The Bastard Princess

20.

-HER-

The feeling of something heavy on my chest made me wake up. A groan slipped past my lips when I tried to move. My shoulder was burning and my mouth was dry.

I gasped for air before running my tongue over my dry, crusty lips. I was surrounded by darkness but I could see shadows on the wall in front of me. I tried to sit up but my body screamed in pain. I collapsed.

The world seemed to be spinning around me. My head felt heavy. Someone must have heard me because I heard footsteps approaching me. I was unable to see due to the darkness and the black spots that clouded my vision.

I heard metal click before the rusty laugh of metal bounced off the walls around me. In the next moment, a very tall figure step in front of me. A pair of glowing grey eyes was all I could focus in the darkness. They were looking down at me. They looked like wolves.

Wolves!

I was caught! Dammit!

I blinked several times as my vision cleared while my mind was already racing. The figure crouched as if to look at me carefully. I was able to see the face to which the glowing grey eyes belonged.

It was a she-wolf. She was dark but had pale blond hair which was pulled back in a bun. Her face was angular and looked like a warrior but still, there was some softness to her features.

"Who are you?" The owner of those eyes asked. It was a feminine voice that somehow did not match with the features of the speaker. I left the question hanging as I continued to stare in those eyes.

Slowly, the feeling sank in. I was captured and now, they'd either interrogate me or straight away execute me. Was I finally near the end? I couldn't tell.

When I did not answer, a splash of cold water greeted me. It made me sit up with a jerk and lean back on the wall to put as much difference between me and whoever it was. I unconsciously licked the water from my cheeks. I was very thirsty.

"Who are you?" the feminine voice asked again.

"I don't know," I spoke in Ounaric. It was the language in which mostly enchantresses spoke. It was my best guess that no one knew Ounaric here. Even in Alexandria, it was only me. The curiosity to know more about my mother drove me to learn it but I never spoke it once, until now.

The confusion on her face clearly told me that she did not understand me.

"Who are you?" She asked me in a couple of other languages that were spoken by mortals but I stuck to Ounaric. I was able to understand all the languages she spoke but I did not let it show on my face.

She sighed before standing up. I found myself staring at her for some moments. She was tall... way taller than females of any species ought to be. She was slender but had strong and muscular legs.

I watched her as she left my prison only to come back with what seemed to be food and water. My stomach growled out loud and I licked my lips, feeling thirstier but I did not touch anything. She stared at me for some moments before rolling her eyes and taking a bite from the bread and sipping from my water.

I couldn't believe that they were offering me food and water even after I tried to kill their queen. The wolves are very hospitable. I swear Cleopatra would have a good laugh if I manage to escape alive and tell her about this experience. The thought almost made me giggle.

The she-wolf halted before she gave me a pointed look. I shut up and took the bread and bit into it. She looked at me momentarily before leaving me alone. My mouth ached as I chewed. It reminded me how long I have been hungry.

I reached for the water jug and gulped as much as I could at one go. I sighed before eating the bread. It was the first time when I finally got to look around me. I was in prison and there were no windows in it. My best guess was that it was underground.

A torch burned just outside my prison, drowning the whole place into warm, yellow light. I tried to recall what had happened as I chewed on the hard bread. It seemed to be baked poorly, made especially for the prisoners but I wasn't complaining. I was hungry and to me, it tasted great.

I recalled breaking into this place and attacking the queen. I was successful for the most part but something happened. I raked my brain as I noticed that my red hair was spewed all over the place.

My hair had grown very long. It did every time I changed into someone else. It was as if to remind me of my flaws, which unfortunately stood out the most.

I continued raking my brain until everything came crashing down on me. I recalled his intensive silver eyes. They way they looked at me, it made me shiver.

I stopped chewing and found it hard to swallow. He reminded me of someone... Chefren. But he was taller and muscular than him. He looked different too but the way he moved... it reminded me of how powerful he was and how he could cause me harm. I had a weird feeling about him. It was very hard for me to describe it but to be specific, they weren't very good.

He had barged in when I was about to drive the dagger in the Queen's chest. I got distracted and someone knocked me unconscious. I searched my clothes for the dagger and the sandbox but I found nothing.

They had taken away everything and I only wondered when it will be the time for them to take away my life. I gulped my food hard before drinking some water.

I needed to find a way out of here. Heck, before that I needed to know if there was any way out of here.

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-Benita