They really took the "make them uncomfortable" orders to heart. The royals from Uriah were stripped to their underwear and forced into a small, secluded cell in the dungeon, right next to the guard rotation. The unusually pale guards started to amuse themselves after roughly an hour by throwing rocks through the bars of the cell.
"We need to get out of here." Sydney announced.
"I know, and I'll come up with a plan, but we can't leave without the Kingstone, even if we manage to get out of this cell." He whispered to her. She didn't answer, because she knew he was right. When it became public knowledge that the Stone had been stolen right under their father's nose, heads would roll, starting with Adrian's no matter whether he was responsible or not.
"Hey guard, can you tell me everything you know about the girl that you call the Rose Princess?" He asked. The guard's answer was to peg him in the forelead with a rock. He saw down after that to think. After seemingly sitting there for an eternity, they got a visitor.
Their guard announced "Bow to the Rose Princess, Rosemary Hecate!"
Adrian half wondered of the princess meant to look so ethereal as she walked in, or if it was just her natural beauty speaking for itself. Either way, it annoyed him that she swung his sword in her hand like a toy. She had changed into a red dress which emphasized her slender, almost elvish features. Not for the first time, he wondered if someone that beautiful could actually be human.
"I'm waiting." She paused for a second, waiting for the now that would never come, and then nodded at the guard to leave upon the realization of that seemingly obvious fact. The guard pretty much flew out of the dungeon with a scared shriek the moment that she dismissed him.
Once the guard was gone, the girl held Adrian's sword to the bars to admire it in front of him.
"I know that I was sent to steal the Kingstone and lure you here, but I am glad that I also took this sword. This is high quality void magic, correct?" She asked tauntingly.
"You stole the Kingstone?" Sydney exclaimed. Adrian kept a neutral expression.
"Honestly, I expected you to follow me, but you and the princess? Lucky haul. Ugly and stupid." Sydney spat at her. Surprisingly, the loogie landed on her target's cheek with pinpoint accuracy, as if she had practice spitting on people. The girl's red eyes flashed an even deeper red for a moment before she managed to regain her composure and wipe it off with a condescending smirk. Sydney returned it with her own confident smirk, which obviously seemed to infuriate Rosemary.
"I am called the Rose Princess for a reason. I am the ultimate Royal Rose vampire. Soon, I will bathe in blood from your kingdom. Perhaps if you beg, I will allow you to live long enough to watch me use this fine blade the way it was meant to be used, by covering it in the blood of my enemies." She postured.
Despite a sense that something wasn't as it seems, Adrian responded by spitting at her. Unfortunately, his aim was nowhere near as good as his sister's. It looked like the loogie would go harmlessly over Rosemary's shoulder, but at the last moment, she flashed the blade and caught it near the top of Adrian's sword. She inspected it, shaking her head.
"Honestly, don't you know that it's bad form for a crown prince to spit on their own sword?" It sounded like something that Sydney would say. She wiped it against the cell door to mock him and started walking away. She stopped and turned back before leaving the room, "Though I guess that doesn't apply here, since it is my sword." she swung the sword around aimlessly like a toy the entire way out the door. Only the clang of the door closing behind her did anything to muffle Adrian's curses.
After a few moments of listening to him curse, Sydney told him "A crown prince is calm."
"A crown prince carries a sword, Sydney." He informed her. The entire situation angered him, yes, but that sword had been made for him by Hat, Jasper's former teacher who had died a few years ago. That sword was a part of Adrian,
"You do not need a sword to run a kingdom. Father's best accomplishments were done with a quill." She told him.
"Father's best accomplishments run between heightening taxes to erect a statue of himself, giving twenty square miles a year to Illreya in a useless bid of peace, and losing the Kingstone to this kingdom of wasted space." He argued, losing his temper. "I refuse to be anything like him, so I would prefer to carry a sword."
"I understand that Father isn't-" She kept talking, but Adrian wasn't listening, the buzzing in his head was getting louder by the moment. He had started noticing it as soon as they had teleported into the castle. He idly rubbed his temple.
'Notice the key in the cell door before the guard gets back' He heard the voice in his head so clearly that the buzzing receded to it almost completely.
"Did you hear that?" He rushed to the cell door.
"The fighting rats? I was trying to ignore them." Sydney shivered, probably wondering how many diseases those rats carried.
"No. Not the rats, or the screams, but the girl. She said…" He trailed off, searching for the keyhole.
"I didn't hear any girl, given that the screams don't count." Sydney looked at him as though he had completely lost his mind. Meanwhile, Adrian had found the keyhole. He turned the key and opened the door with no trouble, just as the voice in his head had implied.
"How did you do that?" Sydney asked incredulously.
"Just like they said. Sydney, we need to leave."
"Let's forget how you got it open, how do you expect us to just walk out of here? There must be tons of guards."
"I don't think so. The voice said… I mean, I don't think they take us seriously. Most of the cells are further inside, and I'd bet that most of the guards are too. I doubt they thought that they needed more than the one guy to keep us in check." He told her.
"And if our guard comes back?"
"There's a petrified rat in the corner if you want to use it as a weapon, but after that girl's visit, I doubt that he would be brave enough to come back so soon." Honestly, that was just his hope based on the reaction that the girl seemed to get.
What he didn't want to mention to Sydney was that he was mostly placing blind faith in the voice that had told him about the magically appearing key, even though it was probably insane. Based on Sydney's looks at him, she didn't believe a word that he as saying, but he didn't have any reason to believe it either so trying to convince her would be a wasted effort.
Sydney looked at the petrified rat for a moment, considering it as a weapon out of desperation, but in the end,she shook her head, gagging,
"Let's take the chance." She decided.
The 'chance' paid off. They were able to get outside with no trouble, but the dungeon building was in a castle's interior courtyard. With castle guards roaming everywhere. They barely managed to dive behind a patch of shrubs before being spotted.
"How are we going to get out of here? There are guards everywhere." He was right. There were easily a dozen or more hiards in the hundred yard long courtyard and the fact that the only source of light was the half moon in the sky didn't seem to hinder their enemies. It was only going to be minutes before someone got lucky enough to look over and notice before someone got lucky enough to look over and notice two unarmed escaped prisoners huddling in the bushes.
"Adrian?" Sydney whispered, tapping him on the shoulder,
"Any ideas?" He asked.
"Look at the castle's design closely." She pointed toward the west wing. At first, he didn't see it. It was just stonework. But after a moment, he saw it. A mosaic on the second floor that he recognized, the design of a terrace. Slowly, he realized what Sydney had already seen. Sure, it was notably larger and multiple entire wings had been added, but at its foundation, they were in their own castle. It was a carbon copy of their own castle back in Ortain, and they knew everything about the castle in Ortain