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Days passed; I lost count of how many.  My mind’s unrest over my sudden change of fortune had turned time into a slippery commodity. With each passing day we were closer to the palace, and my execution. Other times, when we were invited to palace balls, the trip took us around two weeks. That meant that two weeks would have gone by with me in a cage the moment we reached the palace walls. It was difficult to wrap my brain around that. Could it really have been almost two weeks? I would be eighteen in only a couple of days if my estimation of time was correct. Would they be cruel enough to execute me on my birthday? There was no doubt in my mind that once the king heard of my… my incident; I would be sentenced to death. He had no tolerance even for anyone who was so much as kind to someone who used magic.

Magic had been banned in Eerea since before I was even born. The hatred for those who possessed or used it was so strong that it had created people like my parents, who would offer up their own child just to see magic vanquished. The anti-magic laws had always been strict, but they were even stricter now. If this had happened to me in my youth, my parents might have only hid me. But that changed after the incident at the palace four years ago.

In a brazen attack, a powerful dark sorcerer, Andreas Scott Grigoli, had been brought to the palace throne itself, the most secure room in the kingdom. The exact details of how he escaped were never told. But, even more damning, he had sexually assaulted the princess Elisa before he left. It was said he announced that she had been the target of his “affections” all along, and the rumor was that he only allowed himself to be captured as long as it suited him.

The ease with which Grigoli had assaulted the heart of the kingdom and escaped, completely free, enraged the king beyond measure.  Unable to take his revenge against the powerful sorcerer, he instituted an absolute ban on any sign of magic in anyone. The very first indication that a person was capable of magic, or friendly to someone who was, was a death sentence.  The new law ripped families apart as brother turned on brother, and parents handed over children to avoid execution themselves. If the king could not battle men like Grigoli with laws and force, he could at least try to assure that none would have the chance to take their place.

What my parents were doing by taking me to him was ensuring their own survival. I understood their reasons, but, at the same time, nothing could suppress the despair that they were my family, and they were betraying me.

I guess my mother no longer considered my bloodline pure. I was the blemish that needed to be washed away in order to keep both the Eleanor and Argeno houses clean and perfect. In the end, everything came down to social standing. I was now at the bottom, even lower than peasants in their minds.

We neared a small town. I didn’t know where; the land, like the hours, slid through my harried mind without finding any purchase. The only things I knew for sure were that night was falling and we were getting closer to the palace with each town we passed through.

The carriage stopped at a small inn that would have, under better circumstances, seemed very friendly. I curled into myself in my cage as my family climbed out of the carriage without so much as glancing at me. I might have imagined a small glance from Zane, but it was gone too quickly. Eiet looked at me once, his expression conflicted, but he hurried inside with the other knights.

I remained in the cage. Oddly, though, not one of the knights stayed to guard me. I didn’t understand. Weren’t my parents afraid that I’d escape somehow? Or did they just not care?

The last of the sunlight disappeared, and with each star that came out, the air got colder. It was autumn, and the seasons were just starting to change. The promise of winter, a time I would never experience again, was in the chill air. The wind rose, and nipped at my exposed ankles.

I was still wearing the same night gown I had the night all of this started. The nightgown was less modest than my other clothing, since no one except my maidservant would see me in it. The neck line ended right above my breasts, and the sleeves only made it to my elbows. Luckily, the skirt was long, so at least my legs were covered.

Every inch of exposed skin began to feel of ice as the night progressed. I couldn’t sleep. The cold bit into me too much. Perhaps that was their plan, for me to freeze to death.  There was nowhere I could escape to, and thus, perhaps, no reason to guard me.

I got into a sitting position, hoping it would warm me up, and it did work a little. The wooden planks I was sitting on dug into my legs, assuredly leaving splinters behind, but I couldn’t feel them. My eyes were wide, alert. I couldn’t shut down. I stared at the metal bars that were fused together at the bottom of the cage, where they connected to the wooden planks of the chassis. Without even trying, I found myself almost entranced by this most mundane sight. A sudden thought occurred to me as I continued to stare at the bars. Wouldn’t I be able to make them move?

My roiled mind kept turning over the same elements of my situation over and over.  Magic, blue eyes, the shame of my family, my imminent death.  I still couldn’t come to terms with what I was. I couldn’t think the name or say it out loud. But that candle, jumping to life, kept repeating in my head.  And the dresser – the heavy, wooden dresser that was the weight of a small horse if it was a pound – smashing against the wall. Eventually, that was the image my mind settled into repeating.  The dresser smashing against the wall.  Smashing against the wall.  Smashing against the wall.

In the middle of that repeating vision, a thought suddenly occurred to me.  The dresser was destroyed because of me.

 Surely I should be able to move a metal bar too, right?

