The moment we shared in the Avery all came back to me in a brand new light.


    "I understand now why you felt like a fraud. Because you really were one."


    "I-"


    "-Not that that''s a bad thing!" I tried to rectify my unsavoury choice of words, my face turning red, "I''m glad you did what you did. Who knows what would have become of us had you not been there to take down the feathered serpent? I, and every ungrateful soldier who agreed to put you here, owe you our lives."


    "But that doesn''t matter now." She said, taking off her shoes and throwing them to the side in defeat.


    I grew curious.


    "Why did you become a knight?"


    She sighed as though the question had annoyed her, but despite it, she wove her tale.


    "I''ve always been... different. I grew up on a tomato farm, and we were wealthy, but I was never like the other wealthy girls my age, all poised and proper. I wished that I could be like them. I even prayed to the Sun nightly in hopes that I would wake up just like them. Elegant and feminine and just so… perfect in every way. But whenever I tried to replicate the way they danced or dressed or styled their hair, I felt no joy in it. Instead, I spent my days wrestling my brother and climbing up trees, attacking the birds who snagged our crops with a stick." She chuckled at the memory. "Knights would pass our farm every so often. I liked the way their armour sparkled in the sun, much shinier and greater than the jewelled necklaces and sparkly dresses I was expected to cherish. Zolin told me I could never be a knight. I knew that. But I could dream, nonetheless.


    We grew up, and I was expected to find a wealthy husband, which disgusted me. My parents thought it was a phase and tried encouraging me to attend balls in search of one. I found myself watching the beautiful women more than I cared for the men they danced with. They were just so lovely… so unlike myself.


    During the day, Zolin tended to the farm with our father, and I would go out and transport the tomatoes to the nearest towns. It was in the city of Alagrandes where I met Ynez."


    A smile settled on her lips. That pause in her words, the shine in her eyes as she uttered Ynez''s name - it reminded me all too well of my own longing.


    "Ynez is the reason I believe in love at first sight; the kind that made you fall for Cinderella. She had eyes like the rarest emeralds, and when she sang to herself in the market, it was like hearing the melody of the Sun itself. She believed I could be a knight someday. And even though everyone else told me different, her voice was the one I listened to above them all. So I began to train. I melted down an old, metal rake and made a sword out of it. And then I slashed the scarecrows until they had to be put back together with rope. I chased away the birds and mice and toads as though they held the same power as a human being. Ynez taught me to ride my father''s horse. I raced it through the forests, learning to take down targets I''d posted to the trees, and I taught myself to run for miles with heavy sacks tied to my back and shoulders. The conditions were not ideal, but they were better than trying to enroll without preparation.


    And then, the time came. I and Ynez rode to Mendessa City together, ready to mark history."


    Though her tone had been triumphant, it suddenly grew dark, and the smile disappeared from her face.


    "I marched into the palace''s training quarters alone. I was surrounded by men like Rafael. All giants. All staring me down like I was some sort of strange creature."


    "But they let you show your skills?" I asked. She shook her head.


    "They laughed me out of the palace. I couldn''t understand it. They said us women were too weak, but I knew that I could fight them if they''d given me the chance. We have just as much fire in us, if not more. Have you ever met a woman on their-!?" she stopped her rising anger, "-nevermind. Anyway, I never even had the chance to show them my identification before they decided I would not be good enough."


    "And that''s when you decided to disguise yourself?"


    She almost laughed.


    "No. That''s when I decided to give up."


    "What did Ynez say to that?"


    Ana was silent, trapped in her own mind, recollecting the pain of being outcasted and ridiculed so publicly. I leaned to get a good look of her face, but she turned it away, wiping an eye as subtlely as she could muster. I could tell something else was bothering her - something worse than humiliation.


    "When I left the palace, she was gone." Ana said, staring at the ground the same way she would have stared at the view of Mendessa City, completely void of her beloved. "I thought that, perhaps, she had believed in me so much, that she left me to pursue my dream. Knights cannot marry or fall in love. So... she had let me go.


    After days of mourning my dream and my love, I heard about the disappearances. All women. All in Mendessa City. I forced myself not to think of the possibility that Ynez was one of them. But later, I found out that her horse was found in the city... alone. Lost."


    She swallowed thickly. I felt tension begin to coil around me as I thought of the similar realities of so many soldiers having to leave behind their loved ones to serve their queen. It was probable that they, too, had people go missing, whether they knew it or not. I shuffled forward, pleading for her to continue, so that her story may not end in darkness.


    "I thought that, if anyone would know anything about the disappearances, it would be the Queen''s men. So I took my brother''s identification papers, and did everything I could to look like him to not raise suspicion. I cut my hair. I even tattooed his birthmark onto my back, as well as all of his moles and freckles."


    She untucked her shirt behind her, and lifted it for me to see. True enough, a birthmark, shaped like a wobbly-drawn fish, was dented on the lower right of her back, still slightly sore. And on her arms and neck, the tiny brown dots across her skin became more noticeable, each one a lie she had to brand herself with. It was no wonder she felt so alone, even moreso than I had been when we first met. She had changed everything she was to be the person she wanted to be, and even that had crumbled beneath her feet.


