"The wedding is set then, son?"

"Yes. One week from this very day. I've been told the wedding dress is about ready. That is all we are waiting on father." The prince had to almost yell this sentence down the long table the royal family sat at for breakfast.

Abriella wondered why, if they wished to have conversation, they sat so far from each other while dining, ever keeping to formal rules and decorum. She hated how they talked about all this, as if she weren't even there, as if she were but a thing, another item to be worried over with this wedding. She turned her eyes down to her bowl of porridge and stirred it slowly, not feeling the least bit tempted to eat. Talk of the wedding pulled at her stomach, gnawed at her heart threatened to spill crystal drops from her eyes. But she soon pushed all rebel emotions away and turned her attention back to the conversation.

"Timothy," said the mother queen, "have you socialized with any of the guests who have been arriving for the past two days? Already Sir Patrice and his daughters Saleal and May have arrived. The two daughters are quite exquisite."

"Mother, Saleal weighs as much as father and May is cross-eyed. Besides, they're not the type of women one takes as mistresses."

"I wasn't thinking of your taking them as mistresses," mumbled the queen. As always, the queen glared at Abriella from across the table. The girl was too pretty. The servants, already, were quite enamored of her and loyal to her. It would not do. The queen did not wish for her son to marry such a mysterious and pretty girl as Abriella. Her son called her a princess but the girl knew absolutely nothing a princess should know. She was little more than a learned and physically attractive commoner.

Queen Glenda had thought of forbidding her son to marry the girl, but she had not been able to refuse her son a thing since he was thirteen and had learned that he would not be punished for physical violence toward others. She told him at that tender age that he would not be allowed to skip a royal ball that was being given in honor of his thirteenth birthday. He did not wish to attend, and in front of at least ten servants, dared to push his mother into a wall and slap her. No one lifted a finger in her favor, the king who had also witnesses the princes show of affection for his mother, just sat back in his chair and took another sip of his wine.

The queen did not try to contradict her son after that.

"My dear…" the queen spoke from the other end of the large, long table. Abriella did not realize that the queen was talking to her and not the prince or king. So she was startled when the queen banged her fist on table, spilling soup on all four corners of table.

"Girl! Look up and acknowledge your queen!" The queen's voice was cold with disdain.

Abriella looked up slowly, trying to hide the fear she felt, setting her face into as cold and immovable a stare as she could.

"You will come with me today. There is nothing the tutors can teach you that you will need on your wedding night, nor indeed that you will need as a ruler of any sort," spoke the queen. Abriella thought that there was nothing the queen could teach her that would be helpful while ruling a country. Indeed, as far as she could see, the queen did naught but lay abed all day.

The servant behind Abriella took away the full bowl of porridge and smiled foolishly down at the golden-headed girl. He stepped over the pile of golden braid that pooled behind Abriella's chair glorying in the small smile the girl had bestowed upon him as he had taken the bowl away. The queen noticed it all. The servants once smiled upon her just so. She could take any young lad into her confidence… into her bedroom. Now they all turned the girl's way. No matter that it had been years since her fall from beauty and grace, since a young man's roving eye had turned her way; it was the girl's fault. Yes, it was the girl's fault entirely.

The afternoon was long indeed. Abriella waited on Queen Glenda hand and foot, literally. The highlight of the afternoon had been when the queen had ordered her to give her royal highness a foot massage. Abriella did it, for what else could she do.

The silence in the room had grown uncomfortable, deafening, insufferable, as the good queen lay fanning herself in bed and Abriella sat stiff backed in a high backed chair, and a maid came bustling in, hurrying to the side of her majesty. The maid stooped and whispered in the queen's ear, which caused the queen's eye's to widen visibly. She in turn whispered in the maid's ear and turned her attention to the young girl sitting beside her bed as the maid rushed out of the door.

"You are excused now," stated the queen.

Abriella did not question her future mother in law, she simply stood and left the room, glad to finally be released. There was no one in the hallway, and Abriella had the strangest inclination to do something rash, something that would free her soul from the afternoon that had just smothered it, and now that she thought about it, something she hadn't done since she was little, since Witch took her to the tower.

