Episode 2: Princess in Prison

(If you missed Episode 1, read it here.)

PREVIOUSLY ON SAGA OF THE JEWELS:

Seventeen-year-old Ryn’s hometown is attacked by the Empire. His mother, father and everyone he has ever known are killed. Before he dies, his father gives him a mysterious ring with a ruby set into it. Just before Ryn is killed himself, fire comes out from him and consumes the Imperial soldier bearing down on him. It doesn’t happen a second time, and Ryn loses consciousness.

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Episode 2: Princess in Prison

The cell was dark but her pale blue eyes lit it up. 

As Ryn came to he sat up and rubbed his arm. He must have been lying on it in a funny way.

He looked around. He was in a dark, cramped cell, about ten paces across.

He winced as the side of his head throbbed with pain too and put a hand to it, finding a big, swollen bump. 

Memory crept up on him. In the darkness, images flooded his mind: the rooftops of his hometown all aflame; his mother being run through by an Imperial General’s blade; the last breath leaving his father’s lips. 

Dead. All dead. 

The memory made him gasp from grief; a quiet, agonised little moan.

 “I can’t get you out of here,” said the woman with the pale blue eyes standing a little way in front of him.

Ryn started. Oh, that’s right, there’s someone else in here with me… He had noticed her before, when he had been coming back to consciousness, but somehow his mind hadn’t processed it till now. He must have been hit on the head very hard...

His voice came out hoarse. “I didn’t say that you could…?” It was an odd way to greet someone. 

“I know,” said the woman. “But you’re going to ask. My name is Nuthea, by the way.”

He gave her his, took her in.

Her hair was a weave of golden straw that crowned her, wrapped around her neck and fell over one shoulder. Her face was striking, proud cheekbones curling in towards a smooth chin. A weak amber bar built into the ceiling of the cell gave her a faint halo, but her eyes really did glow, like snow reflecting sunlight.

“It’s because I’m Crystal-touched,” said Nuthea.

Ryn got to his feet, rubbing his temples. His head still ached and this woman--girl?--was talking in a peculiar way. Girl? Woman? Woman. “What is?” 

“Why my eyes glow like this,” said Nuthea. Her voice was authoritative, patronising. She sounded...rich. She crouched and began to poke around with a finger in the dirt of the cell floor, the light from her eyes dimly illuminating it. “You were about to ask. ‘Crystal-touched’ means I’ve had contact with one of the Primeval Jewels. I assume you know something about those or else the Empire wouldn’t have captured you alive. Not everyone’s eyes glow who’s touched one of the Primeval Jewels, but they do if you’ve touched the Lightning Crystal.”

Ryn shook his head, trying to clear it. Primeval Jewels? What was this girl talking about? Didn’t she understand that he had just lost absolutely everything and everyone that had ever mattered to him? No, of course she doesn’t understand… She doesn’t know about any of it...

“What are the ‘Primeval Jewels’?” he said. Maybe if he could carry on speaking to this girl who for some reason was here in this cell with him he wouldn’t have to think about everything that had happened…

“Oh, you don’t know?” said Nuthea. She said it like he was some sort of slow-witted oaf, but Ryn didn’t mind that too much right now. 

“No. Can you tell me?”

“I suppose I could educate you,” said Nuthea. “The Primeval Jewels were made by the One at the dawn of our time and buried deep in the earth.” She sketched with her finger in the dirt of the cell floor as she talked, and Ryn couldn’t see all of what she drew but every now and again he caught a glimpse of a strange symbol in the light from her eyes or the amber bar. She spoke in a voice like Ryn’s schoolmistress, only even more self-assured, if that were possible. 

“The Jewels are as old as Mid itself,” Nuthea went on. “There are twelve of them--one for each of the twelve great Peoples of Mid.” She sketched another symbol. “If you touch one of the Jewels, it gives you power over the Element it is associated with. Twelve Jewels, twelve Peoples, twelve Elements.”

Her drawing completed, Nuthea beckoned for Ryn to step closer, then pointed at the dirt symbols she had drawn one by one as she listed off these ‘Elements’: “Water.” A swirling spiral. “Earth.” A line that wound in on itself to form a square. “Wind.” Three wavy lines. “Fire.” A little flame. At the word ‘fire’ Ryn’s cheek twitched. “Lightning.” One bolt, in three lines. “Metal.” A diamond. “Light.” A star. “Shadow.” A simple circle. “Moon.” A crescent. “Nature.” A leaf. “Spirit.” A triangle. “Void.” For void she had drawn nothing at all.

