At her aunt’s order, the guards threw Princess Lillia through the dungeon door.
There was no floor.
She fell.
“No. No. No. Please!”
She hit the stone, and the last word broke against her teeth.
Above, laughter. No murmuring or unease from the guards who had stood outside Lillia’s bedroom for years. Laughter.
“No! Otto! Sven! Please don’t—”
The door creaked as it slammed shut.
“Please…”
The bolt clicked into place. Metal ground into stone.
Then no one said her name.
Darkness fell. Grey. Black. Pitch.
The princess remained on her knees at the bottom of the pit, staring up at where she thought the door was.
They would be back for her. Her aunt was trying to teach her a lesson. Scare her a little. She always stopped before it went too far.
This was not, strictly speaking, abandonment.
Lillia adjusted her dress. Modesty still mattered, apparently, even in holes, while the darkness was so deep it seemed to choke out sound itself. Everything—heartbeat, shallow breath, and the rustle of fabric—was muffled.
She could taste the blood where she’d bitten her cheek on the way down, and her knees were getting sore. How long had it been?
Was she even looking at the door?
“Hello?” she squeaked.
Lillia shifted off her knees to sit, but paused. She didn’t want to sit directly on dirty stone, but she certainly couldn’t ruin her dress by sitting on it. Lady Vanwith would certainly have something to say if the princess appeared at High Court with a soiled dress.
A droplet of water landed beside her and broke the silence.
“Anyone?” she asked.
Echoes answered.
The stone floor was frigid, so Lillia stood. She paced. Back. Forth. Back. Forth.
Counting would help pass the time.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
She blew into her palms to keep her fingers from going numb.
Back. Forth.
One thousand.
She must have been counting too quickly. Right?
Back. Forth.
Eight thousand and thirty-six. Lillia was hungry now. Properly hungry. The chef had been planning something with the lamb. Or had that been yesterday? She didn’t eat in the main hall very often anymore.
Back.
Twenty thousand. Eight hundred. Ninety-two.
Lillia stopped pacing and slumped against the stone wall. Her slippers bit into her heels. Somehow her shoes had done more damage than the fall.
Twenty thousand. Eight hundred. Ninety-three.
She could feel the pressure behind her eyes as she strained to see something, anything.
“Twenty thousand. Eight hundred… ninety…”
Lillia pulled her knees to her chest, dress scraping across the stone floor as she pressed herself into the wall.
She wasn’t supposed to cry. Her mother had told her to be strong, even when it was hard. At the time, Lillia had only scraped her knee behind her father’s throne. The words had seemed stupid and hollow then.
Five years under her aunt had tested those words. Lillia had bent. She had sobbed. She had cried out.
But there would never be tears, even if it hurt her to hold them back.
She couldn’t just stay in the corner and wait to be forgotten.
After all, this was her castle! The fortifications were made in her name. She knew every wall and secret tunnel that cut through its foundation.
They hadn’t thrown her into the castle cells. She knew the cobbles of the prison from playing hide-and-seek as a child, and this place was much too dirty to be her father’s prison. Plus, there would have been a passage in the northwest corner.
Even if it wasn’t their prison, all dungeons had secret exits. That was just good practice.
Lillia stood and felt her way around the room, testing each stone on the edge of the floor and along the base of the wall with her heel.
None of them moved, but that just meant she’d need to try others.
The stone ended, and Lillia found wood which she discovered was the edge of a door. That was a way out, but how was she going to kick it without ruining her slippers?
She found that this prison had a handle on the inside of the door. More surprising still, the handle turned without resistance, and the door opened.
If this dungeon was under her authority, she had notes.
The light beyond was dim, but it burned Lillia’s starving eyes. She turned away from the source, staring at the floor and her shadow as it stretched across the room.
There was still a chance her aunt was coming back. Maybe Lillia hadn’t waited long enough. Maybe patience would be rewarded.
Maybe good girls survived by staying where they were put.
Maybe.
No. If her aunt wanted to come and apologize, she could come and find her. Lillia wasn’t about to give that woman the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She readied herself with a deep breath and turned.
A single torch on the far side of a chamber, much too large to be underground, was the only flickering source of light. Under the sconce, a staircase pushed deeper into the dark below. The walls of the cavernous room—almost a cathedral—each had a pair of massive stained-glass windows that shouldn’t have been there. Instead of coloured sunlight, packed earth pressed against the glass from either side.
Lillia took a cautious step into the room, and the echo of her heel on stone bounced off the empty walls. The room felt like a blank canvas that had once held a masterwork. There should have been chandeliers on the empty chains that rattled above the princess. There should have been pews or a dining table. There was nothing. Rot and absence had replaced grandeur.
Dust billowed after Lillia’s steps as she crossed the empty room to the stairs. By the time she reached the top, she was almost running.
This was, definitively, not her aunt’s usual brand of cruelty.
