Rosalind’s POV.
One minute I was moving with the party towards the safe room, the next Adelyn shoved me to the side.
“What are you doing?”
Our lives were at risk. Surely she didn’t want to pick a fight now of all times? Worse, we were at the back of the council and the priestess having been the closest to the guards.
“It’s your fault that Cillisn refuses to mate with me. Find some other safe room to stay in.” Adelyn snarled in my face.
Yes, apparently we were doing this. I shoved her aside and tried to stand up but she held on to my leg and twisted it dislocating my ankle and I screamed.
A scream that was lost in the noise from all the chaos. I went down, my leg unable to carry my weight. When I looked up she was gone, they had just rounded a corner in the ball so I couldn’t see where exactly they had gone.
Pulling myself up and ignoring my burning ankle that would need to be reset before it could heal.
By the time I had finished hopping to the corner, the priestesses, council members and Adelyn were nowhere in sight.
I tried to follow their scent but it simply led me back to that bend.
I collapsed to the ground, my ankle throbbing. How could I get into a safe room now? I had to join the one for the nobles if I could manage to find them and they weren’t already full.
As I stood to move towards them, the first earthquake hit and I found myself on the ground. When my eyes opened, the world was blurry and I could smell blood, my blood. My head hurt, my side hurt.
Someone approached me. Or two people. I wasn’t sure since my vision was so blurry. The person or people wore black. “Killian?”
The person took my hand. The one that had been slashed by the priestess that was still healing.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
I felt a slight pinch or prick then I was gone.
******
When I opened my eyes, I was in a cloud. A soft cloud. I blinked and realised it was the ceiling of the room that I was seeing and that I was in a very comfortable bed that I couldn’t recognise.
I sat up suddenly, my body protesting the movement as my vision blurred.
“You shouldn’t move too fast, the drug is still in your system.”
I looked to my bedside, sure enough, there was someone there watching me and looking extremely amused for some reason.
He wore a complete black-on-black attire. His shoulder-length hair was black and wavy with undercurrents like his eyes. Was he the one I had seen immediately after the earthquake?
“Who are you?” I asked cautiously while looking around for a way out.
“A friend.” He stood up from the chair he sat on.
“A friend and you abducted me?” What was he even talking about? I moved to grab his hand before he moved too far away but he easily moved away from my grasp.
Then he was pushing me into the bed, no, he was tucking me in so that I wouldn’t fall out while trying to go after him.
“Someone will come to see to you soon.” He said, his dark eyes serious then he was gone.
Naturally, I tried to sit up again but my vision swam and I had to collapse back in my bed. Who were these people, where was I and most importantly, what the hell did they want from me?
*******
Priestess Malia’s POV
On the heels of the attack, the palace was still scrambling to recover while I stood still.
We were out of the safe room the moment the air was cleared about
The dead nobles were being carried out and while the living and injured jostled to leave the palace. Never did I think that in my lifetime I would see the day that nobles desperate to be invited into the palace would be so eager to leave it.
While they could afford to panic, I couldn’t. I had to be still. A subject of calm serenity.
I was also still because as the high priestess, I couldn’t afford to panic. Even if I was sure that I was the only one who understood the gravity of what had just happened.
My hands shook but I folded it beneath my robes so that no one would be able to detect my unease.
I looked around, deciding to focus on something else apart from my emotions.
We had lost two priestesses in the earthquake. What a waste when we were so low in numbers that we were dying out.
I heard my second shuffle towards me.
“Mother, perhaps we should leave for the sanctuary” Tina said softly.
I raised my hand, silencing her. I knew she was only saying what the rest of them had in mind but I was waiting. Waiting for my suspicions to be confirmed. I knew I was right but I didn’t want to be right.
There was a loud bang and I turned following the sound.
Prince Killian looked beyond angry as he tossed a table. It split down the middle and fell apart. He was rightfully angry. Who wouldn’t be when their fiancee disappeared within an hour of their engagement? I glanced at Adelyn.
