Chapter 1: The Rescue at the Broken Tower
The stone was cold and unforgiving against her back. Each ragged gasp Celia managed to pull in tasted of dust and old mortar. Croy’s gauntlet, a cage of polished steel, squeezed her throat not with rage, but with a dreadful, clinical patience.
“Almost there,” he murmured, his face too close. His breath smelled of stale wine and desperation. “Just a little more, and your pretty magic will be mine. You should be grateful. Wasted on a flower-crowning dilettante.”
Black spots bloomed at the edges of her vision. Her fingers, scratched and bleeding, scrabbled uselessly against his vambrace. Her earth magic, usually a vibrant hum in her veins, was a dull, trapped throb beneath her ribs, stifled by the iron he had bound her with. She couldn’t feel the deep stone of the tower, couldn’t command a single pebble. She was just a girl, being crushed.
A roaring filled her ears. It took her a second to realize it wasn’t the sound of her own dying.
It was her name.
CELIA!
The oak door, thick and banded with iron, didn’t so much open as it exploded inward. Splinters sprayed like shrapnel. Framed in the jagged remnants, backlit by the torches of the stairwell, was Chance.
He wasn’t the prince from the portraits. Not now. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, his fine clothes torn and mud-spattered. His eyes found hers, then Croy’s hand on her throat, and something in his face shattered and reformed into pure, terrifying intent.
Croy spun, dropping Celia. She slumped against the wall, a raw, burning ache flooding her throat as she sucked in a desperate, whooping breath. The world rushed back in, loud and sharp and painful.
“You,” Croy sneered, drawing his own heavy blade. “The spare heir. Come to play the hero?”
Chance didn’t answer. He just moved. His sword, a lighter, quicker thing than Croy’s broadsword, was a silver blur in the torchlight. The clang of their first meeting shook the small chamber, ringing in Celia’s teeth.
“Get to the stairs, Celia!” Chance barked, the command strained as he parried a brutal overhead chop that would have cleaved him in two.
She pushed herself up, her legs trembling like a newborn fawn’s. The iron manacle around her wrist, connected to a broken chain, felt like a dead weight. She couldn’t run. Not and leave him.
Croy was bigger, stronger, fueled by a bitter hatred. But Chance was faster, and he was fighting with a kind of focused fury Celia had never seen. He wasn’t dueling. He was dismantling. A slash aimed at Croy’s knee forced the bigger man back. A feint high opened a shallow cut along his forearm.
“You have no right!” Croy snarled, pressing forward with a series of heavy, hacking blows that drove Chance toward the wall. “Her power could have been used! Could have meant something!”
“She’s not a thing to be used,” Chance gritted out, ducking a swing that chipped stone from the wall behind him. He lunged, not at Croy’s body, but at his footing. His boot hooked around Croy’s ankle, yanking hard.
Croy staggered. For one pivotal second, his balance was gone.
Chance didn’t hesitate. He drove his shoulder into Croy’s chest, sending the disgraced knight crashing into the room’s single, narrow window. The old, rotten wood of the frame gave way with a sickening crack.
Croy’s eyes flew wide, his hands grasping at empty air. He hung there for a moment, half in, half out of the tower, the howling void of the night at his back.
Chance stood before him, chest heaving, sword pointed at his heart. “Yield. Now.”
A strange, twisted smile spread across Croy’s face. “For you? Never.” His gaze flickered past Chance, to where Celia stood. “The connection is already made, Prince. I have a piece of her. You can’t take that back.”
Then, with a final, defiant sneer, he let himself fall backwards into the darkness.
Chance was at the window in two strides, staring down. Celia stumbled forward, clutching her throbbing throat. “Is he…?”
“The moat is down there. Deep, and probably filthy, but water.” Chance’s voice was flat. He turned from the window, his eyes searching her face, and the fierce warrior was gone, replaced by someone shaken to his core. “Celia. Oh, gods, Celia.”
He crossed the room and his hands came up, hovering near her face, as if he was afraid she’d break. She saw the tremor in his fingers. She saw the raw fear still etched in the lines around his eyes.
“You’re here,” she whispered, her voice a ragged ruin of its usual self.
“I’m here.” He finally touched her, his touch unbearably gentle, brushing a tangled strand of auburn hair from her bruised cheek. His thumb traced the livid marks Croy’s gauntlet had left on her throat, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry it took so long.”
The dam broke. A sob, harsh and unwilled, ripped from her chest. She didn’t fall into his arms so much as she folded, the last of her strength evaporating. He caught her, sinking to his knees with her, holding her tightly against the steady, solid beat of his heart.
“He was wrong,” she choked out, her words muffled against his shoulder. “I couldn’t feel anything. The iron…”
“I know. It’s over. He’s gone.” He kept saying it, a low, steady mantra against her hair. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
For long minutes, there was only the sound of her uneven breathing and the distant cry of a night bird. The terror began to recede, leaving a profound, hollow exhaustion in its wake. Slowly, awareness seeped back in. The chill of the stone floor. The ache in every muscle. The warm, solid reality of Chance holding her.
She pulled back slightly, looking up at him. “How did you find me?”
“Tracked Croy’s men. Interrogated one who had a sudden change of heart about his loyalties.” His gaze was fierce. “I would have torn the kingdom apart stone by stone.”
She managed a small, wobbly smile. It felt strange on her face. “Very princely.”
He helped her stand, keeping an arm firmly around her. “Can you walk? We need to get you out of this place.”
She nodded, taking a step. Her bare foot, cut and dirty, brushed against the cold floor. And then she felt it. A faint, familiar tremor. Deep below, through the foundations, the living rock of the earth sensed her again, the iron’s stifling presence removed. A weak pulse of energy, sweet and clean, seeped up into her.
A single, tiny green shoot, vibrant and impossibly brave, pushed itself up between two cracked flagstones at her feet.
She stared at it, a hot tear tracing a path through the grime on her cheek. Not gone. Not taken.
Chance followed her gaze. He said nothing, just squeezed her shoulder.
“Let’s go home,” she said, her voice still hoarse, but firm.
He led her toward the shattered door, away from the cold tower room. Behind them, the little green shoot stood alone in the torchlight, a silent testament in the dark. Below, in the black waters of the moat, there was only a spreading ripple, and then nothing at all.