Cool, fresh air from the upper levels calls to me. Freedom. A return to discipline. I step out of the ruined cell and into the corridor. I do not look back. To look back is to fail the calculation. She is a factor I must leave behind.
I take to the air in the vast, open cavern of the undercroft, my wings beating a powerful, silent rhythm. I ascend through the stronghold’s shafts, a silver wraith in the darkness, moving with a speed the Aethel guards cannot possibly track. I emerge into the cold, clean air of the night, the twin moons of Protheka casting a pale light over the frozen landscape.
I am free. I am in control.
A spike of pure, unadulterated agony lances through my mind. It is not my pain. It is hers. Through the phantom cord, I feel a wave of her terror and utter despair at being abandoned in that broken cell, left to the mercy of her captors. The feeling is a sharp, illogical intrusion that causes my flight to momentarily falter.
I build a wall against the sensation. I sever the connection. I force the chaotic, emotional torrent into a sealed chamber of my mind.
It is a weakness. It must be purged.
I angle my wings and accelerate into the starless sky, leaving the dark elf stronghold—and the memory of my failure—behind me.
5
ELZA
Iwake to silence. A cold, absolute silence that is somehow more terrifying than the violence that preceded it. The warmth of his body is gone. The suffocating pressure of his power, the chaotic roar in my mind—all of it has vanished, leaving behind a hollow, aching void and the dull, distant thrum of the psychic scar he carved into my soul.
He is gone.
My eyes snap open. The cell is empty, save for me. A pale, pre-dawn light filters through the high corridor grate, illuminating the scene of my violation. And the proof of his escape. The iron door is not just open; it is torn from its hinges, lying bent and discarded in the passage like a toy. The thick anchor bolt that secured my chain has been ripped from the wall, leaving a crater of shattered stone.
Ice floods my veins, a frigid tide that has nothing to do with the cold floor. He left me. Chained and broken, he left me here to face the consequences.
The Aethel.
My breath catches, a painful, hitched thing. They will come. They will see the destruction, they will see me, and they will notcare that I was a victim. They will see a failed experiment, a loose end. A slave who was involved in the escape of their most valuable prize. My life is forfeit. They will kill me, and it will not be quick.
A tremor starts in my hands. All my life, I have endured. I have bent so I would not break. I have swallowed pain and terror and waited for the next blow to fall, because that is what a slave does to survive. But something is different now. I survived him. I survived a monster shredding my body and soul, and in the silent, hollowed-out space he left behind, a new feeling is taking root.
It is not resilience. It is rage. A hot, defiant rage that burns away the terror. I will not die here. I will not let the Aethel finish what the Vrakken started. For the very first time in my life, I am not just enduring. I want tolive.
The desperate, newfound will to survive is a fire in my gut. I pull at the chain still connected to the iron cuff on my wrist. It is hopelessly strong, and the cuff is a cold, solid band of iron. Panic claws at the edges of my resolve, threatening to drown me again.
No.
I force the panic down. I close my eyes, shutting out the ruined cell, and focus inward. I search for the strange, warm thrumming I felt before he collapsed. The power he inadvertently woke. It is still there, a tiny, flickering ember deep inside me. Faint, but present.
I coax it, nurture it, drawing it up from the depths of my being with sheer, desperate force of will. A warmth spreads through my chest, down my arms. I open my eyes and hold up my hands.
A soft, golden light is emanating from my palms.
The sight is so alien, so impossible, that for a moment I can only stare. The light is gentle, warm, and utterly pure. It pulses with a soft, steady rhythm, in time with my own franticheartbeat. It feels… like a small part of me I never knew was missing. My magic. It is real.
There is no time for wonder. The sounds of shouting and running feet echo from the upper levels of the stronghold. They have discovered the escape. They are coming.
With a surge of adrenaline, I press my glowing hands against the iron cuff on my wrist. The cold metal bites into my skin, but I hold them there, focusing all my will, all my rage, all my desperate need to live, into that golden light. The magic pours from my palms into the iron.
The cuff begins to heat, a deep, searing warmth that makes me want to pull away. I grit my teeth, ignoring the smell of singed skin. The iron groans, a low, vibrating sound. It is not melting. It is… unmaking. The structure of the metal is weakening, becoming brittle and fragile under the focused application of my power.
With a final, desperate push of energy, the light from my hands flares. The cuff cracks, a sharp, clean sound like ice breaking. I wrench my arm, and the iron band shatters, falling to the floor in two dull, blackened pieces.
I am free.
The effort leaves me dizzy, my vision swimming with black spots. The light in my hands fades. The power is still there, but it is a deep, hidden well, and I have drawn too much, too fast.
I scramble to my feet, my torn slave shift offering no protection from the cold. The sounds of the guards are closer now, their armored boots clanging on the stone stairs. I slip out of the cell, a ghost in the growing chaos. My knowledge of this place, learned through years of servitude, is my only weapon. I know the service tunnels, the forgotten passages, the blind spots in the guards’ patrols.
