The Tower’s isle rises from the churning sea like a broken tooth, jagged cliffs, pointed trees. Within thosetrees, the Tower watches, ancient stone and whispered ruin, waiting for me.
The hand over my mouth loosens, and I suck in a crisp, briny breath. A rough yank on my arms wrenches me forward, dragging me to the stone bridge that stretches from one island to the other.
They’re taking me to the Tower.
They’re taking me to die.
The wind shrieks around us. Waves slam into the rocks below, white spray leaping over the sides of the bridge like grasping hands. Salt lashes my skin, stings my eyes. My hair whips across my face as I stumble, half-dragged, half-carried across the stone.
And still—beneath the roar of the sea, beneath the thunder of my heartbeat—I feel it.
That pull in my chest, like a thread cinching tighter with every step I take toward the Tower.
No.
I dig my heels in, panting. I don’t want to feel it. I don’t want to be drawn to it. I don’t want to be another offering to something that’s already devoured too many women and left nothing behind but the husk of hope, spoiled and crawling with rot.
“I’m not the answer,” I rasp, twisting in the guards’ grip. “You’ve got it all wrong. Just stop.”
They don’t. Their hands clamp tighter around my arms as we cross the bridge.
“Wait, please,” I beg, the words tumbling from my mouth in broken pieces. “If you’d stop—if you’d just listen—I can help you. I can fix this. I can—”
At the far end of the path, where the bridge bleeds into sand and the sand gives way to shadow, Alder waits.He’s motionless as a statue and immaculate except for the bloodred wine staining his chest. The dingy light of the storm-draped sky turns his golden hair to ash as he stands at the forest’s edge.
Alder ruined my life once. And now he’s going to be the one to end it.
“That’s not the real Lord Lockhart! That man is an imposter. He is lying to you!” I shout, straining against the guards’ hold. “The queenis lying to you!”
No response. Just heavy boots crunching sand.
“These sacrifices—” My voice cracks. “They won’t save your kingdom. But I can. I know how to fix the machines. I know how to bring it all back.”
Still, they don’t stop.
The trees loom taller now, their branches curling above the path like claws. Alder doesn’t flinch as we approach. Just stands there with his hands behind his back, a general surveying the battlefield.
The guards shove me forward, and I fall hard, knees hitting the ground before my palms slap cold sand.
“Sweetheart, you’ve always been easy, but getting you here was embarrassingly simple.”
My stomach twists, bile rising in my throat.
I push myself upright, breath ragged, throat raw. Sand clings to my skin, to the velvet folds of my torn gown. Fear coils in my stomach but so does rage. A low, simmering fury that steadies my hands even as the rest of me shakes.
Alder cocks his head, the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. His gaze rakes over me like I’m a riddle he’s already solved. Like I’m right where I’ve always belonged: at his mercy.
I grit my teeth, forcing the tremble from my limbs asI inhale sharply through my nose. My body’s screaming with panic, slick with sweat, but I lift my chin.
“And you’ve always loved underestimating me,” I say, voice shaking with fury. “Let’s see how that works out for you.”
My gaze flicks past his shoulder.
There—a narrow break in the tree line where the pines thin and the path dips, half-hidden by rock and brush. Not much, but enough.
Adrenaline explodes through my veins. A sharp, dizzying burst of survival that propels me forward in one violent surge.
The world is a blur of gray and green as I tear across the sand and into the cover of the pines.