She ran. Drawing her long hair into her arms, she took off as far as her gown would allow her. It was exhilarating, the stone of the floor beat hard against her feet and the wind whipped past her in a way she could not remember from childhood. She might have ran forever, she might have ran right out of the castle, into the village, and away from everyone forever had she not ran into something, or rather someone.

He was turning the corner and did not see the rampaging maiden. She would have fallen had he not caught her. "Princess Abriella?" questioned Lord Evan. "What is wrong? Why were you running? Is it Timothy?" Evan had long been aware of his cousin's character and had been quite worried about the innocent girl who was to be his bride. He looked at the girl who would be married by weeks end. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair was coming undone, and she was trying valiantly not to show her terror at being caught at such an unladylike activity as running.

"Do not be scared Princess," reassured Evan, "You have no reason to fear me."

"Scared? I… I am not scared Lord Evan. I… I was… well, I was running." There was nothing to do but be truthful; Abriella had had little practice in lying at all. There had never been a reason to.

"Running? From whom?" Evan was quite disturbed. Had the young girl before him been so grievously mistreated that she was running away? Perhaps she was in more danger here than he had ever thought. But her safety should not matter to me, thought Evan, except in that she is an innocent at the hands of my malevolent relatives.

"From the queen," Abriella blurted out before she knew what she was about. She threw her hand over her mouth with wide eyes and took her bottom lip into her teeth. "No, not from the queen," she finally said, "I… I was with the queen. And… and after I left her chamber, I simply had the strange feeling that I must run."

"Everyone feels that way after an interview with her," he said silently, leaning in as if sharing a joke. "Matter of fact, I am on a way to meet with her, and feel like running also. I wish, my lady, that I could join you in your run, but it does not bode well to anger my aunt." He straightened and with a wink, walked past her and turned the corner into the hallway that ended at Queen Glenda's room.

Abriella did not run all the way back to her room as she had planned. Instead, she walked slowly, contemplating the first real kindness that had been shown to her since her escape from the tower. The wink, the conspiratorial tone, all brightened what had been an abysmal afternoon.

Abriella lived on that tiny bit of kindness the rest of the week, remembering it when the queen scowled at her, or when her future husband grabbed her wrist hardly and twisted it, or when he pulled her head back by her braid, or when he pushed her violently against the wall. Really, any small misstep on Abriella's part brought the prince's wrath down on her. She was afraid the dress would have to cover her from ear to toe to hide all bruises and scratches. But perhaps if she bore her wounds to the priest, he would forbid the marriage.
No. No one ever denied the prince anything. And everyone was very aware of his violent character. In truth, no one looked forward to the day when the lazy and uncaring king passed the crown to his evil-tempered son.

The prince's coronation day was a day all dreaded, but the prince's wedding was a day no one thought the least of. Except for two very frustrated people. Neither Abriella nor Queen Glenda particularly looked forward to the event. So, when only two nights remained before the wedding, both women lay awake in bed. One lay frightened and cold; the other lay hot and enraged.

Pulling the golden rope by her bedside, the queen summoned a maid, who in turn summoned a guard. The queen gave him his orders, which though they surprised him he did not fail to carry out.

Abriella wakened when a rough hand clamped over her mouth. Two men stood over her in addition to the man who tied a rag around her mouth, rolled her in her blanket, and threw her over his shoulder. Before all vision was lost to the suffocating blackness of the blanket, Abriella vaguely recognized that the men wore the uniform of palace guards. When light next assaulted her eyes, it was a hazy candlelight illuminating the grand outlines of the Queen's bedchamber. The queen's large form stood beside one of the tall bedposts, once delicate fingers gripping the fine mahogany purposefully.

Abriella was dropped rather roughly and unceremoniously at the queen's feet. The queen gabbed the girl by her hair and pulled her to a standing position. With a gasp, Abriella fought for purchase with the smooth carpet. Finding the floor under her feet, she stood, taking the pressure away from her hair. She turned pleading eyes toward the queen. The queen threw Abriella's hair from her as if it were a filthy rag, and looked at her as if she were little else.