She looked on innocently but I could see the aura of jealousy that clung to her and anyone without the sight would still have seen the last trial where she nearly killed Rosalind. She had most definitely done something to her but it wasn’t my place to interfere so I was silent.
“What do you mean you can’t find her?”
Prince Killian growled at the head of guards who bowed so low that if he bowed any lower he would need to scrape his body off the ground.
“Please pardon my inadequacy, Prince Killian. Princess Rosalind is not in the palace.”
They must have taken her. Of course, they had. After that display at the trial, it had only been a matter of time.
Prince Killian’s eyes blazed with unholy wrath as he regarded the guard shaking in front of him.
“Did she disappear into thin air?”
“Killian calm down.” Prince Cillian didn’t look settled at all himself but at the very least, he wasn’t volatile as Prince Killian was. “Everyone is searching for her. We will find her soon.”
Price Killian looked at his brother and I saw something unspoken pass between them and I wondered if it wasn’t only Killian that liked her.
I felt a chill down my spine. This would not end well.
If we were lucky, they would keep her but looking at the two princes in front of me I was suddenly certain that if that did happen then they would scour the ends of the earth until they found her.
A guard ran into the room drawing all our attention. He held a letter in his hands.
“Prince Killian,” He bowed. “A letter has arrived pertaining to the princess’s disappearance.”
Prince Killian yanked the letter out of his hand and ripped it open. After he read it, he scrunched it up in his hands.
“The witches have her.”
My eyes fell shut in acceptance. It had happened.
But maybe this is for the best.
The moment I saw that cracked mirror I knew. The mirror that had remained indestructible for centuries such that it had been passed down with the priesthood for safekeeping.
She was dangerous. She made me think of the last Queen.
****
Rosalind’s POV
When next I opened my eyes I realised that I had fallen asleep and that there was someone else in my room.
It wasn’t my abductor in black but a woman with startling blue eyes and hip-length dark brown hair that was pulled away from her face with a series of complex braids.
“You are awake. Finally.” She said, like me being unconscious had been a terrible inconvenience for her.
“Who are you? What do you want with me?”
She didn’t reply to me as she moved forward and caught my chin in her grasp moving my face from side to side as though looking for something.
I slapped her hand from my face and she looked… amused.
“So you have some spirit. Perhaps that must be what is attractive about you that enabled you to lure in one of the princes.”
I glared at her hotly. “Touch me again and I will show you some of my other attractive features.”
I couldn’t actually carry out the threat I just made but as a wolf, I knew the moment you turned your back on a predator. It would pounce and dig in. I couldn’t afford to show her any weakness.
She stared at me for a second that seemed to span forever. Then she laughed. She laughed so hard, her head fell back and her shoulders shook.
When she stopped, there wasn’t a trace of humour left on her face.
“That will be the last time you will talk to me with that tone of voice, Princess.” She said the word with a sneer that spoke about how unsuited she thought I was for that title.
“We are no longer in your city or even your kingdom. Do not try to escape or your safety cannot be guaranteed. There are things out here that are far more dangerous than me.” Something flashed in her eyes and every urge I might have had to run away died.
I wouldn’t make an uneducated attempt. I would learn this area first. Then I would plan my escape.
“You will stay here until your fiancee accedes to all our demands then you will be returned home safe and sound and you can continue your pretty little life.”
My pretty little life? Nothing about my life fit into those pretty tiny boxes. Every day was a struggle and the heavens knew how hard I had worked to keep myself alive.
This woman with her crazy hair and antiquated clothes knew nothing about me but still felt like she could just sneer at me.
That was what made me flare up.
“You mean to keep me locked up in this room? I will never accept that. What if it takes my fiancee months to accept your terms or what if he never does? Will you continue to keep me locked up in here?”
The woman merely smiled sardonically. “I am not like your people. You will be free to roam in fact I will encourage you to do so within the boundaries we set for you so that you can tell your council what you have seen here. River, I believe you met him earlier, will accompany you as a guide, so be at ease.”
She turned to leave then she stopped as though something had just occurred to her.
“Oh and for your sake, I hope your fiancee replies promptly or your stay here will not be as enjoyable as I have planned.”