Chapter 2
Although at first she tried to resist it, in an act that she deemed romantically heroic, the princess ended up accepting the queen’s offering of a nicer room, someone who had lived all of her life accustomed to luxury could never settle for the cell she had been initially placed in.
Her new room was by far better, it was bigger and of cylindrical shape, it was furnished with a large bed, a closet, a table with chairs and more, including a fireplace to keep her warm. It even had its own bathroom. So needless to say it didn’t appear to be a cell at all.
To get there the princess was walked up a seemingly endless set of stairs, because as it turned out, her new cell sat atop a tower, and a particularly tall one at that. She wondered if they even had one as tall as the one she was on in her kingdom. From the windows she had a nice view of the ice queen’s domains, the rest of castle, the city guarded by it and the bay around which the city was built around. Everything covered in snow.
But no matter how the room looked, there was still something Clementine couldn’t ignore, and it was the fact that she was still a prisoner. Even as she laid sat at the edge of her bed she remained chained, with her hands manacled in front of her and her right ankle chained to some spot on the floor beneath her bed.
She had remained as such for days, sometimes her restraints were removed, like when the queen allowed her to shower or to change her clothes, but most of the time they stayed on her. Other times the restraints were made harsher, like when the queen wanted her especially still for an occasion.
To make her imprisonment more evident, the queen had given her a full prisoner outfit, an oversized gown and gray pants was all she wore most of the time, alongside with thick socks to keep her feet from freezing when they touched the ground where a carpet wasn’t covering it.
Even though her new clothes lacked the elegance of her usual ones, back at her own castle and her own kingdom, she couldn’t deny that what she was wearing now was more fitting for the time and place, after all she could still remember how the cold froze her body when she was still wearing her dress.
One day, as the princess stared at the window for hours on end like she was beginning to get accustomed to, the queen entered her room. Since she still felt intimidated by her Clementine kept her distance, and watch from where she was as the queen took a seat in one of the room’s chairs.
“Come, take a seat” The queen invited her to do “I brought your dinner”
Only then did Clementine noticed someone else standing at the door, a small woman who was holding a tray with food and drink. The woman shyly stepped into the room and laid the tray on the table and was then dismissed by her queen.
Slowly and with distrust Clementine walked towards the queen and sat down in front of her, she had learned that they weren’t feeding poisoned food a long time ago so she didn’t feared eating, she feared the queen.
“A far cry from your usual waiters isn’t she?” The queen asked as she looked at the recently closed door.
Indeed she was, considering that the people who usually served her food were rough looking men, who, tired of walking the stairs leading to the room, usually appeared angry when they entered the room to leave the princess food.
“Why are you here?” The princess asked, ignoring the queen’s remark.
“Well, I always like to have a bit of smalltalk before discussing serious matters, but it seems you prefer to go straight to the point” The queen sighed “So I’ll do just that and ask you a question, do you remember what you told me when you were fist brought here to my castle in that dungeon?”
“I told you that someone would rescue me” The princess replied quickly, as she hadn’t yet forgotten that night.
“Well it seems that you were right” The queen said, her words lighting up some hope in the princess’ eyes, which she was quick to quash with the words that followed “Someone indeed came to rescue you, sadly for you, she didn’t succeed”
Clementine felt her heart oppressed as she heard those news, again she wanted to take the queen’s words as lies, but again something was stopping her from doing it, nothing about the queen screamed liar to her after all.
“What happened to her?” Clementine asked “What did you do to the one who tried to rescue me?”
“Oh, I did nothing to her” The queen replied “Yet”
“What do you mean yet!?” Clementine demanded to know, angered by the queen’s attitude towards whoever it was who tried to save her.
“Calm down princess” Her captress replied in a mocking tone “She may have failed to rescue you, but she managed to escape me”
Clementine felt relieved when she heard that, she thought that even though whoever her would be rescuer was had failed to rescue her, at least she hadn’t fallen captive to the queen like her.
“Who was it?” The princess asked “Who was the one who tried to rescue me?”
“Well, it is that what I want to talk about with you” The queen chuckled as the princess question felt incredibly convenient “I doubt there are many like her, so it shouldn’t be hard for you to tell me who she is. She was a tall woman of blonde hair and blue eyes, she fought with a sword and wore armor like a knight, any idea of who she is?”
“Ann...” The princess said to herself without realizing that she could be heard.
---
Back in Beroux, the kingdom from where princess Clementine had been taken from, a woman had been summoned by an unknown someone to meet in a roadside tavern.
Her name was Ferine, who was expecting to be hired for some unsavory business, after all, she was a world famous thief, and even though she was as hard to reach as one would expect from a thief like her, she knew that when people really wanted something stolen they had their ways of reaching her.