After she said these things, Ryn felt like there was something he needed to remember, something just on the edge of his mind that was important, that he couldn’t quite recall…

Mother. Father. Hometown. And...there was something...

“And where are these Jewels?” he said after a while to fill the gap. He had no idea why this girl was telling him these things but it was better than being left alone for trauma and grief to fill his mind.

Nuthea turned her glowing eyes on him. “Weren’t you listening? I told you. They were buried deep in the earth. Although, most of them have been found, true, so I suppose your question isn’t completely stupid. Some are still in the possession of their respective peoples. Like my people, the Manolians,” she said proudly. “We still own and jealously guard the Lightning Crystal.” She looked sideways for a moment. “Some have been hidden. Some of them have been lost. The Empire is desperate to get its hands on all of them.” 

Ryn breathed out through his nose. Twelve Peoples? Primeval Jewels? He had never heard of any of these things before. He was just a simple boy from Cleasor whose only ambitions until very recently had been to one day take over his father’s farm, make a good living, go exploring in the woods on seventhdays and maybe somehow get his crush, Carlotia, to take notice of him somehow. She was almost certainly dead too. 

This was all too much for him. At the same time,he felt like he was closer to remembering whatever was on the edge of his mind.

The girl was still looking at him.  

“...and what do these Jewels look like, then?” Ryn asked her hesitantly.

“Well, nobody knows what all of them look like, but according to legend they are…” Nuthea crouched down and pointed at the symbols she had drawn again one by one. “The Earth Emerald. The Water Sapphire. The Fire Ruby--” 

Ryn took in a sharp breath, making Nuthea pause her recitation.

He had remembered. 

He put a hand to his breast where there was a small pocket sown onto the front of his shirt. He patted it, but all he felt was his tunic and the resistance of his chest. There was nothing else in the pocket.

“No!”

Nuthea stood up and backed away from him; at the same time her eyes seemed to glow more brightly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“No!” Ryn cried again, clutching the top of his head, gripping clumps of hair. “My father, just before he... He gave me a ring with a… with a ruby set into it! He told me to keep it safe! I put it here in my breast pocket but it’s gone! I’ve failed him already!”

“Oh…” said Nuthea. She looked down at the ground, and the dirt symbols she had drawn lit up again. “I am sorry that you lost your father.”

Another memory burned in Ryn’s mind now. A memory of fire. “No, you don’t understand...” he said, starting to pace around the small cell, still clutching at his hair, “back in my hometown… one of the soldiers… he tried to kill me… and… and fire came out from me and burned him all up! The ruby, it must have been this ‘Fire Ruby’ you’re talking about!” How had his father even gotten hold of a ‘Primeval Jewel’, if that was what the ruby had been?

Nuthea’s eyes stretched wide. “Yes, it was the Fire Ruby. You are Ruby-touched. But of course you don’t have the Ruby any more. They would have searched you for it before they threw you in here.”

“How long have I been in here? Where is here?”

“You’re in an Imperial cell. You were only in here about ten minutes before you woke up. May I ask...were any other people killed in the Imperial attack, in addition to your father?”

“They killed my mother, my father, everyone in the town. They burned the whole place to the ground.” It didn’t feel real. It felt like it had happened to someone else. But it hadn’t happened to someone else. It had happened to him.

Nuthea put a hand to her mouth. “By the One…” she said, wide eyes staring off at nothing. “I never imagined…” She closed her eyes, contemplating something awful. “Truly the Emperor will go to any lengths to obtain the Jewels, even an act of war… Destroying a whole town… I am so sorry.” 

A thought came to Ryn. “Why did they leave me alive, if they got what they wanted? Why didn’t they just kill me as well?” Part of him wished he had died. 

Nuthea opened her eyes again. “They want to question you.” She said it like it was obvious. “That’s why they’ve kept me alive too.”

For the first time, Ryn considered what this girl was doing in here with him. Disorientated from shock, from grief, from capture, it had not crossed his mind yet. 

“Who are you?” he said slowly to her. “How did you get here?”

There was deep, distant groaning sound from somewhere above them and the whole room lurched sideways for a moment, then righted itself. 

Ryn put out a hand on the wall to break his fall. Feeling like he was about to throw up, he put his other hand to his mouth. Nuthea put her hands out too, found empty air, swayed where she stood, then stumbled forward, knocking into Ryn and banging heads with him. They collapsed in a pile together on the floor, then immediately disentangled themselves from one another and shuffled apart on their backsides.

Ryn was too surprised to pay too much attention to the awkwardness of their collision. “We’re on some kind of ship?!” he blurted out to the world in general.

