The next morning, before the sun had risen, Sylvanis leapt up from her straw bed. Adrenaline surged through her veins as she pushed through the broken iron bars. She rushed to Deyus, pulled him from his cell, and the two fled up the stone stairs. With a careful press, they opened the wooden dungeon door.

The corridor outside stood empty and silent. The torches extinguished, the dining hall clear: no knights, no guards, and no King. Only darkness and night.

The lovers breathed deeply.

Sylvanis crept forward. Through the corridor, across the dining room, she slunk into the main castle hall, pulling Deyus behind. With speeding hearts quick through shadows they ran through the throne room towards the wooden doors of the keep. Sylvanis, with all her strength, pushed the tall doors open.

The midnight sky shimmered with stars. Freedom lay before them; freedom, and the Tyrant King.

The King stumbled forwards in a drunken stupor, a flagon of wine in his hand. A guard on each side held his arms over their shoulders, helping him waddle toward the keep. As the doors opened he looked up with hazy eyes.

He gazed upon Sylvanis, and his red face bulged.

“My wildflower,” he slurred. “Out from her cage. Seize her.”

Sylvanis recoiled as the guards moved forward. She threw up her hand and called for her weapon. Two she might subdue if one had been simple, and she willed for the serpent to strike up from the ground.

It did not.

The snake was nowhere to be seen.

Deyus stepped forward and struck at the guards. One blow he landed but the second fell short, and the two overpowered him and bound up his arms. Then they buckled his knees and turned to snatch Sylvanis.

Again she called for her weapon.

Again silence answered.

So the two were captured and dragged back into the palace.

The Tyrant King stumbled forward and mumbled to his guards.

“Take the boy back to the dungeon and shut him away. Then bring the girl to my chambers,” he said. Then he left.

Sylvanis watched the guardsman drag Deyus away, back into the dark corridor and deep underground. She shouted for him, screamed his name, as she was pulled from the stone floor and dragged down a long hall.

At the end stood a door.

Sylvanis fell inside.

The Tyrant King stood in his chambers with grim features. He watched the girl collapse to the floor before him.

“I am in a sour mood,” he mumbled, haggard and sleepless. “And so though the hour is early yet, it stands the third day still. I ask you my question a final time, and await your eager response.”

Sylvanis hung her head on the floor. She wailed in frustration, she struck the stone and felt nothing touch her fist. Freedom snatched away before her fingertips, and now…

…now her time was up.

She lifted her hand a final time and beckoned her weapon to strike: beckoned it to rip the King’s throat out and swallow him whole.

But no one came.

Sylvanis dropped her hand. Her tears stopped, her thoughts stopped. Anything she felt then vanished into nothing. She opened her mouth and spoke in lifeless resignation.

“Yes,” she said, and that was all.

The King smiled an evil, eager smile, and took a deep savoring breath.

“So sweet a word,” he said. “So wonderful to hear. So glad am I to hear it. Oh, what a feeling you’ve given me, wildflower.”

Then he walked forward to the girl and placed his hands on her shoulders. He moved the cloth down, exposing her thin shoulders and neck.

Then he stopped.

“No,” he said. “I suppose one thing must come first.”

He moved past the girl and opened his chamber door, to where one of the guards stood watch.

“Lock her here,” he said, leaving the room. “And bring a knife to me in the dungeon.”

Sylvanis turned her head. She thought it impossible to feel more cold, yet those words chilled her down to the marrow.

“Why?” she asked quietly. “What will you do? Have you not won me? Am I not yours, as you wished? Have you not made me suffer enough for your pleasure? Will you yet make me weep?”

The King looked back with pitying eyes.

“I am sorry, wildflower,” he said. “But that boy twice sought to steal you from my embrace, and I loath him with fierce passion. I cannot keep my promise in the end.”

Sylvanis looked up at the King. Then she lunged forward.

She lunged with the intent of tearing the King’s throat out herself, and screamed fiercely and wildly, and bore her teeth.

But the door slammed shut, and a lock clicked.

Sylvanis beat against the wood. She tried to break the lock, to no avail. She pounded on the door, screamed at it, shouted in her rage all cruel things at the King. Then, when her rage fell to emptiness, she slid to the floor and cried.

Sylvanis wailed at her powerlessness and failure.

“You seem unwell, little witch,” a voice came from behind.