Princess of Gold

Chapter 2 - Auro

She was awake long before the pirates noticed, but it didn't take her much time to work out what happened.
The night was a blur ingrained behind her eyes, that blow must have given her a concussion. What she could remember were flashes of clarity in the painful darkness of sleep, there had been intruders, assassins, thieves in the night, and yet she had been stolen. They probably wanted to ransom her back to her father. She wasn't surprised, Altanan had become very successful country in the last few years, kidnappings of royal children had been a problem for the great kingdoms for years, and Auro's mother the great and prosperous Queen Isi made sure her only daughter was well prepared. The life of a princess wasn't easy whichever end of the globe they lived. Auro had met a very attractive princess from a land of towering forests; Jania who had foiled four murder coups herself, and all rivals to the throne learnt to fear her tremendous skills with a spear. And her trained jungle cats.
No princess was helpless, despite the  common belief.

She could feel the cold metal around her wrists, straw beneath her, and beneath that, well she wasn't sure. And then it moved, she was being transported, she was sure of it.
Her mother's face swam before her in the darkness behind her eyes, beautiful, regal and every inch the perfect queen. "Understand your situation, act with meaning and knowledge," she could almost hear her, a berating for every time she failed, she would prove herself, they were only simple kidnappers.
She heard movement, and then whispering, eyes still closed she counted the seconds and tried to list enemies to the crown of her father, running out quickly she moved onto what she knew about kidnapping; somewhere between the historic kidnapping of the Cardinal isles when the wrong prince was snatched and then returned the next night, and the mystery of Nirald when all that was left of the supposed kidnapper was two fingers by the time the young bride was done with them, a new voice caught her ears, rough and deep, it was neither Male nor female to her ears, and yet beneath the growling undertone there was a strange fascinating musicality. It made so little sense Auro hadn't realised she had been gravitating towards it until the straw beneath her rustle and the whispers stopped.
She froze, she needed more time.
Every muscle tensed, eyes clenched shut.
Not now.
Every second her heartbeat seemed to get louder. Swallowing her. A tsunami of sound. Each second, stretching precariously, an eternity-
Then, a new voice. Close. Heartrendingly close. Barley human sounding. A monstrously strange voice.
Not the soft voice of who must have been the guard, it didn't stammer in fear, nor the mysterious voice which fascinated her.
Another voice, and it was coming from beside her.
Heart frozen in her chest, Auro felt her pulse double, almost detached from the sensation of shock, she wondered if her heart had ever gone this fast before.
The voice was strangled with overuse, hoarse and cracked, strangely it reminded her of old leather. So close it sounded like her fears personified.
Her body felt like lead, expecting a claw to grab her.
She wondered if her heart had ever gone this fast before. Certainly never at home before.
A hissed threat shot through the air, silencing the muffled voice, it's eerie singing silenced.
With an unnervingly human snarl the voice fell silent, Auro could feel her heart in her throat, something near her shuddered as what she hoped was a body threw itself at it.
Auro knew she had to get out, wherever she was, it was something dredged from her nightmares.
Minutes passed each stretched to hours, each creak of boards and rock of the floor beneath her she expected a hand or a blade, or something, to grab her. Whatever was in the room beside her stayed quiet her only blessing, although in the strained near silence she could hear scrabbling at the walls that made her blood run cold.
Somewhere in the darkness behind her eyes Auro came to a conclusion that made her stomach twist, she was on a ship, she was on the water with monsters; kidnappers, or assassins or slavers, or pirates.
From what she had heard and seen pirates were the worst. A combination of the three worst occupations.
The thought of being on a boat alone made her want to recoil.
She hated boats.
But the signs were there, there was no way she could read them any other way. The creaking was of rope and of flimsy planks, each minute growing louder as if it was seconds away from sinking, the rocking was the ship being pummelled by waves that would swallow her whole. Senses wild with a fear that shook Auro to the very core.