    "I tried for them again. This time, they let me in. And I did everything I could to prove myself to them time and time again, until they couldn''t possibly take me out of the running. Finally, I was a knight. But I didn''t feel as happy or as accomplished as I thought I''d be. I had a new goal; to find Ynez with the other knight''s help. Turns out... they knew as little about the disappearances as I did. So I kept them close, hoping one day I would overhear something - anything - that would lead me closer to her." For a moment, she was quiet, her lip quivering, and then she finally spoke with a shake, "I haven''t gotten anywhere."


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Just like me, Ana was seeking a woman she loved, but her story was seeped in tragedy. The fear of the unknown rang in her voice as it trailed away, losing hope when she recognised the iron bars before her. We had been so similar in so many ways, and yet, I thought Ana more noble than I had ever been. The whole time she had known me, it was under the terms of finding Cinderella. And yet, that entire time, she was hoping that finding Cinderella would lead to finding the other missing women of Mendessa City.


    And so I had failed her.


    I ignored the painful sensations in my body and stood to my feet. Through the bars, I offered my hand to lift her up, and with some hesitation, she took it.


    "We can''t have failed yet. Not now." I said. She wasn''t looking me in the eye, and she seemed unconvinced. "You need to find Ynez. I need to find Cinderella. We are in this together."


    I tightened my hand into a firm handshake, but Ana''s arm wouldn''t lift.


    "We won''t get out of here, Andres. It''s over."


    "No it''s not. Not until we find them. Not until we reach our goal."


    "We are in a dungeon!" she exclaimed, "Everything is barred, there are guards and soldiers and advisors all over this place!"


    I observed the barred window of my cell, feeling a sense of recognition. That place was no different to my bedroom, with its great window lined with iron to frustrate my inevitable attempts to leave. I had pulled and pushed them incessantly to no avail, never making so much as a dent in their sturdiness. I was beyond doubt that the cell would be the same way. Each gap between the bars had a barrier of cobwebs like frosted glass, making it hard to see, making me disoriented.


    "If we give up here, Ana, we''ll just be doing what they want us to do; what they expect us to do. That is not an option anymore. Not when we''ve gotten so far from where we once were."


    Ana didn''t respond at first. She just watched the spiders weave their webs.


    "I''m tired of trying to change people''s minds when their minds are already set. All of that ''breaking the glass'' nonsense, it''s easier said than done. And I''ve done it over and over and all I''ve gotten was cut. You can go. You can try to escape. I''ll cover for you. But that''s where this adventure ends for me."


    "No. Ana, you have to come with me." I said, lowering myself to meet her eye. "I can''t do this without you. I have seen your skill. You are the greatest knight that Mendessa has ever seen. You might have been made to not believe that, but don''t you think Ynez deserves to see how incredible you truly are?"


    "For all I know, she''s dead." She said grimly.


    "For all you know, she could be out there wondering about your adventures, waiting for you to be the one who saves her. Would you rather stay here and let her think you have abandoned her?"


    "I would never abandon her!" She cried.


    "Then come with me. Help me find Cinderella, and I will help you find Ynez. Deal?"


    She paused in thought. I could tell that she was reluctant to agree.


    "We have no plan."


    "Who said we needed one?" I said, feeling exhilaration bubbling within me. There was excitement in the defiance; a will to rebel which fired through me like never before. I had once thought me and Ana would be the opposite in that regard. I watched as Ana stood up and finally met my gaze.


    "Alright. I''ll go with you. But how will we find them?"


    "Del Flores manor," I beamed despite my fears of the place, "I found the feather of a feathered serpent there. I know the Countess is up to something."


    "You found what?" Ana managed to exclaim through her shock. Her eyebrows narrowed. "Are you meaning to say that she has something to do with-"


    "-I…I think so. I don''t know. But that''s not all-"


    "-You realise if the last one is with her, then we have no chance of killing it?"


    "You''ve done it before, Ana. You can do it again. That''s if I''m even right at all."


    She folded her arms.


    "What was the other thing?"


    "Count Del Flores had a daughter. A daughter believed to be dead. Cinderella told me her father passed away and that she had been sheltered. I don''t think that''s a coincidence."


    My argument was weak at best, but my ideas had become a driving force too fast to fully figure out before they left my lips. Ana was not completely swayed, but she was willing to listen.


    I stepped on my bed and rose to my tiptoes. I clawed away the cobwebs, cringing as they tangled around my fingers, and craned my neck to whatever laid outside.


    The window was at ground level, letting in blades of grass which touched my chin and I stretched myself as close to the dust-coated bars as humanly possible. The field expanded beyond the horizon, and all I could see were the stables at my far left, so far that I could not smell its strong stench in the air.


    "We''re stuck here, Andres." Ana said, stepping away.


    Suddenly, she let out a yelp.


    "What was that?" I asked through my stopped heart. I turned towards her so fast that I hit my head on the wall.


