It was a relatively short journey and Fen noticed the winding path they took back to the base of the mountain until she spotted a gaping whole in the rock face with a dim light burning inside.

"Toss them back into the cells, we'll decide what to do after contacting the queen. She may have lied about how important the girl was." The one named Caliburn handed Fenice off to the smallest ogre who had sustained the least damage during the fight and along with the other ogre who was carrying a somewhat unconscious Locke, the two of them dragged their captives into the cave.

It was a deep hole in the mountain with smoothed walls that held torches with burning pitch on them. There was a smaller, narrower cave attached to the main entrance with a couple of bars built into the rock wall which suggested the ogres often took live victims.

Fenice and Locke were thrown inside with numerous sneers from the ogres. They locked the cage and took the keys to a far away open winding tunnel and housed a pile of pilfered treasures. It had to be at least seventy yards away, too far for either of them to reach.

Locke was slumped lifelessly against the bars and Fen quickly dropped to her knees once the ogres had left.

In one hand she tore off a piece of her skirt, using her teeth despite her mother's shrill protestations in the back of her head. Fen  pressed her cool hand to his burning forehead and Locke's blue eyes snapped open.

He grabbed her hand without remorse and removed it from his head as he held his wounded arm. He glared at her but then focused that heated glare back on his bulging bicep which was just beginning to stop bleeding.

"So you thought telling them you were the princess would help matters, eh?" He said rather crassly as Fen's mouth pursed.

Locke rolled up the ruined sleeve of his shirt and ran his tongue over the wounds, ignoring her invasive stare. 

"What?" He asked pointedly. "Ogre spit is good for getting rid of bites."

Her dark expression eased back and her eyes trailed down Locke's body, the first time she had ever seen him with any amount of light and no armour. He also wasn't wearing any shoes whatsoever despite the fact that snow was covering nearly every surface outside. On each of his toes and fingers, long black talons like the claws of the ogres curled over the edges of his fingers.

The deeply troubling conversation the ogres had just before they had taken them to the cave came back to haunt her.

"You never said you were of a different kind..." Fen said in surprise and just knelt there, her hands in her lap and her eyes cast downward.

In the corner of her eye, Locke stared at Fen from the corner of his, that blue iris burning angrily in the dark. "I didn't want anyone to know. Can you blame me when you see what the other side of the family looks like?" he said.

His fingers tightened into one solid fist.

Suddenly, one of Fenice's biggest questions came to the forefront of her memories and she touched a hand to her dark lips. "That's why you were disbarred from the King's circle."

Almost pained by the statement, Locke sunk back against the bars of their prison and stared up at the ceiling in bored irritation.

"Yup."

"That's terrible," Fen cried out in a more painful way than Locke had anticipated. Here they both were, the prisoners of three terrifying ogres, but all she could acknowledge was the wrong that had been done to her knight a decade ago.

Locke seemed to find this at least amusing.

"Fen, it's over and done, long in the past." He used her nickname for the first time that night and actually smiled.

She shook her head. "When we get back back to Anir I'll have you placed on the royal guard again. Clearly you haven't lost any of your edge. You fought off three ogres, for goodness sakes!"

Rather than joy, Locke's eyes widened and he shook his head emphatically. "No. No, I'm no longer like the other knights. I don't belong there."

Fenice opened her mouth to argue again but words did not come out. Frankly, she was hurt, hurt over what her father had done. Maybe it mattered more because this was Lailoken Vaugrenard, but she wanted to make this right.

That started with getting them both out of their prison.

Fen rose to her feet and smoothed down her plain, silk shift which was unfortunately very cold in the cave. Thank goodness she had the good sense to put her boots on back in the inn. She put her mother's pins in her hair and pulled the braids from her eyes.

She turned back to her knight who was eyeing her curiously.

He had a thin trail of blood creeping down his forehead, somehow unheeded and Fen returned to Locke with the ruined hem of her skirt in hand. The wound on Locke's head didn't appear to be a bite so his abilities would be useless here. 

With Locke sitting frozen beneath her, Fen, using all the care she possessed in the world, wetted the torn cloth and dabbed delicately at the trail running down his forehead. 

Then she pressed the make-shift curchief to the cut on his head until that too began to clot. All the while Locke had been perfectly still, kept there by surprise at first and then thoughtfulness. 

When Fen knelt back down beside him, he asked. "Why do you do things like that? Caring about the innkeeper, buying the dinner for me?"

And why was he facinated by that? Locke was often used to getting fairly much anything he wanted within his power... but having those things given to him of the owner's free will was a curiosity.

Fen looked surprised but she caught his meaning. It might shock Locke to know that many people thought this strange about her. She was a princess after all, she did not have to offer anything she did not feel inclined to.

"I think," she said softly and looking him in the eyes as if to communicate something else to him. "I think little kindnesses are the most important thing in the world." 

And Locke was struck, through the head or heart only he could tell you, but he was in awe.

Fen was silent and rose to her feet with new energy, the tender moment soon passing for what she had originally had in mind.

"I need you to bend the bars open, it's the only way we're getting out of here."

Locke stared at her in confusion and then at the metal bars which were at best a couple hand lengths wide. There was no way Leander would be able to bend the bars far enough -without breaking them- to allow his frame through. But that wasn't her plan.

"You're going to have to pry the bars far enough apart for me to sneak through and grab the keys." Fenice pointed to the floor where they were still sitting.

Locke rose to his feet and stared through the parts in the bars, his eyes widening with intrigue, however, something clouded them. "But if you go through and they see you I won't be able to get out to protect you," he said darkly and Fenice felt her face blush at the concern he was showing for her safety.

Honestly, it would have been very romantic if they hadn't been trapped. Maybe it still was, just a little.

"I'll be careful," she whispered and pointed to the belongings the ogres had taken from previous victims. "And once we're free, I'm sure there's something in there that can help us defeat them."

Locke looked as if he pondered what she was saying but in the end it made the most sense.

"Will you be able to move the bars with your arm like that?" Fenice asked and pointed to Locke's bicep which was just beginning to heal over.

"Easily," Locke grinned and grabbed the bodies of two long bars. They waited for the noise of the ogre's conversation in the other cave to become steady.

Locke grunted as he pried the bars apart, his wounds opening up again and trickling blood. Fenice studies them worriedly but they would have to free themselves first.

"That's good," she whispered and tapped him on the shoulder before shuffling through the opening.

The large cave leading into theirs was still visible from the back and it would be all too easy for any one of the three ogres to look back on them and see what they were doing.

The keys were only seventy yards away, sitting close to the opposite wall away from the light. If she could just scurry there and then back, they wouldn't have the chance to notice her.

She gave Locke who was stuck behind the bars one final, desperate smile and bolted across the light-lit opening.

She was fast, like the unicorns of her mother's homeland that she used to admire as a child. In seconds she was on side of the light and the next she had run the remaining forty yards and was carefully grabbing the keys from the stone floor.

That's when a sharp pain stabbed through her entire body and she cried out.