In front of her was a single stairway with thick-cut stone steps. At the end of the first flight, the stairway opened onto a landing with a door on either side. Past the edge of the landing, the stairs continued, delving deep into shadow, as if they would never end. It looked deep. Impossibly so. Lillia checked over her shoulder, as if someone could confirm that what she was seeing was real.
The grand cathedral at the gate. The lone stairway down into the maw of the earth.
They hadn’t thrown Lillia into a dungeon.
They had thrown her into a dungeon.
The kind meant for adventurers.
Lillia’s immediate reaction should have been terror, but other questions lingered at the forefront. This dungeon was impossible. Too big. Too close to the castle. Too important to have gone by her parents, or her grandfather, or any of the handmaidens.
She bent over, intending to test the flagstone, but hesitated. There was so much dust. How many years had passed since anyone else had been here?
The flame above danced, disturbed by wind that wasn’t there. Lillia jumped at her shadow and turned back to the main room.
There was nothing. Of course there was nothing. There was no one else down here. She was alone. Very alone.
When Lillia turned back to the stairs, there was a twisted shape on the landing.
A skeleton.
Lillia leapt backward and screeched. That hadn’t been there before. She was sure of it. This place was haunted. Worse than haunted. Her hair stood on end as she held her breath and waited for it to move.
Of course it didn’t. It was dead, thankfully, like most skeletons. Lillia wasn’t sure what the alternatives were, but she didn’t like any of them.
The skeleton was clad in a tattered and soiled suit of plate armour. In its palm sat a still-gleaming blade.
“Hello?” she called out to whoever had placed the corpse there. Her voice echoed through the darkness. The flame above her was steady again. Whatever had ‘gifted’ her…a dead body… was gone.
Lillia figured that while approaching a skeleton was a possible death sentence, staying upstairs was a certain one. The sword was her best chance of survival. Unfortunately, grabbing it was also the ickiest option by a considerable margin.
She descended slowly, carving a path through years of dust and pausing every few steps to make sure the skeleton hadn’t suddenly come to life. Eventually, she was close enough to see how deep the decay ran.
The leather within the armour was the only material that hadn’t rotted away to tatters over the years. Lillia checked over her shoulder before crouching down beside the corpse. Up close, it was clear he hadn’t died fighting. Someone had placed him here, or he had lain down himself.
At least he came with a weapon.
Lillia reached over the man, whispering a quiet apology as she grabbed the sword from his silver gauntlet. The blade was heavy in her palm. Good steel. At least it seemed like it. She’d never been allowed to play with swords or sticks or otherwise. Her family had raised her as a proper lady. She was a princess. She wasn’t supposed to be here.
Lillia swung the blade once to test it.
White text exploded across her vision. Lillia squeaked.
[You are not at a high enough level to use this weapon.]
[Current Level: 1]
[Current Class: Princess]
Something between a laugh and a sob caught in Lillia’s throat.
Princess.
Of course. What else would it be?
A glass bottle clattered from the knight’s pocket, pulling Lillia’s attention back to him. Something to drink would have been fantastic, but there was a note inside instead.
Lillia laid the sword down beside its former owner and uncorked the bottle. She read.
Adventurer,
I wish I were here to greet you as I was once greeted. I wish I could guide you. Alas, I was not strong enough.
The dungeon has not killed me, but it has beaten me. It offers challengers many chances. I have taken more than I can count.
I long for the sun. I long for my brothers, who must be old men now.
I leave you my armour and my blade. If we are lucky, my shade will reveal them when the time is right.
Lillia checked over her shoulder at the mention of a shade. The torchlight was steady above, barely enough to read by.
The blade is called Vianaffir. My mentor would chide me for such an advantage in your hands. He would also chide me for leaving you
alone.
In my last moments, I ask that you judge me kindly, if you can. May my arms guide you in my stead.
A nameless knight.
“Well,” Lillia said, “that’s not very reassuring.”
He had been here long enough for his count to stop mattering. Lillia’s count had stopped mattering at twenty thousand. She didn’t want to imagine what his number had been.
When Lillia turned the paper over, she found a crude royal seal sketched on the back. She recognized the wings from her early history lessons. Her great-grandfather had overthrown that house.
The least she could do was honour the knight.
Lillia lowered the visor of the knight’s helm, figuring it was the closest she could come to closing his eyes. His armour wouldn’t fit her, not in the slightest. But she was thankful he hadn’t listened to his mentor about the sword.
The blade was lighter the second time she grabbed it. There wasn’t a scabbard to be found, which meant she would have to tuck it into her belt and be careful about her dress.
In a dungeon. While carrying a sword. To fight…presumably something.
Lillia looked back at the white text still hovering in her vision and down at the dead knight at her feet.
A princess and a corpse. It was certainly a unique adventuring party.
Lillia looked down the stairs.
Unfortunately, she appeared to be the party leader.