She wandered into a part of the dungeon that hadn’t been used in hundreds of years. Back then, when a prisoner was sent down, it was for life. They were locked up and forgotten until their pupils took over their irises and their hair turned white. Their echoing cries would reverberate around the network of stone corridors, begging for food and water. Only skeletons remained of these nameless sinners whose follies had been long forgotten. Elurra wandered into one of those passages, surrounded by the bones of the damned. Some slumped in corners, their brittle remnants in a heap. Others were clinging to the bars, trying to escape till the last. The worst were the ones who had decided to end themselves before death took them. They hung from the bars by belts or strings, like the decorations the witches of old used outside their homes to scare trespassers before they themselves were hanged for their crimes.

Elurra was eight at the time, and their empty eye sockets and slack jaws left her screaming. She tried to run away. Ivory bones lingered in every cell, and somehow, she ventured deeper into the labyrinth. The metal in some of the older cells had become brittle. As a result, some of the prisoners figured out ways to escape, only to get lost in the dark and perish in the middle of a hallway. Encountering one of these poor souls made Elurra turn back the way she came in hysterics.

There were other problems in the deep parts of the dungeon, though. Earthquakes were a constant concern before her birth, when the Kutsal Stone would bring Demons to Incari without warning. Most were not too bad, but some were violent enough to create cave-ins in the less sturdy parts of the dungeon. Little Elurra ran into some of those rock piles, which forced her to retrace her steps and find another way out. She still wasn’t sure if how long she spent wandering. Time was lost in the tunnels of death. Her candlestick slowly shrank, and a new concern blossomed in her mind.

What if I run out of light and join the corpses?

She panicked. She ran through the dark shadows and tried not to look at the stares of the dead on either side. She thought nothing could be worse than the skeletons, but the living proved her wrong. As soon as they heard her high-pitched cries, they started calling to her. She ran forward eagerly, thinking they were help. Then she saw them. As soon as the light hit them, they recoiled in agonized screams. They weren’t used to the brightness, and it burned their eyes. Their calls for help and moans of agony filled her ears, and she started crying. They tried to grab her through the bars, and their crazed eyes gawked at her without blinking. Most of them were on the brink of death. Their faces were sunken, and their hair was missing. Their wrists were unnaturally skinny, and their ribs were visible through their baggy clothing. The entire hallway smelled like rotting corpses, of which there were many. Her candle dwindled down to a stub, and then went out completely. She was left in the darkness with death calling to her from all sides.

She truly thought she was going to die. The dark made it impossible to see even her hand in front of her face. She sat there for what seemed like hours, with the moaning prisoners all around her. A few even reached out and grabbed her clothing, and she screeched each time to scare them away. She was afraid they might try to eat her if they got a good hold, which turned out to be a legitimate fear. Just when she thought there was no hope of escape, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel.

An old man with graying hair and a short beard held the candle. When he found the little girl on the ground with tear stains on her cheeks in the middle of the starving prisoners, he cried out in consternation and immediately scooped her away from their clawing hands. He skillfully led her through the labyrinth of darkness to more recent and lighted tunnels, where the prisoners were fed and they didn’t try to grab her, although a few gave her creepy stares.

She remembered the old man fondly. His name was Damond, and he had been the jailer for over thirty years. She asked him about the starving prisoners, and he explained they were murderers who didn’t even deserve a hanging for their detestable crimes. He seemed very lonely, so Elurra visited him on many occasions, and he told her stories and even tried to explain the twisting tunnels, though she had never managed to remember the way to anywhere. Never again had she gone past the prisoners with small crimes like thefts and forgery. However, she did grow rather fond of a few of the petty criminals, and she even brought them extra food whenever she visited.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Simply looking at the dark shaft brought back nightmarish memories, and panic roared through her like a gale force wind. For a moment, she considered risking a walk through the castle, but she knew someone would catch her. Even if she was the princess, she didn’t look like herself, and trying to explain would be pointless. No one would believe her. Nitiri would make it sound like she was an impostor. She couldn’t risk anyone seeing her. There was no other way.

“Terrin, you better be thankful,” she grumbled.

She tried to calm her trepidation as she gathered a few candles from one of the drawers and collected a flint and stone from another. She stood over the dark void that descended into the hellish underbelly of her home and tried to stop herself from shaking. Her childhood horrors were getting the best of her.

Where is my strength?

She squeezed her eyes closed and started to sing shakily,

“When the ground grows cold and the road is lost in snow,

Bow your head, dear child; the silence is just for now.

When the darkness comes, and the moons’ light is done,

Wrap yourself in saving grace; only angels can save you now.

Do not fear, dear one, there is magic in your blood.

There is no need to hide, no Demon can touch you now.”

She hummed the tune under her breath, and her terror started to fade away. She opened her eyes. She felt stronger when she had her mother’s song in her head.

“I can do this. I have someone I need to hold on to, even if he is annoying at times.”

The fact was she didn’t even understand why she was doing it for Terrin. He’d helped her a lot, but she had many servants who’d assisted her over her lifetime. She wouldn’t go down the shaft for them, not for all the money in the land.

If this was anyone else, I would have considered the risks carefully and found a way to free them from afar.

She hated to admit it, but she really cared about the peasant. He was the closest thing she had to a friend, and he was the only one willing to stand beside her to save her home. She started singing the second verse as she climbed into the shaft and descended into the darkness. Her shaky voice echoed loudly in her ears, and she hoped there was nothing alive down at the bottom to find her. The idea scared her, but she sang louder to drown out her pessimistic thoughts. The dumbwaiter was more cramped than it was years ago, and the old rope creaked ominously under her weight.

What if it breaks? she wondered with sudden concern.

She quickly pushed the thought away. She had to keep going down.

It didn’t take as long as she thought it would to get to the bottom. As soon as she did, she gratefully climbed out of the shaft with minimal scrapes to show for it. She turned toward the dark, took a deep breath of the stale, frigid air, and lit a candle. She immediately regretted it. Death surrounded her. They were exactly as terrifying as she remembered. Their empty sockets glared at her, and their pale bones gleamed in the candlelight. She took a few deep breaths and watched the air from her lungs create small clouds in front of her.

I can do this.

She started on the third verse of her song and walked forward. She knew she had to travel to the right in the same general direction to get to the dungeon’s proper entrance. That was where Damond would be, smoking his pipe. She sang loudly. Her voice reverberated around the maze, making it sound like a group of singers echoing each other. She tried to travel in the same direction each time she came to an intersection. The air grew fouler as she went, and she started to find the fresher bodies. Those were the worst. The flesh was rotting off their bones, and maggots ate away their remains. She whimpered every time she saw their corroded eyes and pasty skin. Rats sometimes cloaked bodies, enjoying their find. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks, and she forced herself to keep walking. Resisting the urge to run was one of the hardest things she had ever done, so she simply kept singing, repeating the song over and over.

To keep her sanity, she thought about her parents, and when that made her feel worse, she thought about Terrin again. She knew the real reason she was following him through her worst nightmares. Without Terrin, she would either have to give up on ever regaining her position or sacrifice herself to Nitiri in an attempt to regain the throne. The only reason she was willing to go through the labyrinth of horrors to get to him was because the greatest fear she had was being alone.

I also owe him. He saved my life, and his father died protecting me, she reasoned. The least I can do is save him from this place. This is my fault, after all.

She was too aware of what the next part of the jail held in store for her.