Free Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons by Jane Yolen

on the other side of the courtyard. There they hauled her through a thick wooden gate and on inside.
    A stiff-legged jailer led them past a long row of locked cells from which hooting and cursing voices called out.
    “Let her go!”
    “Bring her here!”
    “May your wounds never heal, jailer!”
    “The gods look down on your injustice, Laomedon!”
    They stopped in front of a heavy wooden door, which the jailer opened with a large bronze key. Then the two soldiers threw her inside.
    Stumbling forward, she remembered at the very last minute to tuck in her head and roll. She fetched up against the far wall, humiliated but unhurt. She heard the soldiers laugh uproariously as they slammed the door shut.
    Struggling to her feet, Hippolyta felt a twinge in her shoulder, where it had struck the wall. The roots of her hair stung where Laomedon had grabbed her. She must have twisted her ankle slightly when she tumbled into the cell. But what hurt most was her pride.
    She limped over to the cell door, glad no one could see her, and looked out of the small grille. She could see neither soldiers nor jailers.
    Which doesn’t mean there’s no one there, she reminded herself. Only that I cannot see farther.
    Wrenching herself away from the grille and the light, she began to pace the confines of the cell. It was a much bigger place than the one her mother lay in, back in Themiscyra. But that cell at least had been clean. This one was disgusting. The walls were dank, the floor scattered with a thin layer of dirty straw.
    Hippolyta tested the door with its small barred window.
    Thick, sturdy, unmovable.
    She felt along every inch of the walls.
    Even thicker, sturdier.
    She sat down on the floor to think. But every thought led back to one: I have no friends here, no allies. I am at the mercy of a heartless king.
    In the evening—she knew the time only because the jailer told her so—she was given a bowl of thin, cold gruel. An armed guard stood by her as she ate, to prevent any trouble.
    “Eat up,” sniggered the jailer. “We want meat on you for tomorrow.”
    She dashed the empty bowl at him, but it missed, and the guard struck her in the chest with the butt of his spear. She fell backward, managing to miss hitting her head on the wall. But she lay there, pretending to be knocked out. That way she could avoid more of a beating, and quite possibly she might hear something to her advantage.
    The sniggering jailer said, “Spirited all right.”
    The guard grunted. “Not that it’ll do her any good. She’s scarcely a bite as it is.”
    They left, locking the door behind them, and darkness seeped into the cell.
    Scarcely a bite! What did they mean? She’d heard of kingdoms where prisoners were thrown to wild animals. Or maybe Laomedon was that vilest of creatures, one that devoured his own kind.
    She shivered and started to whimper. Then she stopped herself. “Amazons do not cry,” she whispered.
    But she was cold, hurt, lonely, scared, and a long way from home.
    She didn’t cry. But in her sleep, something wet ran down her face from her eyes. She wiped it away without ever waking.

CHAPTER TEN
A BROTHERLY VISIT
    S HE WOKE FROM A deep sleep when someone tapped on her door. Flinching back, she rubbed sleep from her eyes. Then curiosity overcame her, and she went to the door.
    Standing there was the horrid little prince, Tithonus.
    “Shh,” he said.
    She thought: If I can get him in here, I could take him hostage. Then they’d have to release me and —
    “Shh,” he said again, finger to his lips. “Don’t wake the others.”
    Her plans for escape gave way to curiosity. “How did you get in?”
    He looked puzzled at her question. “Why, I told the jailer to let me in. I’m the prince, after all. I said I’d have him thrown in the sea if he didn’t do as I commanded.”
    “Yes, that’s exactly what your father would have said,” Hippolyta noted sourly. Suddenly she couldn’t bear the sight of him. He was just a