Ferine was of standard height, or the perfect height to sneak around as she liked to think, her skin was pale and her eyes brown. Her hair black and cut short as to not get in the way of her stealth. She had decided to present to whatever event she had been summoned to with her tight fitting leather armor to show whoever wanted to see her that she meant business, but when she walked to the tavern she was covered in a grey cloak, as to hide her identity and hide herself from the rain.
On her way Ferine came across a pair of friends who she didn’t expected to see, and as she saw them come to greet her she couldn’t help but acknowledge how different the two were from each other.
One of her friends was Eyiel, she was an amazon, a very tall woman of incredible muscles and martial prowess. She had dark blonde hair and brown eyes, her skin was once pale as she hailed from far in the north, but it was now slightly darkened by the sun.
Beside her and hardly keeping up with her pace was the much smaller Rhys, she was an elf, but very short for the standards of her people, and standing beside Eyiel she seemed even smaller. Her hair was short and red and her eyes blue, her skin was white and spotted with freckles in her cute face.
After the greetings that are mandatory for any friends who have a long time without seeing each other they finally got to asking why they were there, a question which Ferine avoided answering by asking the question to her friends.
“We wanted to see Ann” Eyiel explained “And I say wanted because we really weren’t expecting to be caught by the rain”
“We are looking for somewhere to stay now” Rhys added “Do you know a place around here?”
“In fact yes, I’m going to an inn nearby so why don’t you tag along?” Ferine deeming that saying were she was going wouldn’t be enough to give away why she was going there.
Eyiel and Rhys gladly followed Ferine to the Inn, a large structure of stone and wood which sat aside a road crossing. The place had a silly name like “the toad king” to which the three didn’t payed much attention because they were surprised by something else.
It was quiet. Usually places like this were noisy even from the outside, especially on a day like this one when travelers would be easily lured in by the mere promise of a roof to protect them from the rain, and once there would gladly buy drinks and hot foot. But the adventurers heard nothing, just the sound of raindrops falling on the roof.
“Well this is weird” Eyiel said “Is the place closed or something?”
“I don’t know...” Ferine replied, fearing that taking her friends where she had business wasn’t a good idea after all.
“We really should get inside though” Rhys said as she wrung out her red robe “I’m soaked”
Ferine was doubtful, the place being empty and the letter she had received couldn’t be unrelated, but she couldn’t remain outside in the rain.
“Just let me go in first, to see if everything’s alright” Ferine said before walking towards the door.
The idea seemed reasonable to her friends, who soaked as they were deemed that a few more minutes in the rain wouldn’t make a difference.
Ferine walked into the inn, the door was open and the interior looked perfect, probably even better than if people were there since crowded places tend to get dirty and this place was far from it. Aside from the raindrops against the windows the only other sound that could be heard was that of fire cracking in the fireplace. But there were no people in sight, none at the tables, none tending on the bar, nobody at all.
Ferine looked around, knowing very well that if this wasn’t bad it at least wasn’t normal. She reached for her shortsword below her cloak and just when she was about to lay a finger on the handle she she heard a voice.
“You were supposed to come alone”
Ferine quickly drew her sword and pointed it at the source of the voice, there, a few feet apart from Ferine stood a woman. She looked beyond young but was far from a hag, only the first wrinkles and white hairs showing. She was taller than Ferine but since Ferine wasn’t especially tall that didn’t meant much, her hair was black aside from the mentioned white hairs, her skin pale and her eyes blue.
She wore a dark purple cloak over a set of fine black clothes, an attire which wasn’t at all what Ferine expected to find in a place like this.
“I take it that you are the one who requested my services” Ferine said as she sheathed her sword.
“I am, and so I remember very clearly that I told you to come alone” The woman repeated.
“Sorry, I forgot, and I couldn’t leave my friends to soak in the rain anyway” Ferine explained “Just don’t worry, I’ll take care of them”
“It won’t be necessary” The woman explained “I already sent my men to take care of them”
“I wish them luck” Ferine replied.
The queen frowned, unsure of what Ferine wanted to say but doubtful of it anyway. But her grimace was soon replaced by a surprised expression when she saw the Amazon barge into the Inn.
“Ferine, we must leave this place!” Eyiel shouted “These guys tried to attack us!”
Eyiel then threw a man on the floor, he was wet and covered in mud, quivering with pain but alive. The amazon had made short work of him and his companion when they tried to apprehend her and Rhys, an action which both guards were quick to regret.
The intrusion of the amazon in the room sure caused a commotion, because many more men in armor and wielding weapons soon came out of hiding, revealing themselves from behind almost every closed door in the Inn and quickly pointing their weapons at the intruder.
