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It was the first time Skylar had ever heard a sound being made right before the violence shook the prison ground. It sounded like the distant echo of an explosion that, a split second later, caused the ground and walls to shiver until nothing looked straight anymore. The torchlight jostled against the quivering stone, and it made Skylar more off balance despite her hands cuffed overhead. She tried to stay on her feet, but the rattling ground sent her swinging. Towards the end she had given up trying to stand and just hung by her wrists until the quake was over.
There was only a brief reprieve before the aftershock of another violent tremor screeched against the stone, and that was when the floor beneath her gave out. The sudden drop caused Skylar to scream just as the handcuffs caught her, keeping her suspended in the middle of the room. She looked up, witnessing the strength of the chains, before gazing down to find the stone floor now a couple feet below where it had once been. She could see in the way the floor curved that something underneath had caught it, keeping the majority of it up.
Skylar felt the pull in her arms when the adrenaline started to wear off. Her wrists were beginning to feel numb, the blood rushing down her arms and making them weak. She threw her head back, wanting to scream but knowing that it wouldn’t do any good. So she hung there in the middle of the room, the orange glow of the torches flickering against the stone.
What seemed like hours were painful minutes before a squeaking sound echoed from beyond the door, persistent in its travel towards the room. Skylar held her breath as finally the door opened, and the keeper who entered almost took a misjudging step forward before catching himself. Scanning the ground, he glanced at Skylar before looking over his shoulder and stating, “Watch your step.”
After him came two more keepers, the last one pushing a metal box on a slender steel cart, a thin wire attached on the side in big loops that bounced with the movement. While the two last Keepers navigated the squeaking cart, the first one who had entered walked about the room in silence, inspecting the ground for any weaknesses. Skylar had kept her eye on him until the two walked by her, wheeling the contraption until it came to a halt next to the wall behind her. Trying to look over her shoulder, she barely caught sight of one of the keepers pulling loose the long wire while the other was attaching something to the metal box.
With the leather pulling against her skin, Skylar tried to relax her neck before twisting her head back again, hoping to get a good look at what they were doing. In that moment, she saw the keeper hooking a wire up to the box which was attached to the wall. Slowly her eyes trailed after it, following the wire that ran up the wall and across the ceiling until meeting the base of the chain. Squinting, she felt the chills on the back of her neck long before she saw the wire twisted down into the chain towards her handcuffs. With deep breaths, she touched the wire with her index finger and had to close her eyes to fight off the panic when she realized that the wire entered the leather handcuffs themselves.
Opening her eyes, she felt the pain in her wrists suddenly ease and forgot about the weakness in her blood-lost arms. Because standing in the doorway was everything she hated.
“Skylar,” the man said while smiling warmly, his black hair smoothed back, his black-and-cream coat spotless and magnificent. “It seems the world has fallen at your feet,” he said with a chuckle, stepping down into the room. He looked her over, keeping his expression soft and alluring. It was an attractiveness that Skylar had long been immune to.
She remained silent and only took her eyes off him when something grabbed her foot. Shaking, she found one of the keepers wrapping a leather cuff tightly around her ankle, a strap that resembled the ones she was hanging from. Like the handcuffs, a long wire protruded from the leather, and she didn’t have to look to know that it too was attached to the metal box.
“So beautiful,” Cross Lutherus said with a smile, edging his way towards her. “Even in such dire circumstances, you manage to look as regal as ever. That’s your inheritance, Skylar. That, and your eyes.”
The emotions pulsated through her body, eating away at her chest when her eyes rose to meet his. Stay calm, stay calm, she chanted to herself when she heard the machine being switched on, and the room was filled with a buzzing noise.
“Chancellor,” one of the keepers stated. “We’re ready.”
Cross Lutherus kept moving until he stopped in front of Skylar, the floor causing his head to be at the same level as her chest. Keeping his eyes on her, he simply replied with, “Very well.”
