captor stood before her, leaning on his unsheathed sword. He was not really a man at all, she realized, only a couple of years older than her. He stood studying her for a moment.

“Well you don’t look like much,” he said at last. He tossed the tiara he’d taken from her during her capture at her feet, but with her hands and feet tied she was powerless to take it back. “If it weren’t for that and the lovely dress you’re wearing, I might never have known you were the girl I was looking for.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Raiga asked.

The boy shrugged, twirling his ring with the emblem of the Wolfe line engraved on it around his finger. “My father doesn’t believe in killing young girls, so he’s having me bring you back to the castle to live out a life of imprisonment.” He tossed the ring up in the air and caught it. “Or to be killed once he thinks you’re old enough. I don’t really care.”

“Your father is a murderer, a liar, and a thief,” Raiga snarled. “Does he think by sparing my life it will win him back some decency?”

The boy slid his ring back on. If his father was the new unjustly crowned king, he must be Alaric. The fifth and youngest son of Aron and Liara Wolfe, freshly turned eighteen. “From what I hear, your ancestors weren’t much better. How do you think they got that throne?” He hopped down from the wagon. “We’re camping here for the night. Myst will find us something to eat. Tomorrow we’ll reach the castle and then I’ll never have to deal with you again.”

Raiga watched him stroke the muzzle of his silver direwolf—Myst, he had called him—before sending him off to hunt. Each noble family had their symbolic animal sworn to their line. The Wolfes and their direwolves, the Byrdes and their phoenixes, and of course the Daegnons, the ruling line, and their dragons.

Only they’re all gone. Raiga had heard their screams of pain when she fled the castle. The Wolfes would have killed them alongside Raiga’s family. The Daegnon dragons were far too dangerous and loyal to their masters to let live. And the Daegnons aren’t the ruling line anymore. She curled her hands into fists, the rope chafing against her skin. The Daegnons are the rightful rulers, she told herself, and I am the last of them. I must have my throne again.

Myst returned soon with a pair of rabbits clutched in his jaws. Alaric skinned them with sure hands and cooked them over the fire he’d started while Myst went off to hunt for himself. Alaric ate his rabbit first, and half of the second one before approaching the wagon and tossing what was left of it to her.

It landed unceremoniously next to her leg. Raiga glared at him as she picked it up awkwardly with her tied hands and tore off a piece with her teeth. The boy smirked, seeming to find pleasure in watching her struggle to eat.

“I could come in there and feed you if it would make things easier.”

“If you wanted to lose a finger, you could.”

Alaric raised his eyebrows. “You know, you could get into a lot of trouble for speaking to a prince like that.”

She spat a bit of rabbit at his annoyingly shiny boots. It landed in the dust, far short of where he stood. “You’re not a prince. You’re just a boy who thinks killing and brute strength can win him a throne.”

“Well it seems to have worked, didn’t it?”

“As if you had any part in it. I expect your father and brothers did most of it. Did you stay behind with your mother and the rest of the ladies?”

Alaric’s smile faded. He unsheathed his sword and stepped closer, holding it out for her to see the dried blood still upon it.

“They sent me after your dragons.” He hissed in her ear. “Me and all our direwolves. I held this blade to your dragonmaster’s throat and made him collar and chain the dragons. Then we killed them. Every last one of them. You should have heard their screams.” He lifted the blade, holding it against her neck. “Which one of them was yours?” He asked softly.

Raiga swallowed her tears. “Tairvaya.” She whispered. “She would have been small, no taller than me. She . . . she was red, with gold and orange sunbursts.” She closed her eyes, feeling the cold blade at her throat. “Please,” she said. “Tell me you spared her.”

He lowered the blade from her neck. “I remember that one,” he said, sheathing the blade. “She was wily. The dragonmaster couldn’t catch her to chain her up.”

Raiga looked up. “Did she escape?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He placed a finger under her chin, tilting her face up to make her look at him. “The dragonmaster couldn’t catch her, so do you know what I did?”

Raiga’s throat closed around her words. “What?” She choked out.

