Yuragwyn: Ours

---Chapter 1

I'm going to try.

₰Traugott₰

Our grunts and bumps are the only noises in the tight, choking staircase. Cyneric and his men separate us and force us between them as we walk: myself, a soldier, Calanthe, a soldier, and finally Briallen and a soldier bringing up the rear. A single drop of cold sweat trails straight from my brow to my chin as we near the imposing double doors. Cyneric beats on the right one four hard, short times, and I hold my breath as the iron hinges swing inward. My thoughts swirl back to the battlefield my beautiful country has become, and I wish again that I was there instead of here and that Calanthe and Briallen were in a friendly stronghold instead of an enemy prison.

A large, vacant room commands our silence as we are pushed to our knees on the hardwood, and I stifle a groan at the shock of pain the fall shoots up my back. I almost cannot bear to look at the girls. The guards were very rough with us, when they realized that Kaitra had escaped. How badly did they hurt Calanthe and Briallen? I would have taken every single slap on myself for them to go free. That is what Enion would have done.

The guards tie our arms across our chests and close the doors behind us, leaving us alone in the twilight of the room. There is no way for me to comfort the girls, and I dare not speak, lest our hearing has already begun. Briallen daggers her glances towards me as we are suspended in this time and place, and I have to bite my lip to keep from lashing out at her. It is her fault, quite possibly, that we are here. The time wasn't right for her to poison the pegasuses; we were still too fresh on the palace's mind. She didn't even have the sense to do it at night but had to do it in broad daylight, poorly mixing the hemlock in with the other grasses. Did she even want to do it right? What could she possibly gain from bringing all three of us to our doom?

"Ah, Traugott! Fancy seeing you here," a low, quiet voice reaches through the thick folds of the velvet curtains in the far left corner of the room. "We've met before, I believe, when you were just a lad with a blade and an order to kill."

I wince at his words.

"I have often thought of bringing you into my palace, perhaps as a dignitary or a peace commissioner, and promptly capture you and put you up for ransom, but you voluntarily brought yourself and— my! – Honorable Urien's two daughters for such an opportunity. Truly, Traugott, I cannot even begin to thank you.

"I have pondered long on how best to use you for Granziar's gain. I could kill you, but that would more likely inflame your people than dishearten them. I could torture you, but your precious Daughter has run off. She would have best served for that purpose." I close my eyes for a moment and let out a sigh of relief, thankful that Kaitra had the level head to bring her dagger with her so she could escape. "So I have decided upon a different plan. We shall place you in the fortress in Shajen until your precious Yuragwyn grovels on its knees for your return to them, at the cost of immediate surrender and collective bondage."

I steel myself for this sentence I knew was coming and try to keep from melting in despair at it. There is no way I could possibly get Calanthe and Briallen to safety in such a place. Even if Kaitra came back, would she deem it necessary to risk so many lives for our own? For Calanthe, she might try, but Shajen has withstood every force brought to its three iron gates. Shajen is little less than a death sentence. The snicker behind the curtain speaks to that truth.

The guards come back and march us down to the courtyard from which Kaitra's white oak leaves and her escape came. I spy a few stray white oak leaves under a shrub, and my heart pangs inside me. If she chooses not to return, all of Yuragwyn will become like the three of us.

∞Kaitra∞

After I fill my stomach and dry my eyes, my parents let me take a shower and a long, sweet nap. I dress my burns with some gauze and ointment in the bathroom cabinet but say nothing about them. These scars shame me; they prove to me that Yuragwyn was not a mere figment of my imagination but a real, literal place, a place that called me its saving Daughter.

But no matter; I must put that behind me. I refuse to go back, not even for Calanthe. They will be better without me.

My heart feels as though it has been pinched by a mother subtly reprimanding her child in public. Calanthe was my friend. Do I really believe I can leave her there? Shouldn't I, out of respect for Lord Cadfael and Lady Carys, at least mention to them that their goddaughters are trapped in a Granziar dungeon with Traugott? If I did go back and tell them, though, they would hide my dagger from me and refuse to allow me to come back here. They would trap me in their own castle yard, sure that I was going to save them according to this old prophesy I have never heard. I would be little better off.

I groan and pull my pillow over my head to drown out all these thoughts and simply rest.

//•••//•••///•••\\\•••\\•••\\

"Kaitra, we're going to town. Do you want to come?" My mother asks. Her shadowy figure leans against the doorframe.

I squint into the light of the hall that falls directly into my eyes. "Sure."

She closes the door, and I yawn and stretch. It is warm under these sheets, warm and comfortable. I haven't slept under any since we left Cordina.

I kick myself. I must forget Yuragwyn, for my own sake. That is behind me, in the distant past, and I must leave it there and not allow it to catch up.

I throw on some normal clothes and gingerly touch the gauze on my burns. They hurt, still, but the pain is not consuming. Maybe they will heal and I can lose the last memory of that place entirely.

I climb into the car and we make our way down the narrow, winding roads to the valley town below. It is a long, nauseating trip through vibrant green foliage and across the crests of imposing mountain tops. I try and close my eyes to keep from getting a headache from the splotchy, ever-moving light, but their faces stare back at me: Traugott's pleading one, Calanthe's somber one, and Briallen's haughty, daring one. They are the faces I pictured right before I came back. What has happened to the people behind the portraits I hold in my mind? Have they been sentenced to prison, torture, or even death?

But I cannot think of them, cannot let the memories rule my mind. I must stop remembering, must stop feeling guilty.

Thisis where I belong.