"I've grown tired of you," hissed the queen.

"I am sorry your majesty. I do not understand." Abriella could no longer hide the fear in her eyes.

"No. You would not. You are young and beautiful and innocent, and know nothing of aging, of love, of possession," the queen finished mysteriously.

Abriella could do naught but look dazedly and confusedly at the queen.

But the queen was soon to give explanation. "I was once slim and beautiful as you are, I was once the envy of every woman and the desire of every man. And even after all that was gone… I had my son. And in two days time you take that too."

The woman was delusional, mad even, and Abriella could think of no response. She did not need to however, for the queen kept up with her diatribe. "But you are not as beautiful as I was. Do you know that? You would merely be a pretty sort of a girl… except for that hair. It shines…" this last was said slowly, evenly, and without the rage that had characterized the rest of her speech. But this calmness of demeanor was soon lost as pure insanity entered her sparkling eyes.

The queen pulled a glittering dagger from behind her skirts and stepped ever carefully toward the ever retreating figure of her future daughter in law. "You will not look so breathtaking once all your golden glory is shorn from your rather plain head."

Relief spilled over Abriella's body as she realized that the wild woman before her did not intend to plant the dagger in her heart. But she was once again consumed by fear as the space behind her to which she was retreating vanished and was replaced by the hard cold surface of the wall. Abriella closed her eyes as the queen grabbed her hair and jerked it downward, forcing Abriella to her knees. Before she let the girl go, she had cut all the golden threads within inches of her scalp, leaving a disheveled, shorn mess.

The queen backed away from Abriella. "Look at me, look at me so I may see your beauty now without your precious locks." The queen looked, and was shocked to see that the young girl was still very beautiful. Her sapphire eyes shone wet with tears that refused to spill over, her delicate chin tilted upward, trembling, her cheeks were flushed with anger, confusion, and pain. Though now short, unruly, and shred to tatters, Abriella's hair still reflected what little light filled the room, radiating its own sort of glow.

The queen was enraged, but she spoke with a calmness that belied her passionate state. "I see… you challenge me even now, you dare to conquer me don't you. We shall see. I shall put you somewhere with no light to play off your golden head, or show your rose colored blushing cheeks; I shall put you somewhere where those brilliant eyes will go unseen, will be dulled by darkness."

They were not alone in the room. Abriella had forgotten the three guards that had abducted her from her bed until the queen motioned for one to take hold of her again. She did not try to struggle against them. What was the use? The queen opened a panel inside of the large fireplace on the opposite side of the room, and the guard pushed Abriella toward it. The other two guards lit torches and accompanied her and her captor past the secret panel door and into a small room. There was a low stone structure that Abriella perceived must be a table, a bench, perhaps a bed. The guard shoved her down on it, and the queen entered the chamber. She held in her hand a small candle, and draped over her arm, a silken blanket.

"I hope you like your new home girl," she said as she set the candle down and threw the blanket at Abriella. She left, followed by the three guards, leaving Abriella alone with only the strange and eerie flicker of the candlelight on the damp walls surrounding her. Witch had been right, there was no good in this world. None at all.

I was right to be worried, thought Evan to himself. His eyebrows were knitted together and he was trying doggedly to block out the prince's bellows. The prince was very displeased that his bride was missing. The king and queen however, seemed not to notice at all. Something was strange. He had to leave the castle… to think.

He found Christopher outside the castle gate, about to enter. "Evan! I was just coming to find you! Why've you spent so much time at the castle lately? I know how you despise it there. Haven't you seen much too much of her majesty the queen?" Christopher's words were in jest, yet Evan felt them to be all too true.

"Lets find a place to get a good drink Chris. I've much to tell you," said Evan striding purposefully past Christopher. The young man fell in with his friends steps and remained silent until they both had good strong cups of ail in their hands and were sitting quite comfortably in a private room at a respectable tavern.

"Out with it Evan! How much do you have to tell me? And what is it?"

Evan took a long swig of his drink and sat back in his chair. "The princess is missing Chris."