There was no hesitation when the keeper shoved a thick leather strap into her mouth, forcing it in between her teeth. She tried to jerk her head away, but the keeper had already grabbed the loose ends of the leather and pulled them around her cheeks, forcing her to keep her head tilted back as he fastened the straps from where he stood. She didn’t know one of the ends was a buckle until the leather was pushed against the back of her head, tangling into part of her hair when he tightened and fastened the strap. When he was done, her head automatically fell back down, the muscles in her neck tense and her mouth aching from the bitter leather taste. In her struggles, she twirled to the side, and in that movement, she caught sight of the metal box and the lever that was now sticking up out of it.
Twirling back around, the keeper who had fastened her strap grabbed her by the shoulder, forcing her body to stop moving. Trying to wiggle her mouth against the uncomfortable leather, the back of her head throbbing and stinging from where the hair was being pulled, she brought her eyes back to face her father’s advisor-turned-chancellor, who didn’t move from where he stood.
“I can only imagine how you got the key to him,” Cross Lutherus remarked, his charisma diminished and his cruelty twitching back into his eyes.
The key. Skylar could have laughed.
There had never been a key. The image of her standing in front of the vanity mirror, sorting through her hairpins, was what came to mind just before the image of Harlin and all they had done to him.
When she had stepped forward into his prison cell after being granted her visit, Skylar had stopped short at the horrific wonder suspended in front of her. His arms were held up by the handcuffs that dropped down from the ceiling, the same ones she now experienced. His body was covered in cuts, welts, and bruises, beaten to an extent she had never known before. But it was his face that her heart broke for, the bruising and red indents still on his forehead and cheek where the knotted rope had pressed against his skull, crushing his left eye socket when they had tortured him.
Skylar almost thought she could still feel the small metal hairpin she had tucked along the inside of her mouth. She remembered being afraid of losing it when she saw him, the shock of it causing her jaw to drop almost entirely. Catching herself, Skylar had approached him like a ghost, and when he lifted his head further to see her, she stopped just in front of him, searching his face through her blurry vision.
He breathed hard when he spoke, his voice soaked in pain. “You... shouldn’t... be here.”
“Neither should you,” she whispered back, trying to keep the hairpin from moving.
“You said you just wanted to look at him,” the keeper reminded her, remaining at the door.
Hearing him speak, Skylar moved the hairpin to rest on her tongue, trying to keep herself mentally ready.
“It’s best we leave now before—”
The kiss silenced them all. The keeper’s speech wavered after Skylar took a step closer to Harlin and forced her lips against his. Harlin’s body tensed from the contact, but out of want he kissed her back, and she used the opportunity to press the hairpin between his lips, which he took without hesitation. Neither heard the keeper rush towards them, only knowing his existence when he yanked Skylar backwards. She watched Harlin, who pulled against his chains as she was dragged out of the cell, his instincts still lying under the surface of his broken skin, his gaze still full of life and always watching her.
The longing stare on his face when she was dragged away was the same stare Skylar now wore as Cross Lutherus’s words called for her attention.
“Do you remember that night?” he questioned, grabbing her chin and jerking her vision towards him, reminding her that he was still speaking. “It started much the same way this session is going to go. Me starting off with a purpose. You denying it.”
Cross Lutherus drummed his fingers against her cheek, a sinister smile on his lips as he turned away. The action reminded her of when his fingers were rapping against the armrest of the throne he sat on the day she had finally come when he called.
“You have been avoiding me,” he had loomed, his eyes burrowing into hers.
Skylar had stood the same way Harlin always did. She kept her hands clasped in front of her, resting against the sheer pearl-gray dress with its scrunched layering and see-through sleeves. With no jewelry or tiara, and even her hair wrapped in a simple knot at the base of her neck, Skylar stood before the advisor in neutral attire that matched her mood.
“Always the observant one,” she remembered commenting.
Cross Lutherus slammed his hands on the armrests, lunging upward to his feet as he seethed, “We had a deal! And you will keep your side of it!”
Skylar stared straight ahead, unwavering in the way she held herself.
“We had a deal,” Cross Lutherus reminded her, stepping back into the dank cell with its cold stone and haunted screams. He raised his hand, signaling the keeper to ready whatever he had planned.
