The Secret of the Seven Princesses

Suspense Chapter 16

Rosetta's story was as difficult to hear as it must have been to tell.

Born to an impoverished couple in Uvegia, I had scarcely reached my third birthday when my parents' financial difficulties drove them to sell me as a household slave to a wealthy merchant. I was treated indifferently at best, raised (more or less) among the man's two sons, but I was never allowed to forget my inferiority. Upon the merchant's death when I was fifteen, his business and estate were inherited by the elder brother, whereas I was passed along to the younger. My new master was continually in financial straits; his brother refused to assist his wild actions and eventually disowned his wayward younger brother.

Left to his own devices, the desperate man resorted to criminal means to support himself—dragging me down with him into the quagmire of questionable morality. He gathered together a ragtag group of ruffians, whose cruel deeds and criminal actions quickly earned them reputations as the most wanted criminals in the country. They were forced to flee from the prices on their heads, and it wouldn't be the last time.

For many years, I was forced into servitude for the band of marauders. They knew that I wouldn't agree to commit any criminal deeds myself, regardless of how they tried to force or threaten me. So instead, I became their unwilling accomplice and "kitchen" servant, in charge of the meals and marketplace reconnaissance excursions. I tried escaping several times, but they always found a way to retrieve me—and their punishments matched their fearsome reputation.

Eventually, the marauders made their way into the country of Kyoria, plundering towns and villages along the way. With a reputation as deplorable as theirs, they couldn't afford to stay in one place very long...until they found the perfect hideout.

My master stumbled upon it when we were encamped in the forest outside the palace (a place that offered dense protection from even the numerous authorities around the royal residence). The entrance was cleverly concealed in the base of a spruce tree, and he had hoped that it would provide a safe place in which to hide.

It turned out to offer much more and much less than he had expected.

The passageway led to the familiar, beautiful chamber that the current princesses had turned into their sanctum. Little could Their Majesties guess that, not so very long ago, their place of freedom had housed a band of ne'er-do-wells and one unfortunate slave woman. With its splendor and secrecy, it was the perfect place for their purpose. They set up base camp within the chamber itself, leaving two sentries to guard the only entrance.

"But what about the tunnel that leads to the manor?" Ty interrupted her tale to ask.

"The staircase led to a dead end," Rosetta said simply. "It wasn't time for the trapdoor to appear, so the only way in or out was through the forest passage." She waited for further questions that did not appear before continuing her tale.

The complete seclusion of their new hideaway allowed the band to stay longer in Kyoria than they'd ever stayed anywhere else. They resumed their former activities of plundering, marauding, and thieving, but made sure to target those homes and markets that were far enough away from the chamber to maintain its secrecy.

About ten months after the band moved into their new headquarters, I decided to attempt another escape from my deplorable servitude. Tasked with making almost daily trips to the marketplace for food, supplies, and news, it wasn't difficult to separate from my "chaperone" during one of those excursions and disappear into the crowd. Though my master sent his most ruthless trackers to seek me out, I managed to elude them. For the first time, I believed that I'd managed to escape their clutches forever.