I looked again at where the metal joined the wood, following the sturdy bars up above me to where they joined in a mesh over my head.  I had to be as comfortable, as focused as possible.  I brought my face back down, concentrating all my attention and energy on the bars before me. I concentrated on one single bar.  In my head, my inner voice resolved into a chant. A drumbeat.  It throbbed as regularly as the headache, but the pain was replaced with consummate awareness: move, move, move.

But nothing happened.

The bar remained sturdy in its place. I redoubled my focus, my body starting to rock almost unconsciously back and forth with each repetition: move, move, move.

In my mind, I could picture the bars bending, twisting loose from the wooden slats at the bottom.  I could see the whole contraption lifting off, to the shock of any townspeople who happened to be glancing toward me at this hour.  In a moment, I was running off into the night, away from my doom and the family that had abandoned me.  I could see all of this as clearly as if it were actually happening.

But in the present world, the bars stubbornly stayed fixed before me.  Nothing.

 All the hope that had built up from before was starting to vanish. With a last ditch effort, I collected it back into my consciousness and tried again.

“Come on, move,” I begged, my voice cracking.

And still, nothing happened.  The bars were as solid as the day they were forged and molded.  My body deflated and I dropped my head, face down, into my folded arms, letting out a long sigh of hopelessness.  Some dangerous sorcerer I turned out to be, I mused.  Maybe all of these precautions and all of this consternation were needless.

“Asking nicely isn’t going to make anything move,” a deep, male voice I didn’t recognize said, and I jumped involuntarily.  An amused chuckle emanated from the darkness. I pulled my arms around my legs as a few footsteps brought the man out of the gloom to where I could see.

I became more transfixed as his features were illuminated. Deep, charcoal black hair sat disheveled on his head, uncustomary to men with stature. His eyes were a very deep, dark blue, the color of the midnight sky. He had a strong jaw, with proud cheek bones, and thick lips set in an unsettling smirk. My eyes traveled down his figure, and I noticed that he was dressed all in black, with a cloak that fluttered around him in the wind.

I shook my head to get rid of whatever spell he might have placed on me. “I know that,” I replied, my voice distant and flat.

He stepped closer and grabbed ahold of one of the bars. “What is a pretty girl like you doing in a cage out here in the cold? Isn’t someone worried about you?”

Suddenly I felt self-conscious as I remembered the less than modest nightgown. I hugged my knees tighter. His words had hit a nerve though, and tears I thought I no longer had a supply of, started rolling down my cheeks again. The smirk completely disappeared from the man’s lips.

“I… I…. I’m a… a witch… and my… my parents hate me…” I replied, not even recognizing my own meek voice.

The man’s eyes hardened. “Where are they taking you?” he demanded, his tone dark.

“The… the k-king,” I choked out.

The man’s entire body went rigid and it was a while before he spoke again. “Why?”

His voice had taken on a low, dangerous timbre that sent shiver of fear wending up my spine.  Suddenly, I was more afraid of him than I was of dying.

The look on his face told me I should answer, no matter how frightened I might be. “The l-law.  Of the k-k-kingdom.  They… want him to sentence… m-me… t-t-to death.”

Dark waves seemed to emanate from the stranger’s body and I felt a chill spread all around me. My eyes widened in fear, and I was far past worrying about showing it. He must have noticed, because his expression softened a fraction, though not enough to completely ease my fear.

He stared at me for a while, not saying anything, his expression unchanging and giving nothing away. Then, suddenly, in one swift movement, the bar he had been holding onto was gone. Before I even had a chance to register what was going on, he gabbed ahold of another bar and ripped it from its hinges as well and sent it flying in the other direction. There was now space for me to slip through. I stayed where I was, still acutely aware of the fear he induced in me. Sensing my hesitation, the man extended his hand toward me.

“Take it,” he demanded, his voice harsh.

I continued to hesitate. “How do I know you won’t hurt me?” I managed to ask, though I didn’t know how I had found my steady voice.

“You don’t,” he replied simply.

I didn’t move.

The man’s patience finally ran out and he reached into the cage, roughly grabbed my arm, and pulled me out. My muscles were too weak to fight him. The same unsettling feeling I had felt before going to sleep the night I discovered I had become a… a witch, spread through my body everywhere it came into contact with him. He pulled me into his arms and then stepped away from the cage. He set me down a couple feet away and angled himself between me and it.

He let go of me, but put his left arm around my waist when I almost fell over. I was unsteady on my own feet and felt embarrassed to need him for support.

“Why are you helping me?” I asked.

He hesitated. “Because if they kill you, it would be my fault.” My expression must have betrayed my confusion because he then said the last words I expected to hear. “I am the source of the law that hangs over you.  My name is Andreas Scott Grigoli.”