Skylar kept her jaw tight against the leather in her mouth, pushing out the physical pain and replacing it with defiance. She witnessed Cross Lutherus’s gaze turn to the man with the lever. With a swift jerk of his hand, he brought his eyes back to her just as she heard the keeper pull the lever down.
When the electricity ruptured, the memory of Cross Lutherus standing so boldly in front of her started to quake, and the atmosphere shivered under the spasms of the electric currents. She couldn’t hold back her screams, even with her teeth clenched down on the leather strap. Her eardrums felt like they were going to burst, her eyes stinging and her fingertips splitting open. But despite the currents distorting the images, even the ones she kept hidden behind her eyelids, Skylar still saw the advisor’s look when he had been standing in front of the throne. It was a look he had cast on the figure behind her, the man crossing the Great Hall. It was a look of disbelief, a look of fear.
She didn’t hear the keeper pull the lever back and didn’t know the electricity had long stopped, still making her twitch as she hung by her wrists. She was panting as the vibrations could still be felt inside her, aftershocks that were less deadly but just as painful.
“And that night, you tried to break it yet again,” Cross Lutherus said, crossing his arms.
Skylar couldn’t relax her jaw, which stayed clamped to the leather strap, blood trailing out of the corner of her mouth and her nostrils flaring from her deep breaths.
“I see your mind working. You can’t hide from me.”
“I remember,” she snarled through the leather strap, her deep breaths exhausting her point. “I remember your fear.”
Cross Lutherus picked up on the words. His eyes grew round, and the anger overtaking his gaze had the same hint of exasperation. When he looked down at the keeper across the way, he nodded, and then his eyes lifted to pierce hers despite his head never moving back up. It was a dark, barbaric gaze.
The electricity popped and hissed as it exploded underneath her skin, trying to find an escape as it sizzled up her veins and out through the handcuffs, seeking its release. Skylar’s body convulsed, much like the subconscious memory her mind flashed in front of her—of turning around and finding Harlin walking towards them from the end of the Great Hall. Even though the edges of her mind shook and made the imagery almost blurry, she could still see the large gun in his hand.
“Let her go!” his voice boomed forward like a chorus, bold and triumphant in his return.
It was then that Cross Lutherus had had his arm around her, held a short sword at her chest. Skylar saw her own hand grab the hilt of the sword in an attempt to keep it from piercing her. The sharp tip of the blade wavered above her chest where her heart lay.
Harlin kept approaching, and that was when the first chandelier crashed on the ground before them, the pieces bursting against the floor. Then the second one crashed, and the third, and the fourth. In a row, they fell on either side of the man who was walking towards them, his eyepatch covering his left eye but unable to mask the anger. She could still hear the monstrous burst of glass against stone, still see Harlin lowering the rifle back down after he had fired it at each chandelier to emphasize his point.
Her chest throbbed from under the blade’s touch, the phantom hold tingling against her skin. “All you have to do is sign,” were the words that helped her eyes to open, seeing the blurry torchlights and the man in black and cream.
“Why are you so stubborn?” Cross Lutherus whispered, approaching so that he could look up further into her face. His eyes remained round but were moist, giving the sign that he was pleading, suffering along with her.
But all Skylar perceived was that she was savoring the blood and leather in her mouth while burning from the inside out. Whatever sincerity he might have pretended to have fell to the wayside, all because of his history.
“Is it because you love him?” Cross Lutherus continued to whisper, a snarl in his lips as he pieced his words together.
The tears broke loose from Skylar’s eyes, falling down her cheeks, across the leather strap, and dropping off her chin. It was him, but it was someone else, too. Someone with bronze hair that hung over one of his eyes and who had a bright smile and quirky sense of humor, someone who she barely was shoulder height next to and whose laugh was infectious. It was someone who also had eyes the color of amethyst.
She could almost see him at the torchlight’s edge, sitting on the ground overlooking the pond. “They have a name for it,” she heard his voice say, still masculine even in its softest tone.
Skylar couldn’t see it like all the other dreams, but she remembered she had sat down beside him, waiting for him to continue.
Brayden looked at his quivering hand, his eyes drawn into a scowl as he watched it tremble on its own. “It’s called shaking palsy.” His eyes rose back up to stare at the pond. “It’s for certain, Skylar. I’m not going to get better.”
