Her Portrait

Fire

Suddenly she was awake as if she'd been shaken or someone had poured water on her. Coughing Arianthe sat up and tried to see across her room. The smoke was so thick she was likely to choke. It took at least ten seconds for the princess to realise the danger she was in and to actually process that her room was on fire. Her brain was fuzzy and stupid with sleep but she had enough wits to process the immense heat coming from the flames and understood that she needed to get away.
The door banged open, Agnes stood panting in the door way with terror in her eyes.
"Arianthe, get out!" She cried.
The fire had caught the poster of the bed opposite to the girl, she tried to throw the duvet off her but her foot was somehow caught in the covers. The heat was almost unbearable.
Agnes noticed what had happened and rushed to her side to get her foot out.
The fire was eating its way through the wooden poster, the curtains were nearly disintegrated and it was a wonder it was still there at all.
Agnes gasped and cried "It's tied to the bed! Someone has tied your foot to the bed!"
"Well then help me get it out!" Shouted back Arianthe.
The girls tugged at the rope desperately, aware of the flames licking their way closer and closer to them.
"It's no use!" cried Arianthe "It won't come out, just go, Agnes, leave me!"
"No! I am not going to to that!"
"You must!"
"I can't leave you!"
Tears formed in Agnes' eyes as she pulled, whether it was from fear or pain or the smoke filling the room Arianthe didn't know but she did not stop pulling at the rope that bound her best friend to a burning bed.
Suddenly a figure appeared beside the girls. Unable to see clearly who it was they watched them draw a dagger from their belt and raise it above the Princess. For one awful moment Arianthe thought he was going to stab her but his knife came down on the robe and with two swishes he had it cut in a trice. However she could not express her thanks before he picked her up and began to carry her to the door.
Arianthe swivelled her head to see what Agnes was doing and saw her get off the bed and begin to run to the door.
Once Arianthe and the knight were out in the hallway, she expected to see her best friend hurry out of the room with them. But she didn't.
Several things then happened simultaneously; there was an almighty crash inside the Princess' bedroom, Arianthe realised she was being carried by Sir Denver who's brown eyes looked filled with desperation and fear, Agnes still didn't emerge from the room, and everything started to flash white and black and she remembered no more...