ChapterOne
“Asingle word and this torment ends.”
Sybil swipes ropes of dirty hair from her face, where wrinkles have etched their way across her ashen flesh during the months she’s rotted away inside my dungeon. I’ve taken pleasure in watching her youth and beauty fade. Oh, how I’ve enjoyed witnessing Rapunzel’s magic drain from this witch’s body, leaving her a brittle, old woman. One whose persistence and devotion, although admirable, are foolish. It’s also unfortunate, given how her perseverance has worn my patience down to a raw nerve. I’ve wasted too much time already indulging in her misguided loyalty to Rapunzel.
It ends today. In this cell, rank with her stink because I’ve denied the witch even the most basic of humane necessities.
I have not even provided her with clean water.
This is the punishment for choosing the wrong side in my kingdom.
Her food rivals the slop tossed in the swine pens. Urine overflows to puddle around her chamber pot. Lice and fleas have made a home on her abused, frail body. The only comfort afforded her is a straw mattress with a single, threadbare linen blanket soiled with the body fluids of the man I had slaughtered days before this cell became her tomb.
And yet, Sybil’s irritating spirit rages around her like a protective cloak. I’ve grown exasperated with her fortitude. The need to bring this witch to heel has become an obsession. One that burns so hot, it’s almost as fervent as my need to find Rapunzel.
“Inadequate.” Her croaked reply is pushed past cracked lips. Her fetid breath fills the space between us.
I tilt my head, my ear toward her, waiting to hear more. When she remains stubbornly silent, I snarl, “Explain.”
“Greater men have failed to break me.” Sybil straightens her spine. The chain attached to the manacle around her throat rattles with the movement. “You. Are. Inadequate.” Her eyes spark with fury, and I know if she had access to her herbs and talismans, she’d cast a spell to drop me dead where I stand. Confirming this, she spits, “To the devil with you.”
“I’ll meet him in due time. But you’ll see him first,” I bite out, refusing to rise to her bait. Instead, I gesture at her kneeling at my feet and collared to the wall like a feral dog. Her reach is limited in the already tight cell, and I remain out of her grasp. The fat ruby on my finger catches in the dim light of the torch flickering from the single wall sconce beyond the rusted bars. I hold out my hand to admire the jewel. “Why do you insist on fighting me?”
Sybil shakes her head, the thick cuff around her neck tight enough to dig a bloody trench into her flesh. Her rattling breath echoes throughout the dank and claustrophobic prison. “To explain devotion and honor to you would be like explaining the heavens to an insect.”
Her remark warrants a slap across her bony face. A crimson slash follows the path of my ring. Repulsed, I clean away the filth of her from my skin with a slide of my palm along my blue silk tunic. “You are many things, Sybil of Aberdeen, but I never expected foolish to be among them.” I flex my fingers, revolted that I still detect her grime on my skin. When I focus back on her, I note how she’s desperately fighting to hide her shivering under the weight of the dungeon’s oppressive chill. “Tell me where you put my daughter and I’ll provide you with clothing and a warm meal.”
This irritating exchange has gone on far too long. Three months too long. The repetition of her enduring the techniques of my best torturer is getting tiresome. Also, time is running out.
Damn her.
The stubborn witch, with her gray hair hanging over her face in matted ropes, sags, lowers her head and heaves out a heavy sigh. Then she pitches forward until her palms slap against the dirty stone floor. Her body is racked with violent tremors, and I smile, satisfied.
Perhaps todayisthe day that moves me one step closer to reuniting with Rapunzel.
“I know the evil that festers within you, John.” Sybil’s rasp barely breaks the quiet.
I charge toward her but skid to a halt. Her foulness permeates through the fabric of my divinely granted royalty. “You know nothing!”
“Why, in all the time you’ve had me here, have you not demanded I weave a spell to—?”
A second slap silences her. After licking blood from the corner of her mouth, she peers at me from between that tangled hair. The dark gray of her abysmal eyes makes a slight shift to an unholy shade of obsidian, piercing through my flesh and bone. Straight to my secrets. I should rip those all-seeing orbs from their sockets and shove them down her throat to watch her choke on them.
“Do you think me a simpleton, witch?” Frustration has me stamping my foot, and it takes effort to calm my temper. “I trusted you and it killed my wife. Now, your days of spell-casting are over and once I have Rapunzel, I will become an unstoppable force. As for you,” I stab a finger at her. “You’ll rot down here in this dungeon until you’re nothing more than dust.”
“Oh, I’ll be dust soon enough.” She shifts, her bones creaking. Pride, I’m sure, provides her with a bit of strength. “I gave Rapunzel life from the dying Queen’s last breath. I raised your daughter, King John of Rygard, and I raised her well.” Her disdain drips with my title floating in the air. “There is nothing of you in that woman. Nothing at all. She will sooner burn herself alive than give up one hair to the monster you have become.”
“We shall see, won’t we?” I lock my hands behind my back. Tuck my lips under my teeth and nod my head, contemplating her fervent statement. Then I blink a time or two and soften my expression, my grin falsely benevolent. “Until now, I’ve been charitable toward you.” I unlock my hands and crouch low until we’re at eye level. “But I’ve grown weary of your insolence. Your agony will be legendary.”
“Do your worst, John.” Sybil spits at my feet. “But be forewarned, I’ll protect your daughter until my dying breath.”
“Let’s test your bravery when I have you on the rack.” I straighten to my full height, fury at her audacity slithering through my veins. “I’ve heard warriors twice your size beg for mercy as I tied the ropes around their wrists and ankles. And even more who were willing to slaughter their own children as the ropes pulled apart their joints.”
“You are an abomination.” Her hiss worms its way deep inside my ear, ricocheting inside my skull. I bat at the side of my head as if to dislodge the sound, then growl at Sybil’s feeble sorcery trick. “How dare youevercall yourself Rapunzel’s father. You don’t deserve that title, much less that of King.”
The venom in her barb might strike me if I were anything less than a king, but God himself appointed me. And she… This filthy, half-mad creature at my feet… She is beneath me. She is nothing. A scab. “And you are living on borrowed time, mongrel. As such, you have no voice.” I whip around to face the open metal door of Sybil’s cell, where the jailer awaits my order. “Come, Giles. Do you have your knife?” Then I turn back to Sybil, ignoring the defiant gleam in her disturbing eyes. “Let’s make this interesting, shall we?”
Giles, a burly man missing one eye, slides his blade from its sheath at his left hip as he enters the cell. He scratches his round gut with his free hand, then points at Sybil. “Aye, Your Majesty.” The revolting man holds the dagger up for me to inspect. “I am always your humble servant.”
