“I will be queen before you because I’m older,” Celeste bragged.
“Only by a few minutes,” Coral disputed.
“I’m also prettier, aren’t I, Tyten?” Celeste twirled a finger through her fair hair.
The Captain of the Guard remained resolutely silent as the young twins continued their sibling dialogue.
“Tyten thinks you look more like a frog than a princess,” Coral teased.
The Children of the Moon squabbled pettily before Tyten finally abandoned his statuesque demeanour to pull them apart.
“The young ladies should be getting back to their mother,” Tyten instructed.
“Only if you tell us who you like best,” Celeste bargained.
“I couldn’t possibly choose between two such beautiful ladies.”
Coral and Celeste skipped off together, forgetting their earlier feud in light of the soldier’s kind words. Damselfly felt a stab of betrayal at Tyten’s behaviour. She knew the Captain of the Guard was honour-bound to protect the throne, though she had always believed he did it for more than just duty. Tyten whose long golden hair made him look every inch the prince himself, yet after a fortune teller had told him he would be defeated by love, the soldier had spurned all romantic entanglements in favour of a life of discipline. This revelation at least made tricking Tyten to enter the dungeon easier. After some convincing, Buttons agreed to run along the corridor. When Tyten spotted the escapee, he pursued, leaving the way clear for Damselfly to slip through into the dark stairway that led down to the dungeons and Uriel.
As the princess descended the narrow steps, she heard a low voice drifting upwards from the impenetrable gloom. Slowly, the words became comprehensible, and Damselfly realised someone was singing.
Girl in a Cage
Like a moth to the flame,
I sit a girl in a cage,
With no voice or name,
Even the sunlight appears beige.
The shadows are my only audience,
My heart and mind remain trapped,
As I have only patience,
A promise to be kept.
Though hope knows no barrier,
Even for a girl in a cage,
Faith is my strength, love my power,
This isolation is but a stage.
The voice went silent as Damselfly approached the cell. It was too dark to make out anything, and the princess followed where the sound had originated until she came upon the bars.
“Uriel,” she whispered.
It was unlikely anyone would overhear their conversation, being so far under the castle and surrounded by stone, though the oppressive atmosphere of the dungeon made it feel safer to keep your voice down.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Princess Damselfly.”
Uriel appeared close to the bars, allowing Damselfly to catch sight of her silhouette. There was a waver in the prisoner’s voice that suggested delicacy.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“I came here once before and you helped me,” Damselfly recalled. “Now I am here to help you.”
“No one can help me,” Uriel cried.
Damselfly tried to look around for inspiration, but the cage door was locked, and without Bakka’s skeleton key there was no way she could release Uriel.
“You gave me a token for the Garden Gate, and I went on an adventure to restore time for my mother and your unborn child. I met The Matriarch and Eloise; they miss you.”
“I can’t remember,” Uriel struggled, holding her head in both hands.
Damselfly could see a familiar look in Uriel’s eyes. She had glimpsed it in her uncle’s eyes just before he had lost his mind.
“Uriel, you will never believe who I met,” Damselfly continued. “I found him, I found Kimson.”
Uriel sobbed pitifully, and the princess could not tell if she understood. A feeling of morosity seemed to permeate the chamber walls, poisoning the very air they breathed as Damselfly felt herself close to tears at her failure.
“I had the key and the bell which could have gotten me to the Evergarden. I was so close to restoring time yet I failed and now we are both trapped.”
“Girls in a cage,” Uriel stated.
“Yeah, girls in a cage,” Damselfly agreed.
A light illuminated their gloomy scene, and Damselfly turned to see a small party descending the stairs. It was too late for evasion and there was nowhere to hide, so the princess remained by the cage, waiting. Luyna led the group holding Buttons up by his waistcoat. The rabbit kicked futilely and looked at Damselfly with regret in his eyes. Tyten, along with four other soldiers, followed the sorceress, looking grim, and her heart dropped.
“You have really done it this time,” Luyna sentenced.
“I told your father not to be soft on you and he would not listen. Well, now he will have no choice.”
“I just wanted to help,” Damselfly responded weakly.
“You have disobeyed your father, put your own life at risk and endangered others who have been pulled into your foolhardy fantasy,” Luyna lectured.
“I had to do something,” Damselfly retorted. “I could not stand by and let everything I care about slowly disappear.”
“This is not a game or one of your precious stories,” Luyna refuted. “There will be consequences for your actions, princess or not.”
“I don’t care,” Damselfly argued, her ire rising. “I wouldn’t change what I did and given the chance I would do it again.”
“You tell her, Damselfly,” Buttons supported from the sorceress’s grip.
“I am disappointed,” Luyna said, turning to the animated rabbit.
“I created you to be afraid to keep the princess in line; it seems in that I failed,” Luyna revealed.
Damselfly watched as Buttons’ face fell at the truth of his origin, before she was surrounded by soldiers and dragged away to her own prison cell.
Damselfly had been in a daze since Luyna had discovered her outside Uriel’s cell. Kept in complete isolation, the princess