“I caught her myself. I opened her throat so wide a direwolf pup could have crawled inside. She couldn’t even make a noise.” He ran his thumb along her jawline. “You know, they say sworn animals make the same scream as their masters. Their proximity to humans causes them to adopt some of their noises and behaviors.” He brought the blade back to her neck. “Shall we see what Tairvaya's scream would have sounded like?”

“No,” her voice quavered as a tear slid down her cheek. “Please.”

He scoffed, returning his sword to its sheath. “I’m not going to kill a tied up girl,” he sneered. “We shattered their eggs too,” he added as he turned away from her. “The time of the dragons is over.”

“Not all the eggs,” said Raiga, fingers brushing the bump at her chest.

“What did you say?”

“Not all the eggs,” she repeated, a smile betraying her lips. “I took one. When I fled.”

“Where is it?” He demanded.

“Somewhere you’ll never find it.”

He glared at her for a long moment before saying, “It doesn’t matter. It needs heat. And it will never hatch without its mother anyway.”

“You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you?”

His hand curled around the hilt of his sword, still in its sheath. “Useless princess,” he muttered under his breath before hopping down from the wagon.

Myst’s howl suddenly rang out across the night sky. Alaric’s head snapped up, rapidly drawing his sword.

“Myst!” He shouted when someone behind him shoved a bag over his head. Men dressed in black descended from all around, taking Alaric’s sword, binding his wrists and ankles, and tossing him in a wagon of their own. Raiga screamed when one of them leapt into her wagon. He seized her by the hair and dragged her out into the night air. Another man placed a cloth over her mouth and nose. Raiga struggled, holding her breath as long as she could, but eventually she had to breathe and the world went black.

She woke up chained to the wall in the bowels of a ship. Slavers from across the sea, she thought as the ocean rocked her back and forth. They took us. She looked around for Alaric but she was surrounded by prisoners none of whom resembled him. Snarling from across the ship drew her attention and she saw Myst straining against his chains. A direwolf would fetch a valiant sum, even across the sea. If they could keep him contained that was.

The trip across the water took weeks. The prisoners were given little food and even less room to move about. Raiga finally spotted Alaric on the fifth day. He was slouched against a wall on the other side of the ship, one wrist chained, watching his direwolf struggle helplessly. Raiga had no way of reaching him.

When they finally reached land, the prisoners were dragged to a cavernous holding cell. There weren’t enough chains, so the slavers had used ropes instead. With the little movement her bonds allowed, Raiga dragged herself over to where Alaric was. He crouched beside Myst, dragging his bound hands through the silver fur in an attempt to soothe him.

“We have to get out of here,” she told him.

He didn’t even look at her. “What’s your plan?” He scoffed. “Somehow get free of these bonds? Magically get the door open and evade capture all the way to the docks? Force someone to put us on a ship back to Neorwith?”

“I’m not going to sit here and wait to be sold.” She snapped at him. “And I have a plan.”

He rolled his eyes. “What’s that?”

“Just stay next to me when they take us out to the square. I can get us out of these ropes.”

“And then what?”

“Then we see how useful you really are.”

Alaric shifted into a sitting position. “Why are you helping me?” He asked, looking her in the eyes.

Because I don’t want to be alone. “How do you know I am helping you? Maybe once we’re out of here I’ll take you back to Neorwith as my hostage.”

“Why offer to cut my bonds then?”

She shrugged. “To get you to trust me.”

“Telling me your hostage plan does a wonderful job of achieving that.” He slouched against Myst, eyes on the ceiling. “And I won’t make a good hostage.”

“Your father is the king.”

“And I’m his fifth son.” He kept his eyes skyward as he talked. “My father doesn’t care about me. I’ll never sit a throne or hold a court. My best hope might have been winning glory on the battlefield and becoming a knight. And it’s not like there’s a war going on.”

Raiga leaned against Myst too. The direwolf’s body was well big enough to fit both of them against him. “Why did he send his least favorite son after me, then?”