“Wait!” Ferine shouted as she extended her arms to both the amazon and the guards “Lets not turn this into a bar fight shall we?”
The guards looked at each other and Eyiel looked at Ferine, wondering what the hell she could be thinking.
“Let’s listen to what she has to say” The woman replied “Lower your weapons”
Seeing how the guards obeyed the woman’s instructions Eyiel did the same and laid down her axe. She came into the room with Rhys following shyly behind her and then rested against a wall, with a hand near her axe in case thing went sour.
“What do we do your majesty?” One of the guards asked.
“Stand by” The woman ordered “As much as I would like to properly punish you for this disrespect the circumstances prevent me from doing it, so I’ll ignore this as much as I can”
“That’s a good start” Ferine said sardonically, which angered the woman.
“I made my terms clear, I want to discuss this with you alone” The woman explained “So, what are your terms?”
“Leave my friends unharmed and we have a deal” Ferine requested.
The woman stared at Ferine in the eyes for a few seconds, maybe expecting that such gesture would intimidate her enough to make her pull back on her terms, but she saw no fear nor doubt in the thief’s eyes, so she ended up conceding.
“Fine, take those two upstairs and make sure they don’t go anywhere, I don’t want word of this to run around” The woman commanded.
“What!?” Eyiel shouted “She said to leave us unharmed”
“And I didn’t ask for anyone to harm you” The woman replied as she stared sideways at the amazon “Ferine, would you be so kind as to get your friends to comply?”
This time it was Ferine who stared at the woman expecting to see her doubt her words, but much like when the reverse happened, Ferine saw no doubt nor fear in her, so she wasn’t left with much to do other than complying.
“Don’t worry Eyiel, just let them do their thing and I’ll take care of this” Ferine said after walking near her friend.
“You can’t be serious...” Eyiel complained as she began to feel mad even with her friend.
“I think we should listen to her” Rhys shyly intervened “If they won’t harm us we have nothing to fear, and I trust Ferine to resolve this”
Although a moment ago Eyiel felt like Ferine’s demands were beyond her, hearing them from Rhys’ mouth made her change her mind, at least slightly, to her, everything sounded more reasonable when the elf said it.
“Fine” Eyiel sighed “And you better take care of this, otherwise I will leave every last one of you like those guys” She said as she pointed at the bruised, wet and muddy guards that had tried to apprehend her.
Eyiel and Rhys were lead upstairs by a group of extremely careful guard who did not wanted to end up like her less fortunate companions, and once they disappeared behind a door Ferine broke the silence.
“So, I take it that we can begin now” She said.
“Not so fast” The woman said “Do you think I would feel comfortable alone in a room with a known thief who I have seen to be armed?”
“It seems like you can’t, you want me to lay down my weapons or what?” Ferine asked.
“I would appreciate the gesture, but I had thought of something else” The woman reached below her cloak and retrieved coils of brown hemp rope “Take a seat now”
“Of course” Ferine sighed, more used to this than the woman thought.
Upstairs, Rhys and Eyiel were unarmed and then taken to the inn’s attic, there, with some ropes they found, the guards proceeded to tie up the two girls.
Weapons were pointed at Eyiel the whole time, when her hands were pulled behind her back and when ropes were tied around her chest to pin her arms to her back. The amazon was incredible angry about this, but she decided to keep trusting in her friends’ intuition and simply hid her rage behind closed eyes and tight lips.
Whereas many guards were busy tying up Eyiel, only one was tying Rhys, understandably so since she look incredibly defenseless when compared to her companion. Her hands were also tied crossed behind her back and ropes tied around her chest.
“If your hands get one bit off track I’ll chop them off” Eyiel threatened after catching a glimpse of a guard tying ropes around Rhys’ chest.
The guard began to shake out of fear and proceeded with what he was doing with extreme care, even when bound and with weapons pointed at her the amazon was extremely threatening.
By the end of this, Eyiel and Rhys were bound in the exact same manner, but not nearly with the same amount of rope. While only few ropes were used to bind Rhys, many more and much thicker ropes encircled Eyiel’s body, around her wrists tied behind her back, around her chest and around her legs at the ankles and above the knees.
And since they had their legs tied the two were laying on the floor, with Eyiel resting her back against some crates and Rhys eventually worming her way towards her side.
“I can’t believe I allowed you to talk me into this” Eyiel grunted after the guards had left.
“Come on, it isn’t that bad” Rhys replied “We both know that we could escape this easily if we wanted to”
“That’s not the issue, the issue is that we allowed ourselves to be tied up!”
“Well, you gave that guard a good scare though” Rhys chuckled “Seems like even when tied up you are still threatening”
“He deserved it” Eyiel replied “You know nobody can enjoy tying you up!”