“Does Father know yet?”
“No,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “No, Phillip will tell no one. I’ll do it, once I figure out how to.”
Skylar studied his face, witnessed his hand as he tried to make a fist in order to stop its repetitive movements. “This isn’t a weakness,” she had tried to tell him. “This doesn’t change you.”
“How can I be king, Skylar?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her in disbelief. “Who would follow a shaking king? Who would marry and bear his son, knowing that he can’t even control his own limbs?” Brayden took a somber breath, the reality hitting him. “Who would want to pass this on to their child?”
“It’s not this that makes a king,” she said soothingly, taking hold of his quivering hand, trying to get him to focus away from his mad wanderings. “It’s your heart, and you have such a noble one.”
He had looked down at their hands but had remained silent.
“You’ll make it, Brayden. And when you do, you’ll look over your shoulder at all of us and realize how silly you were for not believing in yourself.”
The small smile pressed into his cheeks, his bronze hair gliding over one eye as he turned to smile at his little sister, nudging her with his shoulder. “You have so much faith in me, don’t you?” he whispered.
Something slapped her hard across the face. Dazed, Skylar blinked back the surprise of seeing Cross Lutherus standing before her.
“Where is he!” he screamed, the vein becoming a lightning streak that ran down his forehead.
Skylar screamed back at him, a high-pitched growl that the leather strap cut in half, and in frustration she threw her head back in order to escape him. Looking up, she noticed the red thin veins running up her arm, and as she figured out it was the path the electric current had traveled in order to escape the resistance of her body, the shock waves struck again.
The electricity this time warped around the image of Cross Lutherus dragging her backwards, the blade stretched out in front with both their hands on the hilt, still aiming for her heart. Guards had filed into the room behind Harlin, and in the jumbled spasms, he fought them. It was a mass cluster of movements that Skylar could barely remember, only noting the intense pain in her chest, the extreme sensitivity to touch.
She could still hear Cross Lutherus laughing in her ear as they watched. “You can’t beat them all!” he yelled into the open space. He continued to force Skylar backwards towards the side entranceway, the distorted shouts of the nearby castle guards coming from down the hallway towards them.
Skylar still felt her hand on the hilt, using her strength to keep the blade now hovering over the bare spot of her shoulder where the sleeve of her dress had slipped. She could almost feel the metal against her skin and Cross Lutherus’s arm tight around her. His shoulder was pressed against hers, and his sharp breathing rattled in her ear as he too kept his attention on the knight.
Suddenly the vision quaked again, ripping under her skin and making the scene toss and turn. Despite the shaking, she felt herself being propelled backwards into the hallway, Harlin’s fight framed by the doorway. Then the thunderous chorus exploded behind her, and she remembered the staccatos that rose from the guards who stampeded from behind her. Time itself couldn’t keep up with Harlin, who swung his blade, unaware of the force that was coming, of the merciless death they were bringing to him.
When the last man fell in the Great Hall, Harlin’s blood-splattered face met hers. She stared past the quivering sword, out into the eye of the knight who stood in the same spot he had all those times she had come to speak to her father. Now the throne was empty, and death lay scattered at the feet of the knight who she had cared the most for.
“Goodbye,” is what she whispered out to him right before she thrust the blade into her left shoulder with as much force as she could. With Cross Lutherus’s momentum already behind the hilt, the blade cut through her shoulder and straight into his. She saw a flash of white as the pain rocked her, the next burst of electricity in her body making everything more violent and blurry. Cross Lutherus’s scream erupted in her eardrum until his voice faded backwards, her only remembrance that he had fallen to the ground while she remained standing.
Before the panic could set in, Skylar pulled the blade out, trembling as the metal slid out from in between her muscle and skin. Blood stained the crevices of the short sword, and Skylar was lightheaded while she stumbled towards the wooden door, the blood rushing through her shoulder and soaking her dress all the way down the side.
