Chapter 5: Elenora: The Obsidian Tower

The humans wake me early and take me east an hour after dawn. Mist clings to the grass, curling around my ankles like pale fingers trying to hold me back. The air is cold enough to sting my cheeks. My wrists and hands are bound prayer fashion with a spell instead of chains ... thin bands of light that pulse with a rhythm not my own. Without the use of my fingers I cannot perform magic. Every time I try to move my hands, the magic bonds tighten, humming against my skin like a warning.

I don’t know if Mother and Father are still alive. I don’t know what has become of my sisters. The thoughts circle like vultures, slow and heavy, waiting for me to fall.

The three human soldiers escorting me march in silence. Their armour clinks softly, a steady rhythm that makes my heartbeat feel too loud in comparison. The road winds through the lowlands, past fields trampled by boots and spells, past trees that lean away from the path as if they can sense what waits at its end. The dark rain clouds add to the gloom.

The tower appears just as the sun breaks through the clouds. The fearsome structure rises from the earth like a shard of obsidian ... tall, narrow, impossibly smooth. No windows. No banners. Only a single carved door surrounded by runes that shimmer faintly in the sunlight. A sorcerer’s tower. The air around it feels wrong. Too still. Too expectant. As if the tower itself is holding its breath.

Magic gathers here. Old magic. Hungry magic. My stomach twists.