Rosalie

It was a particularly rainy day when the Queen called upon her daughter's chamber only to find that her ladies were there and she was not. The floor was covered in dirt and books were scattered around. Some, to her horror, were even burning in the fireplace.

"What on earth happened in here?" she demanded, making the ladies stop in their actions and knowledge their queen with a curtsy. "Why is that fire burning? And those books, why are they in there? I am appalled that you let this mess happen."

The lady closest to her fumbled with the book in her hands. "Your Majesty, the princess - she went crazy. We tried to stop her but she fled before a guard could be called."

"Where did she go?"

"We don't know. I tried to follow her but the princess had disappeared."

The Queen put a hand to her forehead in aggravation. She took two deep breaths before surveying the room again. "Leave the mess. This dirt needs cleaning thoroughly. A maid will be summoned straight away."

Both ladies curtsied and thanked her, but she didn't dismiss them. Instead she stepped over a ruined book and towards the window where she brushed aside the netting to see the rain streaking down the glass. This was not how her daughter's return was supposed to be. There was not supposed to be all this trouble still. She should have recovered from her ordeal and taken to the lessons her governess and tutors had been teaching her. As it was, her sister had written to congratulate her on being reunited with her daughter and had proposed that she come for a visit just before winter, accompanied by her children and possibly her husband if they were thinking of staying for the festive season. It would be the first time she would see her sister since her husband had died and she did not need outsiders witnessing how her daughter acted.

Turning away from the window, she motioned for the ladies to follow her as she left the chamber. At the doors were two guards, like on any other chamber, but now she knew how mistaken she was to treat her daughter like a normal princess.

"Find my daughter and bring her to me," she instructed, watching as both guards left their post.

While they were focused on the princess, Prince Christian was focused on her captivity. He had sent some of his men back to the ruins to survey the area for any clues about her life there. He was also hopeful that perhaps the man who had held her captive would return and that his men would stumble across him. He was sure that if the princess could see that they had arrested her captor, she would be less troublesome. Though she would not confess, he was sure that it was the knowledge that her captor was still out there, with no word about his whereabouts, which made her not want to accept her place back as a princess. He had written to his mother and she had suggested that perhaps she was scared and as it had happened before, assumed that her captor would be able to take her again. It made sense to him, which was why he was determined to find whomever her captor was.

They had been gone for a few days and he did not expect them back for at least another week, so when there was heavy pounding on his door followed by two of the men who had been sent to the ruins entering, he knew something must have been found.

"Your Highness! Thomas Marlin has been killed!" one of the men proclaimed.

"Killed! How?"

"We did not see, but there was fire. Lots of fire."

Prince Christian sat back down in his seat, his hand coming up to his chin. The princess had said that her captor used to make many fires, which was why she kept one burning all the time. Now Thomas Marlin had been killed by fire, and he was certain that it was her captor that killed his man. He looked between the two men. "And what of the ruins?"

They exchanged a look before the man who hadn't yet spoken took a step forward. "My lord, the ruins are gone."

He banged his fist on the desk. "What do you mean, gone?"

"We could not find them. We travelled back to where we first saw the princess and found nothing. Then we sought the help of the villagers and none would talk about the ruins, not even when we offered them gold."

"Unbelievable," he murmured, placing his forehead in his hand. "I have a dead man and no ruins. I guess it is safe to say that neither of you saw who set the fire?"

"No, my lord."

Prince Christian pushed away from the desk and stood up. "You mean to tell me that I gave you one command and you come back here, having done less than what I commanded of you? Get out of here, both of you, before I have your heads," he snapped, turning his back on the fleeing men. He stood behind his chair, facing the wall, and contemplated for a moment.

He knew he could take his findings to the Queen and prove that he had been proactive in his hunt for her captor, but he did not want to take to her false hope. If her captor had been evading his men and even ended up murdering one, there wasn't much hope the Queen's men would succeed in finding him either. Only his men had been to the ruins, and now two of them were claiming that they were not there anymore which complicated things further.

After a moment more in thought, he turned away from the wall. "Send for my cousin," he called.

He poured himself a goblet of wine and sat in one of the chairs by the fireplace, waiting for his cousin to respond to his summon. He knew that Philip did not like to be summoned by him, and it was actually one of the main reasons why he kept doing it. Had his cousin not told him of his dislike, he would have continued with his seeking out of him personally.

By the time Philip appeared, he was on his second goblet. "Come, sit," he said, gesturing to the seat opposite him.

"I hear your lost your temper," he remarked, taking a seat and filling his own goblet.

"My men are useless. I send them to find the ruins that we rescued the princess from and instead return with claims that they no longer exist and news that one of my men have been burned!"

Philip's eyes widened. "By another kingdom?"

"They claim to have no knowledge of who killed the man. But from what I know from the princess, her captor liked fire."

His cousin nodded at his words, taking a sip of his wine. "This is good news," he stated.

Prince Christian shook his head. "How can it be good news when I have unreliable men whom I'm not sure whether are just fed up of the travelling or did not want to go to those ruins."

Philip stroked his beard in thought. "Perhaps, I may have the solution."

As the men were discussing the ways to solve Prince Christian's problem, the Queen was dining in her quarters when she was interrupted by the guards returning with her daughter. When she saw the girl's appearance, she stood and immediately dismissed everyone. The girl just stood where the guards left her, completely unfazed.

"Have you no shame?" she said after a pause where she tried to compose herself. "You are supposed to be with your ladies or your governess - Gods knows you still need one - and yet I find a mess in your wake and your dress in tatters!"

The girl raised her arms and let them flop down to her sides. "This is nothing more than a prison, to confine me and take away my freedom."

"I am your queen. Your freedom is what I make it." The Queen picked up her wine and took a mouthful. "You spent your life as a captive but you have been here long enough to start acting like your birthright. A princess cannot burn books nor can she run out in the rain and return with her dress torn and muddied through lack of care!"

"Then you should have left me where I was," she retorted, standing up straight. "I was content to be where I was, without the tyrannical rules which have been placed upon me here. I was told that whomever took me from my home would try and change me. That you would seek to make me into a lady, one who could never do as she pleased because of the dresses she had to wear and the rules in which she had to follow."

The Queen turned away from the sight of her daughter, unable to look at her in the ruined dress. Not only was it unnecessary money spent to replace the dresses the princess ruined, but it was also worrying. She thought that she might have been able to contain the girl by giving her freedom but instead it appeared to have made her worse. The rumours were still murmured, out among the peasants and even occasionally within her own court. This behaviour was not going to help those, and she knew that the girl would not be more accommodating if she knew. In fact, she assumed that she might even proclaim the rumours to be true just so that she could return to the ruins in which she was found.

The physician kept explaining that it was fear that led the princess to act like she did, that she feared she was going to be taken once more so she felt that she could not settle into the role which was her birthright. It was worrisome and a little irritating to the Queen. He could not give her an concoction that would change that and she had even called upon other physicians to see whether they could offer her what her own could not, but not one had what she desired.

"Listen well. You will be confined to your chamber with your ladies and your tutors. Your governess will keep you on a strict schedule and the guards will not permit you leave until I command it. If allowing you this freedom does not help then perhaps keeping you confined might work better."

The girl let out a sharp laugh. "This was never freedom."

The Queen called the guards back in and instructed them to take the girl and her ladies back to her chamber. When one of them attempted to grasp her arm, the girl wrenched it away from them and left the room, making her way to her chamber, the place that felt like her own prison.