There have always been those
mysterious stairs, spiraling downward from the lowest floor of
the palace dungeon. The princess heard it whispered that there
the many enemies of her father were questioned, never again to
see the light of day. Many nights she lay awake, imagining the
horrors taking place just a few floors below her. At times, she
thought she could her the cries of agony, reaching out to her
through the thick stones of the palace. She had confronted
her father, who denied the existence of such a room and forbade
her to inquire further - her mother, who had a sickness of the
soul, had long ago fallen to insanity and ended her own life,
casting herself from one of the upper windows of the palace.
The princess had to know.
She slipped past the guards at the entrance to the dungeon and
went straight for the ominous stairs. She hurried down before her
courage failed, and pushed open an unlocked, great steel
door.
"I told you not to come in here," said her father, who
stood before her in an apron covered with another's blood.
"You women cannot be trusted!"
In one sharp movement, he grabbed her wrist and dragged her all
the way to the topmost floor of the palace and flung her out of
the window.