Nuthea stood up again and dusted down her dress. “Yes, we’re on an Imperial airship.”

“An airship!” Ryn hadn’t even seen one of those before, though he had heard tales of them, let alone been on one. He could barely believe it. 

“It must have had to bank to dodge out of the way of something,” Nuthea continued. “Perhaps another airship, or a passing dragon. That or maybe my people have finally caught up to this ship...”

Ryn stood up and brushed some of the dust from himself, pinched his nose. Their collision hadn’t helped his aching head. “Your people?”

“I’m Manolian royalty,” said Nuthea. “A princess. How did you think I was Crystal-touched? My people will come to rescue me soon.”

Ryn’s mouth hung open. He couldn’t help it: A real princess. He hadn’t thought that he would ever see one of those in his lifetime either, let alone get close enough to meet one. 

For the first time he noticed properly what she was wearing--a white dress inlaid with patterned gold thread, which she filled amply in certain places and which was slender in certain others. Woman, definitely woman, not girl.

“It’s rude to stare,” said the Manolian Princess Nuthea. He couldn’t tell if it was pride or irritation that inflected her words this time.

“Can you get us out of this cell?” Ryn said to change the subject. The only thing he was sure of at the moment was that they needed to get out of this cell.

“No,” said the princess. “I told you earlier. I cannot see the way out. Yet. I’ve been locked in here for what must be about a week and I haven’t been able to think of a way out.” 

Ryn looked her up and down again. She looked pretty good for someone who had been locked in a cell for seven days. Maybe she was exaggerating.

Nuthea gestured through the dark towards the far wall. “There’s a door over there with a hatch in the bottom. Once a day they open the hatch and kick in a bowl of slop and a bit of bread.” She motioned to another corner. “And there’s a bucket over there for...well, it’s not dignified to speak of. You’ll have to turn around and shut your eyes.” At that she made a brief little sobbing sound, like the thought of peeing in the company of somebody else was too much for her, but she put a hand to her mouth to stifle it.

Ryn shook his head. He still couldn’t believe that any of this had happened. 

Another wave of grief rolled through his guts. It was like he was momentarily forgetting that he had seen both his parents die and his town was being burned to the ground, but every now and again he remembered it, and the memory sent another tremor of pain through his body and mind.

He should think of something else to ask Nuthea. At least keeping the conversation going with her distracted him a little, for now. If he could keep the conversation going, maybe he could avoid falling down into the huge yawning abyss of despair opening up beneath him; maybe he could avoid paying attention to the horrible, throbbing pain in his head.

Before he could think of what to say next, though, another tremendous boom sounded and the whole cell shook, sending them both onto their backsides again.

That one hadn’t come from above, but from somewhere off to the side of them.

“It’s not just banking coincidentally!” exclaimed Nuthea from her place on the floor, like she was having some kind of epiphany. “That sounded like a blow from a cannonball! Someone’s attacking this ship! But why? Why would my countrywomen do that? They know I’m on board!”

Ryn nearly joked that if she spoke to her ‘countrywomen’ like she spoke to him then they would probably have no hesitancy about blowing her out of the sky, but he thought better of it. His mind always came up with stupid jokes when he was nervous, or scared out of his wits like he was now.

Nuthea didn’t look scared out of her wits, though. In fact, before she had voiced the thought about her countrywomen attacking her she had been smiling.

“Er...why is it a good thing that we’re being attacked?” Ryn asked.

Another booming noise and the whole cell vibrated again, making them wobble. That one had definitely come from underneaththem. Whoever was attacking the ship--if indeed that was what was happening--seemed to be aiming at different parts of it.

Nuthea frowned, furrowing her forehead. “Because it might give us a chance to escape, dim-wit! Do try to keep up.”

Another cannon-blow.

Ryn felt that one in his teeth. The vibrations were getting stronger.

“And just how will it do that?” he asked. The threat and curiosity were distracting him from his grief, for the moment. He didn’t mind.

“Don’t you see?” said Nuthea. “So far on this journey I’ve been trapped in this cell behind steel walls, unable to use my gift. But I’m the most precious thing on this vessel. (Well, I suppose you might be of some value, too…) If there’s a sky battle, or this ship goes down, they’re going to want to know where I am and keep hold of me. Come on, come with me.”

Ryn stood and followed Nuthea over towards one side of the cell where she had indicated the door was. The reverberationsfrom another cannonball knocked them from their feet again, so they settled for crawling towards the door.

How can she be so calm about this? Ryn thought as he crawled next to Nuthea.

