The Oracle
an excerpt

“So tell me again about your brilliant plan of rescue…”
“I didn’t say,” she said as she looked out the window again. Both Danae and Corin could hear the hubbub around the keep that could only mean…
“The Queen is coming,” said Corin, “we might want to hurry the process a little.”
“Why, what does she do when she comes?”
“Oh, the typical mild torture stuff reserved for royalty…”
It sounded like the Queen was now inside the keep. Just a few more moments…
“What does she want with you? What do you know?”
The prince was visibly anxious now. “Just what I know about the Oracle. My father, before the Queen poisoned him, was part of a secret group dedicated to finding her and reinstating her to her place in the twelve kingdoms… Can we just go already? What are you waiting for?”
Danae guessed that the queen would be coming up the stairs by now, based on her brief knowledge of the layout of the keep. She climbed up on the windowsill and pretended to idly test the makeshift rope.
Corin leaned forward as an idea struck him. “No… you’re one of her minions, aren’t you? You tricked me with the promise of escape! You…” his mind searched for the worst insult he could think of, but settled with a “Arrg!!” and a running leap at Danae, just as the door opened.
“Time to go now,” said Danae as she dodged the angry prince, grabbed him by the waist with one hand, and used the inertia to push off from the window while hanging onto the bed sheet with the other, witnessing the stunned, then fuming face of the Queen as she stormed into the room just in time to see them drop out of the window.
“Cease them!” they heard her shriek as Danae rappelled down the stone side of the keep with the astonished prince under her arm.
“What in the name of highest heaven are you doing?” he shouted.
“Trying not to kill you.”
Corin looked down and wished he hadn’t. He quickly positioned himself so that he was hanging onto her. “Is this all part of your brilliant plan?”
“Actually,” she said as she gathered her legs underneath herself in preparation to spring, “I’m sort of making this up as I go along. Hang on.”
And with that she leapt sideways off the wall, as she let just enough slack on the sheet to be dropped down a few feet, just before they crashed through the window of the guardroom.