The red glare of the fogo blurs all other colors. The smoke chokes me with its sulfuric perfume. I watch from the tower as the city burns to ashes before my eyes. I want to stop it, I wish I could, but I cannot. I listen hopelessly as I hear the cries of the people, shouting, taunting.
Tears run down my cheeks. I lost it all, the power I once had has been taken from me. I could have helped so many, but I was foolish and in my foolishness I did not realize what was transpiring under my nose, what would lead to this, the burning of once a proud city to rid it of us.
Turning from the window, I face my dark room. My mother forced me into it, to protect me, she said, then left. The furniture dulled in comparison to the roaring fogo outside. My cama was unmade, no one having seen any reason to make it. Fresh tears pricked my eyes. The memories in this room were powerful. I could almost see my brother and me running up the stairs and entering the tower to play, on a much brighter day.
Picking up my cloak, I settle it over my fine vestido now soot covered, and make my way to the stairs. It seems a long way down to the hall. Once there I wish for the tower room, the great hall is foreign to me. The hall is bare and empty, the smell of food, the chatter of people gone. In its place are tossed dishes, turned over chairs and forgotten fãs and purses, the forgotten items of many people fleeing in terror. The hall is deserted. I am the only one. I run down the hall frightened por its quietness. Down the stairs into the kitchen, I run ignoring the silence, the memories. The kitchen, a place that I once would have never ventured down into is now my only hope. I head toward a small trap door beside a gigantic cupboard, partly hidden por sacks. I hesitate, when father showed me where the trap door was I had never thought I would use this secret get away, but here I was.
A crash resounded off the castelo walls followed por shouts. My coração leapt to my throat, they had made it in! With out any mais thoughts I flung open the trap door and scurried down inside closing the trap door behind me. The passageway is dank and dark the stairs slimy and wet. I descend deeper and deeper, further from the burning hatred. It seems to never end, a staircase filled with slime, dripping water, loneliness and fear.
But it does end and I am suddenly standing on a small dock seguinte to a river. A barco is tied up to the dock por an old rope straining against the current. The oars are cracked and old and the green paint on the barco is dull and flaking but the barco looks seguro enough. Gathering up my skirts, I step gingerly from the dock to the boat. The barco wobbles and I hurriedly sit down to steady it. I untie the rope and drift off down the river.
I cannot go back; the people would never forgive a member of the royal family. I wish I could go back and fix all the wrongs my family did and mend the rift we created between the royal family and the people. But I cannot.
The red flames of the fogo glare at me as I travel further from the ruined city. Reminding me that I was once a princess, now I am an exile.