    Her foot had caught on a sharp object which she took from the floor, but dropped suddenly at its sharpness. With a foot and hand oozing with blood, she took off her socks and tied them around the wounds, grimacing and seething. As she did so, I leapt down and eyes the sharp, metallic spike.


    I began to notice more strange artefacts on the floor of her cell; tufts of deep indigo fur and a black stain shaped like a paw, pointing in the direction of the bed. I ducked low, and moved back with a shudder.


    "Is that what I think it is?"


    Ana ducked under the bed, unphased by what I saw. With her sock-bandaged hand, she took out the dusty bones of a small arm with a mighty crack.


    "Is it human?"


    She shuffled deeper in, and pulled out more rotting bones, many of which were malformed and broken. To my relief, she shook her head.


    "Looks like an ahuizotl was kept here."


    I had heard of such creatures in my books, but it took some time for me to fully recall the details. They had been dog-like, but vicious in nature, with the hand of a monkey hanging off their tails to snatch people from the edges of rivers. Then, with their sharp fangs and blade-like spikes on their fur, they would feast on their prey raw. King Andres II''s men used decoys to lure the beast from the water, and then, they would trap it and keep it in the dungeons until it starved - which was the only way to kill such an impenetrable monster.


    Carefully, that time, Ana took the ahuizotl''s spike, her mind wandering with curiosity. She looked up to the bars of her cell, and used her bed as a step like I had done. Without explanation, she jammed it into a bar and began sawing. The metal against whatever the creature''s spike was made of scraped through my ears horribly, but Ana was seeing results nonetheless.


    In minutes, the lower part of the bar had been cut right through, soaked in the blood of Ana''s palms. She then began on the top of the bar, hoping to remove it entirely in order to slip her way out. Through it all, she seethed through the pain, letting her blood spill down the wall in a gruesome display of blind determination. The entire time I waited, speechless, watching as every bar was reduced to a useless chunk of iron, until she finally removed enough to let herself free. She lifted herself up with her hands, yelling out at having to put all her weight on her wounds, and shuffled through the gap excruciatingly slowly, looking left and right constantly for anyone who might have seen her.


    "Be careful." She warned as she slid the spike through to me. I followed her action, but she had made it seem to easy. I pushed all my weight into it, sliding it left and right until I could feel the edges slice my skin. My eyes watered, but I remained resilient. I thought of the ocean and of Cinderella, imagining that my tears were just water from the sea splashing against my face, salty but warm as they caressed down to my chin. When I shut my eyes tight, I could see Cinderella beside me, watching me stir our ship over the foam-blanketed waves, begging me to keep going. I cut through both sides of the iron bar, and then through another, and then another.


    "Come on, Andres!" Ana egged on quietly, returning me back to reality for a split second of pain. I closed my eyes once more, imagining the blood was more of that seawater, dribbling down by arm, but I could not convince myself that it was painless. I saw a storm clouding above as our ship crashed into a great wave, rocking me forward with force.


    "You did it. Let''s go!"


    I opened my eyes to Ana holding her scarlet hands out to pull me out. Despite our stark difference in height and weight, she pulled me from the cell with ease, ignoring the sound of the harshly-cut iron grazing my torso.


    Woozy but filled with relief, I stood with her. The grounds were silent, despite it being daylight. We wasted no time to allow anyone to notice us. Containing our need to gasp for air, we ran to the stables together, allowing its unsavoury smell to enter our lungs. Certain that it was clear of noise or movement other than that of the horses, we snuck inside.


    We crept around without a word spoken between us. I remained on-edge, and jumped every time I heard a snort or bray. Ana, with nothing to lose, trudged heavy-footed on the arid ground. Every so often, she would drag her bare feet against the dry strands of hay in a failed attempt to clean them of dirt, only to step into more after.


    On tip-toes, I felt my heart thudding against my ribcage. Something convinced me that we were not alone, although nothing had come to prove the theory. I feared that it would jump out at me, all of a sudden, and startle my heart into stopping. The thought of the consequences afterwards were somehow even more frightening to me. In my head, I started to rehearse excuses for myself, but all came up poor.


    Eventually, I decided to focus on the task at hand, and I judged the horses around me by their energy, immediately cancelling out the ones who were slowly blinking with exhaustion. Ana was not so picky, and clambered into a stable where a sand-coloured azteca seemed startled at her presence. I froze and shut my eyes as it whinnied noisily.


    "Shhh, it''s okay. It''s just me."


    Ana stroked the stallion''s ink-black mane until it stopped panicking. Then, she turned to me.


    "Pick one. Let''s get out of here."


    With no time left to choose, I nervously opened a stable gate containing a familiar face.


    "Alma? You''re going to steal Alma?"


    Alma seemed strangely calmed at my presence, hardly reacting as she sniffed my clothes, regaining her familiarity with me. Her perfect white nose was heavier than expected as it brushed against my shoulder noiselessly. I could tell by her eyes she desired to get out.


    "Rafael will kill you." Ana reminded me, but I was already strapping Alma into her saddle and cloning onto her back.


    "Well. He will have to catch us first." I said, hiding a smile. Ana sighed playfully at my stupidity, but there was little time left.


    On our stolen horses, we raced as far as we could go.