The snow, and the sky, were gray. Faint light filtered through a thick layer of clouds, darkening with each hour they traveled.

Yuzuru dragged his feet through the tracks, shivering despite his fur cloak. Behind him, Gweyn’s teeth were chattering. The soldiers around them paid their discomfort no mind. They were dressed in far less clothing but no one seemed to be bothered by the cold. Snow fell constantly, covering the convoy’s footsteps as they made their way through the white fields.

At the front of the line, someone shouted, “We’re picking up speed! Keep up if you want to sleep in a warm bed tonight!”

The soldiers cheered. Yuzuru saw the prisoner in front of him stagger forward, then felt his own leash being tugged. He tried to ease the pull on Gweyn but their bounds were too short. She tripped and fell.

“Hey!” shouted the soldier closest to her. “Get up!” He grabbed the chains around her wrists and jerked her to her feet.

“I can’t,” Gweyn panted, staggering forward into Yuzuru.

Her fingers dipped under his waistband before she was yanked back.

“You will walk,” said the soldier, “or I will make you crawl.”

Yuzuru kept his eyes forward. The convoy was twenty strong, ten soldiers guarding each side of a line of five prisoners. He couldn’t tell if the other three individuals walking in front of him were travelers or not, but didn’t ask. He wanted to seem as inconspicuous as possible so the soldiers might lower their guard around him.

Escape was up to him, and he needed to play his cards perfectly for a chance at it.

The convoy stopped only once and very briefly. Yuzuru tried to get a look at Gweyn’s condition, but she was always kept behind him and when he tried to talk, the soldier next to him jammed the butt of a spear into his side.

Evening fell by the time the convoy made it to the castle gates. Yuzuru breathed a sigh of relief, but that feeling switched to anxiety when he saw the white archway leading into the island where the castle resided.

The archway was made of icy marble, lit by glowing skulls hanging off each side of its pillars. A long wooden bridge extended below it, crossing over a chasm that seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions.

Someone shouted for the convoy to cross. One by one, they stepped off the snow.

The bridge was wide enough for ten men to walk touching shoulders, but hanging so high up, the winds caused it to shake violently. There were no handrails either. Yuzuru fought to keep balance, as did the other prisoners. The soldiers, though, were practically skipping across.

They eventually reached the castle entrance. There was no door but there was no need for one. Along the walls hung balls of blue flame, within which burned human skulls. They stared out from eye sockets that were filled with black powder and seemed to follow them as they made their way through.

“I heard about those,” Gweyn whispered. “The skulls chase down any signs of magic and explodes its user. Whatever you do, don’t use any spells while you’re inside these walls.”

“What about Pekorin?” Yuzuru asked.

Gweyn was silent for a beat. “I’m not sure.”

As soon as the rest of the convoy passed through the icy walls, the entire castle started to shake. A high-pitched keen sounded behind Yuzuru, and he looked back to see the wall closing in on itself, hiding the bridge from sight.

“Well done, you lazy asses,” shouted the captain at the front of the group. “Looks like you all managed a proper meal tonight. Those in charge of prisoners, take them into the dungeons. All others, disband!”

The convoy cheered. All the soldiers around Yuzuru broke off, leaving only five to guard the five prisoners.

One of the soldiers spat into the gray snow. “Blasted guard duty. My feet kill me.” He looked sideways at Yuzuru then spat again. “I don’t even get the good one.”

The soldier behind him laughed. “I’ll trade ya for three bottles of wine.”

“Naw,” said the first. “I can get thirty wenches down at the taverns with that much.”

Laughing, the five soldiers began to haul their prisoners towards the other side of the courtyard.

Gweyn finally spoke up. “Wait. I wish to speak to the Prince of Skulls.”

The soldiers looked at each other and chortled.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I am the daughter of King Jamie Stryde the First,” Gweyn said. “I evoke the right to an audience with your prince!” She fought against her captor but was silenced with a slap.

“And I’m the father of that boy in Bronzehaven,” said the soldier holding her binds. “But you don’t see me bragging about it.”

“Damn you,” said Gweyn, and was slapped again.

“Hey!” Yuzuru shouldered the soldier aside. He didn’t make it two steps to Gweyn before the other four soldiers struck him down. They kicked at him with their boots and jabbed him with the ends of their spears. Despite Gweyn’s screaming, then begging, the beating continued, long after Yuzuru lost consciousness.

For the next week, Yuzuru remained on his straw bed while the world faded in and out around him. He ran a fever and sweated through his clothes, which dried from his body heat only for him to sweat through them again. By the time the third day ended, he was sure he wouldn’t make it through another.

The only sign of time passing was the sound of Gweyn’s voice, asking if he was okay, demanding the soldiers for an audience when their food arrived each day. She was met with jeers and sometimes threats, but if anything worse happened to her, she kept quiet about it.

As time wore on, Gweyn’s cries grew less frantic, her voice weaker. She kept talking to Yuzuru, even though he couldn’t respond with much else than groans. Her questions about his condition eventually turned into one-sided conversations, then stories about her childhood.