Shouts and the clang of metal came from beyond the cell door. Ryn voiced his question over the noise: “Why are you so relaxed about the possibility that this ship might go down?”

“Shhhh!” Nuthea chastised him in a loud whisper. “Just wait against the wall on that side of the door!”

Too bewildered to protest, Ryn made it to the wall next to the door and used it to push himself up, then flipped himself around so he had his back pressed flat against it. On the other side of the door Nuthea did the same. She held a finger to her lips, then whispered just loud enough to be heard, “When they come through, stay out of my way--let me handle them.”

Ryn gulped, then nodded, bracing himself against the violence of another cannonball-strike.

They didn’t have to wait very long.

Some of the voices beyond the door grew suddenly louder. Then it flew open and three Imperial soldiers in black plate ran into the cell one after the other, going straight past Nuthea and Ryn. 

Some of the same soldiers that had burned Ryn’s hometown to the ground.

The soldiers looked left and right. “Where are the prisoners?” one of them said. “We need to secure the prisoners!”

They turned round.

“Only three?” Nuthea said. “You Imperials are getting stupider.”

She put out her hands, palms open, and they glowed white. The glow lit up her face: her eyes had doubled in size and her jaw set solid in a look of cold fury.

Ryn watched in horror as Nuthea screamed, shrill and high, and something that he could only identify as blue lightning lanced out from her hands with a crack, connecting with the soldiers. Three eye-blinks, and the shape of the lightning shifted three times, three different sets of jagged blue bolts linking each of the soldiers and Nuthea’s fingertips.

The soldiers screamed. 

The lightning subsided, but the screams didn’t, at least not right away. Each of the soldiers collapsed to the floor, wavy steam hissing up from their armour and bodies. The air smelled of burning. Nuthea had cooked them in their uniforms with…

...lightning?

“I said it’s rude to stare, dim-wit.” 

“That was...amazing...” said Ryn.

One side of Nuthea’s mouth curled up ever so slightly. “Come on, let’s get out of this cell.”

Another cannonball hit the ship with an almighty crash.

Rushing air filled Ryn’s ears and he found himself on his back on the floor again. The cell filled with sunlight. Then, almost as quickly as it had come, the sunlight receded into shadow as the whole floor began to move, upwards on one side, downwards behind him.

Oh gods, Ryn thought. They’ve blown a hole in the cell wall.

But there was no time to ponder. The floor was still tilting backwards, and Ryn had started slipping down it.

He flailed about in desperation and reached for the open door that was quickly moving away from him as the floor tilted further.

Nuthea did the same thing and bashed into him, then bounced off. She cried out in panic.

As the airship continued to tilt, Ryn managed to catch hold of the edge of the door-jamb in the wall in front of him--which was now an opening in the ceiling above him.

For a heartbeat his legs dangled by themselves--then something caught on one of them and pulled him down--hard.

Ryn clutched onto the door jamb with all his might. The weight was yanking him downwards, but by clenching his fingers and enduring the pain that lanced along his arms, he managed to stay holding onto the doorframe.

Above him, the door that had been opened earlier swung shut, down onto his fingers.

Ryn cried out as his fingertips flared with pain. But he managed to keep holding on, just.

A noise filled his ears and he realised that he had been temporarily deafened by the last cannonball that had torn into their cell. But the deafness was fading now, replaced by an angry growl, growing in pitch and volume, that must mean that this airship was heading for the ground. Fast.

Ryn risked a look down.

Below him, clutching onto his right boot, was the golden-haired form of Nuthea. 

She looked up at him, beads of sweat glistening on her forehead, mouth a rictus of fear. It was the first time Ryn had seen her show fear this whole time.

“Don’t let go!” she called over the sound of the descending airship.

“That’s easy for you to say!” Ryn shot back.

Beyond her was the pale blue of the sky, and wisps of white cloud rapidly hurtling upwards, some of them coming up into the opened cell. A jagged square of splintered metal-framed the window of rising sky. Their attackers, whoever they were, had indeed ripped a hole in the wall of the cell with one of their cannonballs.

“Argh!”

One of Ryn’s hands gave way and slipped off the doorframe. He tried to wrench himself up with his remaining arm to find a better purchase to hold onto, but it only quivered in painful protest and refused to move him further than a half-inch.

Ryn sank back down, his arm fully extending, the muscles in it feeling like they were about to snap.

“I don’t think I can hold on much longer!” He called down to Nuthea in panic. “Get ready, we’re going to--argggghh!”

Air and cloud rushed around them.