PELAIR. The Gems of the Golden Serpent.

19. Miralia

Aela had been allowed to step off from the carriage that transported her. She managed to move away, surreptitiously from the other detainees. Approaching a fountain, she rolled up the sleeves of her jacket, and shaping both hands in a bowl-like manner, splashed water on her face to cool off. She was not aware that she had a beautiful visage to be a man. Water trickled over her face to end, soaking her neck and upper part of her doublet that went covered by a simple breastplate.

Miralia suddenly felt her blood running cold. Her eyes flashed with an anger she had never dared to show on her face before, even during the vilest of her experiences. Two unique bracelets wore by that young man on each of his arms were the source of this sudden and uncharacteristic outrage.

"Marcus!" called the Queen peremptorily to her guard captain. "That young man that goes there hold him without delay!"

Used to obey without question, the captain gave orders to the respective troop of guards, which came swiftly to surround the surprised young man. Seen himself encircled by so many soldiers, did not resist the arrest.

"Stop right there!" ordered the captain to a soldier that neared the boy. He was about to take the prisoner back to the carriage.

Aela looked perplexed at the two soldiers that approached her from opposite directions.

"But he's one of my prisoners," said the soldier to the captain.

"Well, now he's a prisoner of the queen," replied the captain with a commanding voice.

The soldier had no choice but to withdraw, noting that a full regiment of the Queen's royal guard approached.

"Who're you? Asked the captain to Aela, who bewildered and with her mouth and eyes wide open, had stopped throwing water on her torso, staying perfectly still.

"What happens? She asked, puzzled. "For sure, you have mistaken me for someone else," said the girl nervously.

"By order of her majesty, you're under arrest!" said the head of the troop. "I advise you not to oppose any resistance unless you're willing to suffer the wrath of the Queen."

"The Queen?" Aela asked, confused, and alarmed. "But I don't even know who she is," objected the girl. "I swear I haven't done anything wrong, my lord."

"I advise you not dare to go against her will," replied the captain gruffly. "She has her reasons, and neither you nor I would be the ones to contradict her."

Aela quickly realized she had recklessly folded up the sleeves that covered the bracelets. She wrapped back her arms as fast as she could, in the hope that the captain had not noticed the bracelets she was carrying.

"This may not be a coincidence," she thought. "One prison for another. Something has got to happen," she told herself, trying to infuse self-confidence.

She was handcuffed and led to the prison of Azcangor.

"No, Please!" implored and gestured the girl, seized by great apprehension at the sight of the dark passageways when they arrived at the dungeons. They were a set of wet, cold, and small-lit cells located in the bowels of a fortress that guarded the access to the castle.

Aela was carried up by a pair of big guards through a dark tunnel preceded by heavily barred gates that opened to the interior. Small cubicles that served as cells opened on each side of the passage. While most of those cells were empty, an occasional prisoner of gloomy mood peered through the bars.

Finally, the soldiers arrived with the girl to a circular, faintly lit stay with a high vaulted ceiling. Some light filtered through a small skylight that opened on its upper sides. The walls surrounding this stay had openings that made up a series of cells, almost all occupied by prisoners of various kinds. They were crooks who stole goods from the market stalls, fraudsters, rapists, road robbers, bandits, war prisoners, and numerous other undesirables.