Yuzuru listened to them when he could, and dreamed about them when he couldn’t. He learned of Gweyn’s upbringing, from her noble birth in a place called Cold Castle, ending with her eviction caused by Honoka’s leaving, where she was eventually forced to eke out a living among thieves and savages.

One day, Yuzuru dreamed his cell door was opened by a gust of wind. He wanted to check it out but couldn’t muster the strength to. Then, Gweyn was kneeling beside him, her cool fingers tickling his forehead. He saw her, still in his dream, dripping a wet cloth over his lips. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to tell her he’d been listening to her tales, but she was gone too quickly.

Eventually, after what might’ve been weeks, Yuzuru was finally well enough to get up. As his mind pieced itself back together, he took in his surroundings.

He was in a cell. Directly above him, dangling from the ceiling was a burning skull. Black-filled eyes stared down at him, watching him as he clambered off the bed.

He hissed, pain pulsating all over his body. He felt dizzy and deathly thirsty, so he began looking around for water. Both the ceiling and walls were awash in faint blue light from the skull. Other than a bed and a bucket in the corner, there was nothing else here.

Limping over to the iron bars, Yuzuru poked his face through.

“Gweyn?” He asked in a crackly voice and got no answer. Squinting, he could see the cell across from him was empty, though it too had a skull burning above the bed.

“Gweyn? Are you there? It’s me.”

From somewhere inside the dungeons, someone yelled back, “Your princess is in another castle!”

Laughter roared through the cells.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yuzuru throat felt like shattered glass but he tried his best to shout. “Where is Gweyn?”

“Why don’t you ask Bowser?”

More laughter, accompanied by banging noises.

“Cut the shit,” Yuzuru yelled, then fell to his knees in a fit of coughing. When he got back up again, his throat was burning. “Gweyn, say something. Please.”

“Quiet down, ya filthy travelers!” A loud screech echoed from Yuzuru’s right. The laughter faded but the banging continued, growing louder as it got closer to Yuzuru.

An armored jail guard strode into view. He was whacking the flat of his sword across the bars and threatening to cut off any fingers he saw. When he got to Yuzuru’s cell, he stopped.

“Aye, the valiant fool is alive.”

Yuzuru kept his fingers clear of the bars and asked, “Where is Gweyn? She was the girl taken down here with me.”

The jail guard sneered. He had only three teeth, which all poked out from under his upper lip to make him look like some bootleg Bugs Bunny.

“She ain’t here.”

“Where did she go? Who took her? Why?”

The guard whacked at the bars to keep Yuzuru back. “Hell if I know. Even if I did, why do you think I’d just tell you?”

Yuzuru felt around his pockets for something to bribe the guard. As he checked the back of his pants, his fingers brushed a tiny bulge pressing out of his underwear. Reaching in, he felt something glassy and pulled it out.

It was the empty potion vial. At the bottom were the two golden ear studs belonging to Tom, the prince who Yuzuru failed to save.

He remembered Gweyn stumbling into him as they were walking.

“What you got there?” The guard pressed his face right up to the bars, his teeth poking through. “Hey. Show that to me.”

“It’s nothing,” Yuzuru said as he stuffed the vial into his pocket.

“Don’t look like nothing,” said the guard. “Give it here. I’ll tell you what I know about your girl.”

“No,” Yuzuru insisted. “These belong to her. Sort of.”

The guard growled, spit running along his teeth. “Is this how you want to play it, huh.” He took out his keys and jammed one into the lock. The gate creaked open. The guard stepped in, his sword gleaming blue from the flaming skull overhead. “I’ll show you what happens to those who keep secrets from me.”

Yuzuru’s back hit the cold wall. He took a deep breath, his ribs smarting. He wasn’t in any shape to fight, but hell if he was going to just let this man take the vial.

The guard swung his sword, almost lazily. Yuzuru ducked away. The guard tried again, this time a side cut. Yuzuru leaped clear.

Confusion registered on the guard’s face, replaced quickly by anger as Yuzuru dodged another slice.

“How are you moving like this?” he demanded.

“I do this with my sister all the time,” Yuzuru said, sidestepping. He stuck his leg out and the guard tripped into the wall. “She likes to pretend we’re enemies.”

“Goddess damn you!” the guard cursed. He began to swing wildly. “I’m going to gut you like a fish you slippery vermin.”

A loud cough sounded from the hallway. The guard stopped dead and turned. “Lord Ferniland.”

A decorated man stood at the entrance, hands clasped behind his back. “Having fun?” he asked in a heavy accent made thicker by the gray mustache above his lip.

“Not at all milord,” said the guard, standing hastily to attention. “I was just showing this vermin his place.”

The man looked calmly between Yuzuru and his attacker. “You can do that later. Right now, the Princess has called for him.”

“Princess?” The guard gave a perplexed chuckle. “Was I down here so long the Queen got busy?” He sheathed his sword and went to stand beside the general, only to suffer a backhanded stroke across his head.

“She isn’t our princess, you hog,” said the lord. His gaze settled on Yuzuru’s face, and he smiled, teeth bright under his mustache. “Not yet, anyway.”