“Nobody?” Rhys asked as she rested against Eyiel’s shoulder.
“Well, you know” Eyiel replied akwardly “Nobody aside me, that’s what I meant”
Back on the main floor Ferine found herself sitting down on one of the wooden chairs of the inn, and slowly but surely she was being tied down to it. Ferine had to acknowledge that whoever this woman was she knew a thing or two about tying someone up, she tied her hands crossed behind the back of the chair and she cinched the knot above her hands.
Ferine’s chest was also tied to the back of the chair, above and below her breasts and at her waist. Her lap was also pinned down with ropes going over her opened legs to keep her from moving them away from the seat.
As to her legs, those weird tied to their respective leg of the chair at the ankles and knees, so there wasn’t much movement Ferine could perform with them.
But even though Ferine acknowledged that this tied were far from bad she was sure that they weren’t at all above her. Even though with slight difficulty she trusted her ability to reach the knot holding her hands and if not that one of the knots pinning her back to the chair, and with her any mistake made when tying her up was fatal.
But she decided that it was better to play along whatever this woman wanted, after all, she was at no rush to escape but she could do it at anytime she wanted.
“So, with all the fuss I just realized that we never got the chance to introduce ourselves” The woman said after sitting down on a chair in front of Ferine “My name is Adeline Blythe, as you may have noted I am the queen of Beroux”
“Wow, sorry I didn’t bow or anything” Ferine said sardonically, knowing that she wouldn’t have done so even if she knew.
“Don’t worry, considering your situation its not really necessary” The queen replied in the same tone as her captive “But enough of that, after all I know you and I don’t need you to tell me anything about yourself, lets discuss business shall we?”
“Finally” Ferine sighed “So, what work could a queen possibly have for me?”
The queen sighed, she was in for a long explanation.
“Nobody knows this, but my daughter, princess Clementine, was kidnapped a few weeks ago, and taken to the Serpent Isles” The queen explained regretfully “So far her captress, queen Isa has refused to negotiate, and we can’t risk declaring war on the isles because we don’t know what she would do to my daughter if we do so”
“Wait, you’re going me to ask you to rescue a princess?” Ferine asked with disbelief, after all her usual works were stealing things, not rescuing people, let alone princesses.
“Yes” The queen replied “Your skill set is fit for the work we need you to do, infiltrate the ice queen’s castle and rescue my daughter”
“Well that would be a lot different than my usual jobs” Ferine said, almost chuckling at how weird and out of place she found the request.
“Are you going to take this job? We will pay you greatly” the queen asked, with her confident tone slowly beginning to show her actual desperation.
Ferine considered what to do for a few seconds, no doubt the pay would be high coming from the queen, but the job seemed needlessly hard, infiltrating a castle was never easy and the fact that she had to escape while dragging a princess behind her didn’t sound attractive at all
“I don’t think so” Ferine replied.
“Wait really?” The queen asked in disbelief, apparently never having considered this happening.
“Yes, I may be fit for sneaking into places but I’m not one to be dealing with princesses” She replied.
“You can’t refuse!” The queen shouted as she stood up.
“Well, what’s stopping me from doing so?”
“If you refuse I will take you tied up like you are to the capital and inform the world that the great thief Ferine has been caught!” The queen threatened “You will spend the rest of your days chained in a jailcell, and I will take your friends with you!”
Already beginning to work on the knot tying her hands in case the queen decided to try to enact any of her threats, Ferine decided to keep her cool and and keep playing along.
“Now don’t say things like that, my friends have done nothing you!” Ferine said calmly “Just think about it, its a thief like me who you really want for a job like this? Why don’t you send someone else?”
“I did!” The queen cried as she fell back on her seat and sunk her head in her hands “We sent Ann Golbreisk, one of our best knights, and we haven’t heard from her since we sent her”
“You sent who?” Ferine asked, seriousness befalling on her tone.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but we sent Ann Golbreisk” The queen explained, just slightly more calmly “She was glad to take the job, but she hasn’t notified us of anything since we sent her a month ago, we fear that...”
Ferine stood showed her now untied hands in front of her and began untying herself, the queen was so surprised of seeing someone escape her restraints that she fell silent.
“Say no more I’ll take the job” Ferine said as she kept working on undoing her bonds “I’ll rescue or avenge Ann, and I’ll bring your daughter back”
“Thank you!” The queen said as she moved to hug Ferine, a strange gesture coming from someone who seconds ago was threatening to lock her up for life.
“I only have one request” Ferine said after overcoming the surprise hug.
“Whatever you may ask” The queen replied.
“I will take my friends with me” Ferine said “I’m sure they will be more than happy to accept the job”