“He doesn’t care about you either. He thinks you’re just a useless little girl, a nuisance he has to take care of so that no Daegnon will try to get their throne back. Not a threat.” He sighed, sliding down towards the floor. “He picked an assignment he was sure I couldn’t mess up.”

Raiga looked at him. “People underestimating you can be a powerful weapon.”

Before he could reply, there was a shout outside and the crack of a whip. The door to the cell opened and people began being dragged out.

“Stay together,” Raiga whispered just before someone seized them. The prisoners were all tied to one big rope and led out into the square where people could bid on them. They tried to separate Myst from Alaric but the beast growled and snapped at the hands of anyone who came near him or his master and eventually they left him alone.

Raiga and Alaric waited in the mass of other slaves as one by one people were taken up to the platform for people to see and bid on. When a particularly burly man was led up to the platform and more intense bidding began, Raiga took her chance.

She lifted her bound hands to her chest. “Anvangor,” she whispered and a scaly black head poked out from beneath her dress. She held up her wrists and the tiny dragon reached out, his claws slicing neatly through the ropes. Alaric’s eyes were as big as moons as he watched.

“Did I forget to mention?” She asked innocently, moving Anvangor over to Myst so he could free the direwolf. “The dragon egg I took? It hatched.”

Alaric snapped his jaw closed. “Me next,” he said, lifting his hands towards the infant dragon.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Raiga as Anvangor crawled back into her hands. “I sort of like it better when you’re the one tied up.”

“Raiga.”

“Ask me nicely,” she told him, running a finger along Anvangor’s pointed spine.

“Raiga. Sweet, beautiful Raiga. Would you please have your dragon free me?”

“Call me what I am. Call me a princess.”

“Princess Raiga.”

“Of Neorwith.”

“Princess Raiga of Neorwith, don’t make me set my direwolf on you.”

Raiga laughed. “Free him, Anvangor,” she held the dragon out next to Alaric’s hands and the ropes were quickly reduced to pointless scraps.

A smile rose to Alaric’s lips as he flexed his freed hands. He placed one on Myst’s back and gave the direwolf a nudge.

Myst rose to his hind legs and threw his head back in a howl. He leapt toward the platform as slavers shouted, but the direwolf had his freedom now and he would not be recaptured so easily. The current man on the platform saw his chance and bolted and people began to shout, descending on him. Other prisoners began to yell and strain against their bonds.

In the midst of all the upheaval, Alaric seized one of Raiga’s hands. “Come on,” he said urgently, dragging her along as he found a way out of the square. At one point one of the slavers spotted them, but Anvangor appeared on Raiga’s shoulder. His jaw unhinged as a jet of white hot flame shot towards the slaver. He fell to the ground, screaming as plumes of flame crawled all over him. People turned to see what the commotion was, but Raiga and Alaric were already gone.

They stumbled out into the street and Alaric blinked up at the unfamiliar world they had entered.

“This way,” said Raiga, pulling him down the street, around corners, and into a dark alleyway once she thought they were far enough from the square. They both leaned over, breathing heavily.

“No one saw us, did they?” asked Raiga, gasping for air.

“I don’t think so,” answered Alaric between labored breaths. “Is Anvangor okay?”

In response, the small black dragon poked his head out from Raiga’s dress and chirped contently, smoke still rising from his scales.

“What about Myst?” Asked Raiga, stroking the dragon’s head.

“He’ll find us,” Alaric assured her. “He’ll find me.” He looked around at the alley. “Now what?”

The reality of their situation sank onto Raiga. They had escaped the slavers. Neither of them had any loyalty to each other. Not long ago Raiga had been his prisoner.

“We find a way back to Neorwith.” She said.

“We find a way back to Neorwith.” Alaric agreed.

They turned toward the foreign street just outside the alley. They were both in an unknown country where they didn’t know the language or the customs. Their titles meant nothing here and they had none of their possessions. No way to buy passage back on a ship, nothing to remind them of the lives on the other side of the sea. Just the direwolf, the dragon, and each other.

Raiga reached out for Alaric’s hand.

He took it and they stepped out into the sunlight.