This is what I feared the most.

The day when we were to be separated has come. The Princess already struggled to hide her identity, her hair grew just enough in the last week since we were locked up that if I knew where to look, I could see her original purple color peeking out. And the Sea People decided to move us upstairs after seven days into a separate cell, which meant I couldn't even protect her anymore.

"Cath, can we break out from here?" She asked me, whispering. I wondered about that too, but it didn't seem likely.

"I don't know enough of this dungeon to tell, and the chains don't help us either." I shook my head. We quietly talked so the guard pulling us along wouldn't hear it. His boots and armor combined with the noise our chains made, should have been able to suppress our voices. "It's only one soldier, but we can't exactly go through the walls."

"What about your disappearing trick?" The Princess nudged me from the side. Of course, I thought about that, but I still needed somewhere to go, the miracle itself couldn't get us out of there. At least we had plenty of time to strengthen ourselves, and I prayed to Remmol a lot.

"If I see an opening, can you follow me through?" I whispered into her ears. If someone saw us from the outside, we might have looked like a lovey-dovey couple, trying to spend their last moments together, chained up, before they were forcibly separated. It did feel like that to some degree. We spent most of the time together lately, and we started to grow closer too. "We won't get a second chance."

"Don't mind me, Cath." She shook her head. "If you can get out somehow, don't wait for me. I trust you would be back to bust me out one way or another. You make better decisions than I do."

"I won't leave you behind" I protested, even if what she said made some sense. I had a better chance to escape if I didn't have to drag her along. I could even make it back to Nateaser, and ask their help, but that would have taken a long time. "If I got out, they might punish you for it, and what if they figure out your true identity?"

The guard glanced back for a second and yanked on our chains. I was too loud, but he didn't seem interested in our chatter. Rather, he wanted us to shut up. The armor he wore had an oriental design, a metallic mask covered the face with only a cutout for the eyes. The helmet went over it a pointy, open design, but very different from my own. I could not forget that either, I wanted to get my things back. My helmet, at the very least, as the armor turned out to be less useful than I had hoped. It was a powerful item too.

"If neither of us manages to get out, we'd be separated so you couldn't do much about it." The Princess told me roughly a minute later. We arrived at a staircase, spiraling up and down to the other levels, torches lining its walls the entire way. When they brought us here, we still had our eyes covered, so I couldn't even guess, if we were going on the same route, and where it would lead us.

"Cut it out already." The soldier yanked our chains again before he started up on the stairs. "I'll have ya ladies know, there is no escape from this prison, no matter how much you chatter about it."

He heard us after all. Still, just one guard and in a narrow place like this? If I jumped him from behind, I could have snapped his neck without anyone even noticing. It was tempting but also foolish. I would only make things worse for us before I figured out where we were going. The Princess turned more and more pale.

We kept on climbing, leaving behind a few doors on our way. It must have been at least five levels when the stairs suddenly ended, and we arrived at a small room overseen by a guard post and a few additional soldiers. Some also led a few captives like us, but only humans.

"All right, ladies. You will be taken to the palace's garden next for selection." One of the guards explained once we arrived. His armor had a silver lining along the plates, making him stand out from the rest who wore those rust-colored pieces. "You might see males up there too, but don't go near them. You will stay in the line until someone calls for you specifically. The ones selected will be transferred to their new place, and you two from the dungeon: it seems you were deemed interesting enough to skip a few steps."

"Skip a few steps?" The Princess repeated it dumbfounded.

I tried remembering what the woman next to us said in her cell. Sariah, as she was called, was moved out earlier this week, and was replaced with two other females. They came from Appenon, fresh arrivals like us, but they remained. The way that woman explained it, they always moved the prisoners around once a week, while the selection process for assigning them work happened on a different day.

So from what I could gather, we were already to enter into this selection, instead of simply moving to a different level, as it would normally happen. Should I be happy about this? I was rather worried but didn't have time to figure it out either. The guards organized us into a long line, and bypassing their post, we were driven out.

