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Kyldare lounges on his horse, tugging carelessly on the reins as he holds up one hand, ordering the others to stop. His mouth tightens as he looks at the graveyard I’ve left for him.

Sixty-four bodies, wrapped in thorns, positioned at the entrance to my tower. A few blood-red roses peek out from amongst the bodies.

Sometimes, I think those thorns have a mind of their own. There can be no other reason for the occasionally whimsical arrangements of heads and limbs.

Welcome, Kyldare. I have a spot waiting for you.

“The bitch is using the grimoire’s power somehow,” the soldier next to Kyldare mutters. “Are you sure she doesn’t have it?”

Kyldare slowly turns his head, dragging his gaze away from the bodies. When that gaze finds the solider, the man visibly wilts.

“I had her stripped naked and searched. I then left her trapped here for three years. The first two years I visited monthly to interrogate her. And yet you believe she somehow hid it from me?”

I’m unsure whatitis. All I know is it’s connected to the dark power I’m borrowing. The power I should never have touched.

But his words dig deep into my memories. Memories of being wrapped in the chains in this circular tower, pinned to the wall as his men leered at my body.

Perhaps I’ll leave you here for a while, until you’re finally ready to cooperate. Perhaps I’ll leave you paralyzed, aware as I fuck you. Perhaps I’ll breed you, watch as your body grows my baby and delivers it, all while you scream soundlessly.

I should be thankful to Kyldare. It was those words that broke something within me. Those words that allowed me to reach blindly for the connection to the dark power that had whispered to me for so long.

My sanity was a small sacrifice to pay for the power I’m sinking into my thorns.

Anticipation twists through me. I’ve waited patiently for this moment. My traps are ready.

My limbs strain against Kyldare’s witch’s power.

No. Not yet. Wait.

The waiting is the greatest torture. I’ve waited for Kyldare to return for a year. And from the hard glint in his eyes, his queen has commanded him to do whatever it takes to get the information he needs.

Come a little closer, Kyldare. Let’s chat.

The men dismount, leaving their horses tied to a tree at least a hundred footspans from my tower.

Slowly, they approach. Kyldare’s presence is like a slow-moving poison. It slithers through the cracks in the tower walls, heavy and suffocating as I fight to use my useless limbs.

I stifle the familiar panic. I’ve prepared for this moment for so long now, it feels like just another dream.

For now, my muscles won’t respond. For now, my body will remain useless, a prisoner within stone, just as I’m a prisoner in my own flesh.

And then I will strike.

But something else moves at the edge of my consciousness. Something dark. Something I’ve been feeding for months, lending my pain and sorrow, allowing it to grow like the thorns outside my tower.

Kyldare jerks his head, and the soldiers separate into two groups. One group moves around the back of the tower, attempting to approach unseen through the path to the servants’ entrance.

As if I can’t feel them stepping over my land, their boots sinking into the earth I’ve claimed. I know every inch of the twisted bramble below. Every stone in this tower ismine.

Carefully, gently, I let the smallest flicker of my borrowed power surge out.

I’m excruciatingly aware that this power is limited. Limited, because some part of me knows that if I took more, I would become a monster greater than anything this world has seen for centuries.

Perhaps these people would deserve that.

Faces appear in my mind’s eye. Familiar faces. Faces that I can’t place, but that I know once meant something to me. I reach for those faces, but my thorns shiver, already responding.

They move slowly at first, twisting in the undergrowth as the soldiers make their way closer. One of them laughs, arrogant, likely believing it’s just the wind stirring the leaves. The others look spooked. As they should.