The Wonderground

Epilogue

She was encouraged from helping the little girl to escape and prayed she had made it back safely to her family. What was her name? Ella something. Their punishment was that the jailors had separated them. She had not seen, or been told, where they had taken her husband. He could be anywhere. Or dead. She forced the thoughts to the back of her mind.

Her new 'home' was a smaller, cramped cell with a smaller, wetter stone slab to sleep on. The room was circular with a hole in the centre of the floor. Surging water coursed below. The rim of the hole was damp and reeked of human waste.

She had a view, of sorts. Directly above the hole was a wide chimney that towered upwards with a small circle of sky at its limit. The occasional cloud drifted by. She had managed to clamber up the rough walls of the stack on the second morning and had squeezed her head between the narrow bars of a grate mortared into the brickwork at the top. The rods would not budge despite her best efforts. All she could see was barren desert stretching for miles in every direction.

Her bare feet were grubby and covered in scratches from the recent chimney climb. She flexed her fingers and saw that her hands were much the same. Dried blood mixed with dirt was smeared past her emaciated wrists.

There was no way out. It was hopeless and had been for a long time. One of the guards had delighted in reminding her last week of her five-year anniversary in the Red Castle. It felt more like fifty. At least the torture had stopped. Not that it mattered. They could do anything. She would never reveal the location of the piece of the 'Star'. Her family, her kingdom, her world depended on it.

She heard voices outside the cell. Strange. Her next meal was not for hours. The sun had long since set and her view was inky black and sprinkled with stars. The voices had stopped. Maybe they were inside her head. The silence was punctuated by the metallic groan of the door's bar lock being raised on the outside. She scrambled along the dirt floor and pressed her tiny frame against the cold, damp wall. The door creaked open and she caught a flash of crimson clothing as the silhouette of a large figure filled the doorway. She recoiled as she recognised the man as he stooped and entered her cell. Five years. No visit or message in all that time. Yet, he was standing over her now, large as life. Something must have changed. Terror overwhelmed her. She managed a weak croak. "Salinja," she gasped as a tear trickled down her left cheek.

The door slammed shut behind him. The Red Prince stepped into the room and knelt before her. "Hello, Caina," he said softly. He tenderly cupped her head in his hands. She wrestled free from his grip and threw a wild headbutt that caught him on the bridge of his nose. It exploded with a sickening crack and blood spattered onto her cheek. He reacted with an angry scream. He grabbed her by her lank greasy dark hair and threw her across the chamber. She clattered into the wall and collapsed in a heap in the dirt. Salinja licked his lips and tasted blood.

"Tut tut," he scorned as he plucked clumps of hair from between his knuckles. "Is this how you treat family?"

"Says the man who has kept me locked up for half a decade," she retorted with disgust.

"Touché," said Salinja contemptuously.

"What do you want?"

The Red Prince shrugged and opened his arms. "Can a man not visit his sister-in-law once every five years?" he leered. "You never call. You never write."

Caina grunted caustically. "Ex sister-in-law."

"You are right, of course," he replied with a cackle. "We did not see you at my wife's funeral."

She barked a short sardonic laugh at his arrogance. "Being imprisoned does limit one's ability to socialise," she spat. Her anger subsided to sadness as memories of her sister flooded into her consciousness. She still felt some responsibility for her death and her heart jumped into her mouth. She swallowed the guilt deep into her stomach.