Page 60 of The Princess Tied

Swearing is allowed in public if said princess has been violated and made to climax in front of her enemies.

The prince let them leave after that alarming exchange, but both she and John knew the situation had altered.

“I’ll be sending you both an invitation for tomorrow’s banquet, John,” the prince shouted as they reached the exit of the marquee. “I simply must get you to try my whips on her! A collar? Leash? Chains perhaps?”

His voice faded as they entered the darkness outside.

She’d not broken the pretense of being a slave. Not yet. It seemed the prince was safer when they let him imagine her cowed. Another night was the most they would get, surely, before he would trap her.

“We must leave before the next banquet,” she said, as they reached the wagon. “If we can?”

“Yes. I agree. This is too dangerous now. But he will expect us to try escaping.”

And if caught doing so, that would be the end of pretending, and might be the end of them.

“By the way,” John added. “What was all the tapping on my knee while I played chess?”

So he didn’t know the tap code? “Nothing.”

“Hmph.”

Best not to tell him that her actions might have had him strung by his testicles.

* * * * *

Maybe they’d grown used to him surrendering to their will? Xander wasn’t sure. But as they lowered him into the coffin, he did know the corked ampoule of antidote he’d pickpocketed from the Storyteller was inside his pants pocket. It worked quickly, but now was not the time to use it. Somehow, he would have to swallow it after they sedated him but before the drug stopped his arms working.

Near impossible.

From now on, every chance he had would be weighed up. Not yet. Not this time. They watched him through the glass of the closing lid, and already his eyelids were heavy.

As they lowered the lid fully, he threw up a floppy arm and met the glass with a bang.

What if he broke it?

Beyond the dirty glass was a curved white wall with a vine of thorns strangling it, climbing higher. He followed its path and there at the very top was a conical lid of blue tiles.

This was… he wracked his brain for the answer. A tower?

He remembered those. The tower slid into an out-of-focus muddle. His hand slipped down the glass and landed by his side.

“Go to sleep,” said the Storyteller, with muffled voice. He lifted the lid a foot. “We will rest here a few days, while I seek transport across the sea.”

“Sleep? You drug me.”

“It is sleep if I say it is.”

“Another of your lies? I heard your others. I know a lie when I hear one.” He coughed and felt spit lodge in his throat. “I am an artist at scams, falsehoods, and lies, and you, sir, you lie.”

He’d made the word lie into the worst of slaps. It was a veritable dagger to this man’s heart, because he knew how to shape words, artful words, nice words, and vicious, hurtful words.

“Hahah-hah.” The Storyteller waited for his soldiers to leave, then a smile split his face and he leaned over Xander.

“You call them lies. I name them illusions. They infect those I give them to and multiply like good little mice. Remember I sent your brother to Hell? I also took your brother’s heart. I ripped it from him, and discarded it, or so he believes, and belief is all. I threw his heart away.”

“No.”

“Oh, it is a yes. Your brother is doomed. No one has ever escaped my illusions, sir. My very wonderful Infectious Illusions. No one except for you. You will never see him again.”