The lull of the electric current hummed even in her unconsciousness, allowing her to envision that she had grabbed the edge of the door when Harlin screamed for her. His voice was thunderous just as the current flooded her body again, robbing her memory and distorting his words. The image of Harlin running towards her split into two figures, and she slammed the door shut and bolted the lock before either could reach her. He hit the center of the door, shuddering the hinges, and his voice was muffled as it, too, shivered in the atmosphere. She heard him yelling for her, his fists pounding against the door, but all she did was place her hand over the wood, knowing he was underneath the surface of the grains. Her head hung from the exhaustion, and then slowly her hand slid down to fall by her side.
Everything went quiet, and for a second she thought the memory was real. Then she caught sight of the ripple in the wood, a sign of an aftershock. That was when she heard the high-pitched rings of the multiple pistols being cocked back. Rotating slowly around, the ground trembled once again as she faced the hallway that overflowed with castle guards. Her vision caused some of the soldiers to split apart and then morph back together, confusing her as to how many there actually were. All she knew for sure were that the first two rows of guards had their guns aimed at her.
“Step away from the door!” Cross Lutherus yelled at her, on his feet and holding his wounded shoulder. “Protecting him will not save your cause! He’s just one man!”
“That’s all it takes,” was her reply.
Cross Lutherus clenched his jaw, sweat forming on his forehead. “Detain her,” he commanded. Three of the closer guards holstered their guns and began to move towards her without hesitation, assuming her injury had already disarmed her from being able to use the short sword she still held in her right hand.
Know where the vital points are, the haunting voice whispered.
The first man approached, a young man whose lack of years told him to take off his helmet, so sure was he that she would be easy to detain. Skylar rotated the blade around, gripping the handle in such a way that the blade ran parallel to her forearm. She took a step back, pivoting so that she held the sword to the side and away from him. The guard grabbed hold of her free arm in order to lead her away, and Skylar used the momentum of the handle behind her fingers to ram it into the guard’s nose, instantly blinding him with tears and causing him to briefly suffocate. Before he could shield his nose, Skylar had already slid the blade of the sword under his arm, close to his armpit. The blade missed the armor, cutting straight through until it hit bone, and withdrawing the blade as quickly as she had implanted it, she knew she had cut across the brachial artery when the blood began to pour out. Shocked, the guard took only a couple steps back before falling to the ground.
Skylar saw that the two other guards had stopped in their tracks, watching as she made her way to the fallen guard and knelt beside him.
The blood loss was beginning to take its toll on him, and his disoriented stare fluttered up to meet hers.
“Forgive me,” she whispered to him.
The man’s chest began to fall shorter and shorter out of breath, but it didn’t deter him from saying, “Forgive me, Your Highness.”
“Always,” she reassured him, and the guard almost smiled back before his chest collapsed and he died.
Keeping her tears to herself, Skylar drew herself back to her feet and confronted the next guard who now approached, drawing his own short sword from his back and keeping his helmet on. With blood dripping down her own sword and mingling with her fingers, Skylar moved forward, her eyes leveled on him. In defense, the guard swung his sword in a sweeping motion in front of him, his focus on the eyes that were threatening his. And like all those countless times with Harlin, Skylar ducked underneath it. When the sword passed, she lunged upwards, her fist ramming underneath the helmet and into his chin, snapping his head backward. Even before he began to stumble, she had already thrown the point of her blade into his exposed throat.
The guard’s body fell like a heavy metal sack just as another came at her from the side. Skylar wasn’t fast enough, and the blade sliced through her dress and across her ribcage. Automatically she screamed, falling to her knees. She cradled her wound just long enough to see the guard step forward, his sword lying across the back of her neck. That was when she saw the man’s legs, how they were parted in his attack stance. With her own short sword still in hand, she took a deep breath before plunging the blade straight into the man’s inner thigh, gliding in between the cracks in the armor and cutting through what she knew was his femoral artery.
The short sword rolled off her neck as it fell to the ground, the guard’s screams overtaking his defense. Skylar ignored him, hoisting herself up to her feet. She moved away from the shrieking guard whose blood gushed from between his fingers as he tried to cover his own wound, only to fall to the floor.