I haven't seen the sun for days. Those tiny, barred windows on our cell were not looking into the outside world. I don't know what trickery they used, but I couldn't even see the end of that long, chimney-like structure that let all that light in. But now there was a huge garden in front of us, we were outdoors for real, and it was beautiful too.

"March in front of the podium, women will be standing on the left side of it. Keep this formation the entire time. No talking. Especially not with the men." The higher-ranked guard educated us, while we marched.

I could see the palace itself in the distance. Again, in typical Eastern design, its roofs were layered over each other like cake, but square shaped with a curved slope on each side. The building itself was rather tall, instead of wide, its walls painted red. It was probably half a mile from us, and I expected the garden to continue on the other side too.

"Beautiful." The Princess couldn't help herself looking around in awe.

"I said no talking." The soldier repeated strictly, and I had to hold myself back not to hit him. It was more important to look for an escape route, and even though we were outside at last, I couldn't find one. This garden was truly enormous.

"Welcome to the selection process." I heard a woman in fancy robes talk on the podium. It took us a while to walk and line up as instructed. I could see red walls in the distance, but it was hard to tell how tall they were, and how good they were guarded. I would have no issues running all the way, I could climb them too, but what about the Princess? And I saw archers, I didn't notice, what was right in front of me. "Some of you have requested to be examined, others were found useful by our agents."

Elizabeth nudged my side with her elbow. I curiously looked at her, but she used her pointy nose to nod towards the podium. The woman in those robes seemed eerie familiar. She was most certainly not one of the Sea People, her skin tone was much darker, and I saw a red dot painted on her forehead. I was staring at Sariah.

She called out numbers from the males and our formation, assigned by the place we took up in the line. On the first go, it was roughly one in every ten, our numbers not uttered.

"These people were deemed unworthy," Sariah announced, and the guards singled them out of the formation. "They lack the skills for the jobs they applied for, but you can try again next month."

Even if the selection process happened weekly, people had to wait much longer in case their application was refused. And just what kind of jobs were they talking about? She did try to fill us in, playing the role of the fellow prisoner, and asked questions about ourselves, but I didn’t remember.

In the next round, she called out nearly every other name and claimed that those people couldn’t be trusted to work in Saipole.

"You will be moved to a different cell and kept under surveillance. Your skills have shown promise, and we might call upon you later." She announced this time, but we still weren’t called. "Now I will be assigning jobs for the rest of you. I'll be going in the order of the workplaces themselves, if it's not what you expected, and you refuse to take it, you will be returned to your cells, and can try again next month."

"Does this mean, we'll get selected already?" The princess whispered, but I couldn't answer that. She must have heard that we planned to escape, but probably everyone wanted to. It was a prison after all. Did she figure out something about us, or deemed our workout impressive enough, to have us enlisted into the guards?

The people in chains disappeared from the formations, one by one. They were led in groups in different directions, some would even lose their chains on the spot. I've seen all kinds of humans here, though mostly from Shibalan. One or two from Lansum maybe, and I could see a dwarf as well. But we must have been the only ones from Nordhaben. And now that I took a better look at the guards or people on the podium, almost none of them were from Saipole either.

"Now for the last group, your position is somewhat special." The woman continued when less than a dozen of us remained. Apart from me and the Princess, they were all males with impressive muscles. "We usually offer a choice for the people here, but you, the selected ones can't have this privilege. You were deemed useful yet dangerous so you will prove yourselves in the arena."

"Arena?" I repeated, louder than I would have wanted. The silver-lined guard angrily glanced my way but didn't make a move. The rest of the soldiers were all but gone. Did they want us to become gladiators?

"Yes, I could tell, you are capable fighters. I can't prevent you from being separated from your companion though." Sariah explained her decision, answering me directly. "It's usually only males, but I felt like you deserved this chance. This is the best I can offer to you, Paladin."

I had mixed feelings about this. How do I protect the Princess in the arena? The others looked rather menacing.