"The princess?" asked Christopher, "you mean the girl the prince brought back with him? The one with the very long hair?"

"The very one."

"She's missing? How? Has she run away? I'd say that's a right likely situation."

"I do not think she's run away. I've met her on a couple of occasions, and think she lacks the strength to do such a thing. No, I think something has happened to her." There was resolution in Evan's voice.

"I do not know how you can be so sure Evan."

"I will tell you how. Earlier this week I had an interview with our queen. She asked me the very same question you just asked me. Why now did I so frequent the castle when I had never done so before."

"Yes, why do you Evan," interrupted the ever-curious friend.

"I will tell you what she thought, what she hoped and what she feared. She hoped that it was to be closer to her, that I was finally going to give in to her… to her charms. This I expected as you probably well know."

Christopher shivered scrunched up his face in disgust, indicating that he did indeed know well what her majesty's intentions toward his friend were.

"But, what she feared was quite shocking to me, and I admit, after I thought my motives over, was actually quite true. You see, she feared that it was the Princess Abriella that I was after. That I loved the young girl, and that it was due to her that I was staying near the castle and my extended family. I denied all her charges, reiterating for the thousandth time that I have no intention whatsoever of treating my aunt as anything other than an aunt, and that I felt nothing but pity for the poor princess, pity that she was soon to be attached to so brutish a man as the prince is. That was why I've been at the castle so often of late, to watch after the princess. There is something about her that makes me think she knows nothing of the world. She is so innocent…"

"I can only imagine how angry the queen was. What did you do Evan?"

"I did nothing. I made to leave but…"

"But what man? Do not leave me hanging!" Christopher was now leaning over the table, entreating his friend with wide eyes and excited voice.

"But it is what she said before I could leave the room that leads me to believe that the princess did not run away, but has run into some sort of trouble from within the castle, indeed, from within the royal family."

"What did she say Evan? What did she say?"

"She said that 'that girl will not have everything.' She said that her son would not marry a girl she did not herself pick out. I shrugged it off as wild ranting. But now… now I think better, more carefully and warily of them."

"Then you believe that good Aunt Glenda had a hand in the princess's disappearance?"

"I do. Though I've no proof. And even if I did, I do not know what I would do with it. How can anyone go against the royal family? I fear the poor girl is lost. Where ever she is, and however it happened, she is lost."

A silence, most depressing in its heaviness, settled over the table and the two men. Simultaneously, they grabbed their mugs and emptied them in one long gulp.

They returned to the castle together, Christopher left Evan in an upstairs hallway in search of a chambermaid whose sweet countenance and blushing smile was quick on its way to catching his heart. Evan hoped that the queen was still in the prince's chambers, calming her infuriated son. For Evan fully intended to search her majesty's chambers. He did not know what he was looking for, but he fully intended to find it.

He knocked on the door and did not get the silent answer he had been hoping for. Instead, the queen's steady voice rang out confidently, biding him enter. With a long, defeated sigh, Evan obeyed.

"My dear boy! What a wonderful surprise! I am all excitement that you have come to visit me."

"Have you found the princess?"

"The princess? Oh… you've heard. No, we've not found her yet. My son is furious. He swears he'll find her," her lips curved upward in a sadistic smile that sent shivers down Evan's spine.

"Do you have any clue as to what might have happened to her?"

"No. But… why would you show any interest?" The queen's eyes narrowed to tiny slits. "I do not like it that you come to me and talk of only her. I do not like it at all."

"A woman is missing your majesty. Aren't you even a little worried?"

"No," she replied with a sharpness of tongue that cut through Evan like a knife. Evan slowly backed away from the queen's stony silhouette and turned sharply to leave the room. But before he could exit, a golden reflection of light caught his eye. Moving to wall next to the door, he bent down to pick up whatever it was that had caught the sun's light and sent it shimmering across his vision.

It was a lock of golden hair.

Evan stood and slowly turned to face the queen. She stood exactly as he had left her, only her eyes were quite intent on him now. Her lips curved slowly up into a smile and she rolled her eyes toward the fireplace as he approached her.

"What have you done with her?"

"She is mine to keep, and none of yours to worry about."