She limped forward, the pain in her side making her hunch, the wound in her shoulder making her left arm almost lifeless by her side. Still holding the short sword, the only person she now saw was Cross Lutherus, who stepped forward from the crowd of castle guards in order to face her head-on. With her teeth clenched, Skylar continued on, despite the pulsating pain that begged her to stop.
Cross Lutherus couldn’t help but smirk. “Stand down,” he softly cooed to her, which Skylar took for mocking.
Two guards stepped past the advisor, their guns aimed at her. Their close proximity made her stop, and she stood slightly bent over as they approached, coming to stand on either side of her. The guard closest to her sword told her to drop it.
Raising her arm slowly up, she kept the blade hovering just inches from where the gun was pointed. “You’ll have to take it from me.”
She felt the other guard’s gun press hard into the cut on the back of her neck, making her wince. Keeping her eyes on the closest guard, she watched as he cautiously grabbed the sword handle and slowly pulled it from her grip.
“You thought you could bring a knife to a gun fight,” Cross Lutherus quipped, slightly amused.
The gun was removed from her neck, and she was allowed to turn her head in order to face Cross Lutherus again. She could feel the trickle of blood rolling down the back of her neck from where the gun squeezed the knick the short sword had made. The two stared at each other while he gave the signal, and the remaining guards jogged past them, unbolting the door and rushing into the Great Hall. It took them moments before one came back to report that Harlin was missing.
The vein in Cross Lutherus’s forehead throbbed underneath his skin. “Bring her to her knees.”
There was no hesitation as the guard who held the sword used it to hit her on the side of the leg. Skylar dropped to the ground screaming, her forehead touching the cool floor while she placed her hand over where he had struck her. Shaking, she didn’t have to look to know that through the fabric of her dress blood marred her fingers and palm. Fresh blood that was all hers.
The same guard bent over and grabbed her by her hair, pulling her backwards so that she had to look up at Cross Lutherus, whose enraged glare had fallen on her. “He will die. Mark my words,” he said in a clipped voice.
“Not today,” she answered him.
The guard let go of her hair, transferring his hold to her arms. She cried out when he pulled back the arm attached to her wounded shoulder, and she tried to silence her screams by hissing through her teeth so that the men before her wouldn’t see her weakness.
Her wrists were bound in metal handcuffs that pressed straight into the bone. Even though tears were built up in her eyes, she kept her glare on Cross Lutherus, who stepped closer to her. When he backhanded her across the face, his ring caught her lip, and the blood seeped into her mouth, which she spit at him. That one action fueled his anger further, and he hit her again, slamming his fist into the side of her face. She didn’t know he had continued those strokes and that when the guard finally let her go, she fell to the floor long past unconscious, his image replaced by the city and the sea.
Skylar took a deep breath through her flaring nostrils as Cross Lutherus looked back at her from where she hung, the shockwaves of the electricity still skipping across her muscles in little spasms.
“No matter the pain or infliction,” Cross Lutherus spoke to her, awaking her from her wanderings. “No matter how much more you can live through or live with—”
Skylar opened her tired eyes to stare at him, lightning streaks dancing across her vision.
“Mark my words, Skylar Mandolyn,” Cross Lutherus hissed up into her face. “I will bring you to your knees.”
The anger rose from somewhere deep, bubbling up inside her. It filled every crevice underneath her skin while clearing the air between her and the reality of things.
“Again,” the advisor called out, turning away from her. Skylar bit down on the leather as she stared at him. She heard the lever start to scrape forward, and with nothing but anger, she swung her legs up and wrapped them around Cross Lutherus’s neck. In the moment she made contact with him, the electric current exploded down the wire, through her body, and straight into his. The current locked them together, and Cross Lutherus shook and screamed with her.
Once the electricity stopped, Cross Lutherus dropped to the ground, and Skylar was too paralyzed to move anymore as she swayed from the handcuffs. The prison keepers rushed over to the advisor, leaving Skylar to dangle half-unconscious as they inspected their superior.
Skylar squinted down at the fallen man, witnessing the foam and blood oozing from his mouth, his eyes rolled back into his head when they peeled his eyelids apart to examine him. He had a pulse, but somewhere in the mass cry of orders, someone had confirmed he had bitten his tongue off.
