Page 7 of To Sway a Prince
Nothing happened.
Zephyrus snarled, his head snapping up in the first true show of alarm since this started.
Cold dread spiked through me. No burst of heat or tightness of energy cut across my consciousness. The ground remained painfully firm beneath my feet. No! Bands of purple runic energybound my feet to the floor. I hated undoing runic knot magic. They never had one central thread. And somehow these had slipped beneath my protection shield. Damn him, he was good.
"You thought it would be that easy to leave?" Ramiel scoffed, his hand still lifted, his wrist straight but his manner so casual he was clearly not using all of his strength. "I warned you not to underestimate me." He dropped it then against the hilt of his blade, his wrist now limp though the power in the magic remained strong.
My breath hissed through my teeth. "How—" It didn't matter. I shook my head. No one had ever blocked my pulseporting and knotwork shield so effortlessly before. "Let me go!" Rage boiled through me. I thrashed against the bonds at my feet, my knotwork shield still flickering between us. Whatever he had done, I couldn't feel the heat within. It was as if he was blocking the entirety of my magic as well.
Zephyrus roared, throwing himself against the bars of his cell. The metal groaned but held firm. His massive claws reached through the gaps and gouged at the stone.
Ramiel was just beyond his reach, his expression impassive. "I warned you, and now you have upset Zephyrus. That is bad for all of them."
"Let us both go and it all gets better!" I snapped.
He sighed and shook his head. With a flick of his hand, runes appeared in the air before me—ancient symbols that twisted and coalesced into a shadowy creature with too many limbs to count. It lunged at me, passing through what remained of my shield as if it were mist.
Cold fingers wrapped around my arms, my throat, my waist—the creature's grip unyielding as ice. I struggled, my knotwork magic sliding out and falling away. Its fingers moved through the shield as I struggled to keep it up, even as each knot strained and buckled. My breath snagged.
Zephyrus bellowed louder. His tail slammed against the bars with enough force to make the entire chamber shudder, and the other dragons took up the call, roaring, snarling, and howling.
Ramiel just watched me, his shoulders squared and his expression hardened. An expression almost like regret flickered in his eyes, but he lifted his hand and said something.
I couldn't catch the words. The shadow creature wrapped over me at once, pulseporting me away.
Darkness swallowed me. There was nothing but me, that cold shadow, and my struggling knotwork shield. I couldn't move—couldn't even draw a breath! A voiceless scream locked in my throat.
Then the darkness vanished. Something hard and cold slammed into my shoulder and side. I gasped for air, choking and sputtering as the entity pulled back.
Dozens of questions poured through my mind. Where was I? Where was Zephyrus? My head pounded, the roars and bellows of the dragons now muted and far away. I rolled to my feet, fists clenched. My hair slid over my face. What—I was in a cell now. A heavy iron door glared down at me. Not even a scrap of light slipped beneath the ledges.
"No!" I slammed my hand against the door, the impact stinging through my palm. The bite of a sigil on the other side warned me of the kind of magic he'd used to seal me in. "Let me out!"
The shadow creature had vanished as well.
Falling back, I drew in a long, shaking breath and took in my surroundings. Only a single torch lit this cell, too far up for me to easily reach. A scowl creased my brow. Yet another surprise. Ramiel was full of them. This was no dank cell with mold or rats. The stone floor was smooth, clean stone, swept free of dust. The bed—an actual bed, not a pile of straw—looked softer than what I'd slept on in years, with thick blankets folded neatly at its footand a soft white pillow stuffed with duck feathers from the looks of a few wisps poking out.
"What kind of prison is this?" I muttered, running my fingers along the wall. As I focused, I willed my energy into my aura. Slowly it expanded out. The fine lines of magic even through the door became more and more visible.
Yes. There!
More sigils and a ward etched into the doorframe.
I managed a bitter grin, pleased and annoyed all at once.
Complex patterns of runic magic interwoven with sigil work, their edges glowing faintly purple in the torchlight. This was more what I'd expected from the fabled Sentinel—powerful, ancient magic that practically hummed with energy. The knotted centers were five strands thick but likely held together by a single particularly strong thread. Once I spotted the weakest one within the five, I could draw it out, work it loose, then make my escape by pulseporting through the gap.
I pressed my hands against the door all the harder, seeking the threads of magic that bound those sigils and wards. Golden light flickered from my fingertips and down my blade as I worked to unravel the knots, searching for weak points in the pattern and that central thread.
The magic resisted, slipping away from my grasp like water.Whatever that shadow creature was, it had drained some of my strength. An uncomfortable emptiness had settled within me. I tried again, digging deeper, my teeth gritted with effort. "It makes no sense," I grumbled. "Why leave the dragons with so little protection and focus so much down here? Wherever here is."
"You're not asking the right questions, little knotweaver," a voice chuckled, seeming to come from the air itself.
I spun around, searching for the source. The underlying shimmer and vibrato of the voice suggested some sort of magicalentity. Possibly male. Definitely not Ramiel. "Who's there? Show yourself!"
"I am Caein," the strange voice responded. "And I assure you, this tower is well protected. But it was clear you were not a threat to the dragons."
I set my hands on my waist, my fingers tapping with anxious rhythm. "You mean he knew I was coming?"