Evan followed her gaze to the fireplace and remembered the room he and Timothy had found as children. His eyes grew large and his lips tightened together. "You must let her go Aunt Glenda. You can't keep her prisoner in that hole."

"I can. I will." Her look was quite determined and showed not a little of the insanity which had been creeping up on her all these years and which had consumed her since her first glimpse of the golden headed Abriella. Then her look changed. It alarmed Evan how quickly it had happened. He could not now describe the look that held her eyes. Was it glee? Was it mischief?

"I will hold her… unless you care to trade."

"Trade? Trade what? You speak strangely."

"No my boy, I speak plainly. I will give you the girl if you give me something in return." She moved to her bedside and sat down on the plush feather mattress, batting her eyelashes at her bewildered nephew.

"I could have nothing that you want Aunt. You are queen, you have everything you desire."

"I do not have you."

Evan was shocked and horrified by her suggestion. It was crude, it was disgusting and unthinkable. "Do you mean to say that you will set the princess free if I give myself to you. You're crazy."

"I am not," she asserted coolly, keeping her position on the bed. "I wish to trade one prisoner for another. Will you take her place then nephew Evan," she asked, making a mockery of the word nephew. "You know, I have not fed her since I put her there. I supposeI wouldfeed a prisoner I more liked, maybe someone like you… but her… no. It will be a great experiment, to see how long she can survive without food."

Evan grew colder and colder with each searing word. The queen was mad. She was mad and sadistic. She was evil. Evan somehow knew that the small woman behind the fireplace was almost dead with fear and pain, but still did not know if he was that righteous, if he was that selfless. If he gave himself to the queen to free her, she would just have to marry the prince, and be thrown into yet another prison.

"I will do as you ask, I will trade places with her…if… if you give her a horse. Give her a horse and food, and a guide. Christopher, my squire. Send Christopher with her and let her leave this place. I will only trade places with her if I know she will not be marrying the prince tomorrow, next week, or indeed any other day. If I barter my own life for hers, then I wish to gain her whole freedom. Do you understand?" Now Evan's words were fierce and determined. He knew the queen really wanted him for a captive, and now she had a way of achieving her utmost goal. She would give him what he wanted. Ultimately, he held the upper hand in this negotiation.

"Done," the queen agreed too quickly for Evan's liking.

"You swear it?"

"I will show you my lord." With that, she walked over to the fireplace and pushed open the hidden panel. By the sliver of light that flooded into the dark chamber, Evan could just make out the huddled form of a woman on a low stone slab. The queen walked calmly into the room and jerked the girl up by her arm. When she pulled Abriella into the light, the girl slammed her eyes shut, the warm flooding light too much for the orbs that had seen naught but darkness for what must have seemed like forever.

Evan stared openly at the girl's shorn hair. The queen had been particularly cruel and brutal in her punishment.

"It seems you have a knight in shining armor," spoke the queen to Abriella. "But you have him no more. He has traded himself for your freedom." The queen's smile was smug, her tone victorious. She threw Abriella into a chair and came to stand next to Evan.

When he found his voice, he spoke, "Lady Abriella, are you well?"

"Yes," she unimaginably answered. "Lord Evan, I cannot allow you to do this. You barely even know me. Why would you make such a sacrifice?"

"Quiet chit!" demanded the queen. "He will not take back his deal." Then turning to Evan. "How do you like her now, this beauty? She is not so beautiful without her long hair is she?"

Evan could not lie. "No, she is still beautiful."

The queen's complacent smile fled her face and was replaced by an ugly snarl. "Leave! Find this young Christopher before my son finds you, and you may have your freedom."

"No!" Yelled Evan. "You said she would have her freedom if I gave you mine! Let me send a servant for Christopher. He will come here and smuggle the princess from your chambers and out of the castle. You cannot go back on our deal my queen." His voice rose in a steady volume as he turned almost violently toward the woman who was now holding onto his arm, pulling harshly away from her grasp.

He disarmed her, surprised her with his fury. "Yes, you are right." The queen called a servant from without her chamber and sent them in search of Christopher.