Chapter 3
My thieving exploits had taken me on many adventures over the years—thrilling and often dangerous treasure hunts across the kingdom and beyond, searching for the objects with the most fascinating stories and intriguing secrets embedded within them—but this was my first dungeon.
It was darker than I expected, but not nearly as miserable as the stories made it seem. It possessed a certain charm…in a grim, echoey sort of way. Iron bars cast long shadows against cracked stone walls, and everything smelled faintly of mildew, old grief, and the dust of forgotten things.
I took it all in with the calm scrutiny of someone studying the pieces of a puzzle. A difficult one to be sure, but no riddle had bested me yet. And when I made my way out, I’d have “dungeon” to proudly add to my list of escaped places. A fine addition to my resume as an accomplished thief.
My fingers brushed along the cool stone, finding the seams in the mortar, testing loose spots.
The lock looked standard, though the bars were reinforced with something more stubborn—a shimmer of magic hidden beneath the iron I could almost feel, like an enchantment humming just beneath the surface, far studier than any physical lock.
Trickier than most, but not impossible.
It wasn't the cell that occupied most of my thoughts, but rather the strange events that had led me here. A shard that pulsed when I touched it, a lie about a vanished prince that might not have been far enough from the truth, the perplexity filling the guards’ eyes as they looked at me, a mysterious prophecy they believed might apply to me: found where none would expect.
With all the mysteries to ponder and solve, I would pass my brief imprisonment quite comfortably. Because it would be brief, I vowed.
I folded myself onto the bench and stretched out my senses, anchoring myself in reading the stories etched into the world around me in search of clues.
Forgotten objects lay scattered around the holding cell—handkerchiefs bearing the emblem of imprisoned political figures, a snapped necklace, a cracked ring, discarded utensils from the cell’s last occupant.
Forgotten objects, each clinging to the memories of those who had once held them.
They pulsed with the residue of emotion—rage, sorrow, desperation, and regret, so much regret. I touched each with the barest contact, just enough to skim the objects’ history to see if any would prove useful…but the emotions quickly overpowered me.
I recoiled. Too much. I pressed a hand against my chest and exhaled, grounding myself. I couldn’t afford to absorb their fear and weaken myself, not now.
Instead, I closed my eyes and deliberately reached inward, just enough to stitch my own feeling into the stone around me and leave my mark behind—not one of fear or regret, but hope. Even if no one else would sense it, I would know it was there. A quiet promise to myself as I found a way to escape.
I waited a few minutes longer, giving the guards time to settle into complacency—and to humor the illusion that escorting me all the way down here hadn’t been a complete waste of their evening.
After such a long trek, it seemed only polite to let them temporarily believe they’d successfully imprisoned me.
The lock itself wasn’t complicated. Whoever had enchanted these bars clearly assumed most prisoners wouldn’t have spent countless hours obsessively studying the art of lock picking in all its intricate, beautiful detail—or become so skilled they could open half the vaults in the kingdom blindfolded.
Their mistake.
I dropped to the floor and retrieved the hidden pin from beneath the seam of my boot, offering silent thanks that the guards had at least possessed the decency not to strip-search a woman, chivalry that would be their downfall.
I worked quickly, fingers steady as the familiar rhythm took over. One click. Two. The third caught…and resisted. I frowned and adjusted the angle, gave my wrist a final twist of finesse…Click. The bolt shuddered but held. My lips curled into a smirk. Almost—
A sudden pulse snapped through the metal, sending a shock up my arm, the pin searing hot between my fingers. I yelped and jerked back, the tool clattering to the floor as I cradled my hand.
Magic. Of course. High palace security wouldn’t rely on steel alone—they couldn’t have angry escaped prisoners staging coups or would-be assassins crawling through the corridors—but it certainly complicated matters for me.
I had never encountered a lock I couldn’t solve. Stubbornness surged. I tried again. Once. Twice. A third time. Each attempt ended with the same punishing pulse, until my hand throbbed with pain and my fingers refused to close.
I sat back on my heels, scowling. It appeared they’d woven a failsafe, likely keyed to a royal magical signature. And I was no royal, as everyone kept reminding me.
