“I’d like to see even the Majis themselves take us on!” another said.
“Did you see it? Climbing up that tower with its tail between its legs? Coward!” another spat.
Each passing gibe increased the urgency in Isa’s heart. “Out of my way!” she yelled, using her elbows liberally to fight her way across. The bridge was wide, but the wooden planks below her feet responded with a tremor at every footstep.
She was nearly to the end of it when two hands grasped her around the waist.
“My Isabel!” a sickly familiar voice cried. “Have you come to celebrate our victory?” Macklin swayed, whether drunk with the energy of his victory or merely losing his balance on the flexible bridge, she could not tell.
She pressed her hands against his chest, trying to push herself away from him but wary of the flimsy rope netting between her and a fall into the chasm.
“Who’s the hero now!” Macklin continued, seemingly unaware of her struggle, his arms firmly around her waist. “I have freed you and come to claim my prize!”
She threw her head back to separate her body from his.
Misunderstanding her movement, or deliberately taking advantage of it, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers.
Shocked and enraged, Isa raised her hand and slapped the side of his head as hard as she could.
He let go of her to grab his face in surprise.
“I told you never to touch me again.” Intent on a different goal, she moved out of his range, flinging herself from the swaying bridge onto solid ground.
Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she ran up the hill toward the villa.
It was completely lifeless as she approached. No light shone from the inner windows or exterior torches of the courtyard. The stars above cast a dim light over the old stone structure from their twinkling place in the heavens, but even with their help she could only see very little.
“Aden!” she yelled, her eyes frantically searching every shadow.
She was here. She had come back to break his curse or be with him to the end.
She was too late. Macklin had claimed victory.
“Aden!” she yelled again.
She ran to the front entrance. The doors were locked. “Aden!” she screamed.
“Milady?” Luca responded from inside. “Is that you? The door is barricaded. Go through the kitchen.”
The familiar voice in the midst of the eerie surroundings flooded Isa with a renewed energy. She ran around the villa, fighting through the shadows to find the kitchen entrance at the back of the building.
Blanca met her at the door with a lantern.
“Where is he!?” Isa cried.
“We don’t know yet,” Blanca responded. “We couldn’t find him in the courtyard. We heard a scuffle on the roof. Luca is trying to find a way to the rooftop.”
“The towers,” Isa responded, dashing through the kitchen. “Someone on the bridge said he fled to a tower.”
But which one? There was a tower in each wing. She paused in the hallway, debating which direction to turn. Remembering their secret meeting in the eastern tower, she wasted no more time making a decision and turned right toward the eastern wing. She realized as she ran that it was the farther tower from the kitchen, but by that point she was already at the end of the eastern hallway.
Isa vaguely realized that Blanca was panting behind her, carrying the lantern, but she pressed forward faster than the older woman could keep up with.
She opened the small door at the end of the hallway and wound her way up the tower stairs. Her own breathing was labored, and her legs begged for relief, but she pushed through, praying that this was the right tower. If it was not, she did know if she could summon the strength to climb the wester tower as well.
Finally, she reached the door of the top tower room, its open-air windows letting in the light of the stars.
“Aden!” she yelled. “Where are you? Don’t leave me, not yet!”