My pride smarted even more than my scorched palm that this lock had dared to outwit me.
Teeth clenched, I paced the cramped cell, searching for anything I might have overlooked—a stone that triggered a hidden passage, a loose bar, something to stand on to reach the high, barred window.
Nothing. The stone walls remained silent, the bars solid, the shadows indifferent.
Could I actually be…trapped? The thought slithered in like smoke—unwelcome, dark, and hard to banish.
I gave my head a rigid shake. No, I couldn’t entertain such an impossible notion. I was an expert thief who always got away.
With escape momentarily out of reach, I had no other course than to wait. My bravery gradually wore thin as time dragged on, not because of the circumstances not much different than my imprisonments during some of my riskier exploits, but from the weight of the memories pressing in on every side.
They saturated the stones, emotions so strong I could sense their echoes without even reaching for them.
Hundreds of lives had passed through this room in the centuries since this palace was built, each leaving traces behind.
And from what I could glean in the fragments even without consciously searching, most of their stories hadn’t ended well.
I didn’t know where my own tale would lead.
If only my magic could reach into the future, let me glimpse the memories I’d one day leave behind in these very stones.
But even if I possessed that ability, I wouldn’t use it.
There was a reason I owned almost nothing of my own; some memories were too painful to relive.
The silence pressed in around me like a second set of bars, almost as oppressive as the iron ones that taunted me.
I paced the length of the cell again as much as the confined space allowed, then again, unable to keep still.
I quickly lost count of how many times I’d circled the cramped circumference when something suddenly caught my notice—tucked into the corner, half-hidden behind a cracked crate.
Many intricate layers wove together to grant me the ability to read the objects I touched, one of which allowed me to sense when something ordinary concealed a deeper secret. Instinct stirred, a wordless whisper that beckoned me to the far wall as intrigue took the place of panic.
I brushed my hand along the damp stone until my fingers paused on one that was subtly warmer than the rest—barely noticeable, but enough for me to feel the shimmer of magic vibrating beneath its surface.
I pressed my palm flat against it. The texture was smoother than the surrounding stones, as if worn by time…
or by the repeated touch of someone who had once occupied this very cell.
Curiosity stirred. I dropped into a crouch, brushing my fingers along the edge of the stone until they caught on a shallow groove, carved into the seam.
A mark, almost too faint to see. I leaned closer. The moonlight filtering through the high window offered just enough illumination for me to make out a single half-faded symbol, etched with haste or secrecy.
It wasn’t a prisoner's tally mark, but a familiar crest—a circlet crowned with thorns. My breath caught. The royal sigil.
I traced its design, letting my magic seep into each carving. The memory came in flashes—of a man I recognized from his portrait, whom I had already glimpsed in visions earlier that night through the objects in his chambers. A man who felt more familiar than he should.
The missing prince.
Heart thudding, I slowly withdrew my hand, questions swirling through my mind that the fragments of memory had not revealed: why would the crown prince, long believed to have vanished without a trace, carve his sigil into the stone of a prison cell?
The weight of the discovery pressed against me more heavily than the confined walls imprisoning me.
The sigil raised more questions than it answered, each one circling my thoughts like moths to flame.
Why had the prince been here? What had happened to him afterward?
And why did it feel as though he had left this mark for someone—perhaps even me—to find?
But the silence offered no reply.
With no further clues to chase, I sank onto the cold floor, curling my cloak tighter around me.
Time passed achingly slowly, so that I felt each second drift away into the uncertain night.
I’d just begun to idly wonder what curtains would go well with the dank stone should I be stuck here indefinitely when footsteps suddenly echoed in the darkness, slowly descending the steps into the dungeon.
The door creaked open, flooding the dungeon with a pool of candlelight that scattered the clinging shadows. The flame flickered across the cold stone walls as the same guards who’d locked me away approached my cell.
I tensed immediately, instinct bracing me for the sentence I’d feared since they dragged me down here, every tight muscle poised to resist.
The head guard, Tomas, stopped just short of my cell bars. I offered my sweetest smile. “Did you miss me already?”