In the land of Emeis lives a possessed princess. For Helen, the tower is all she has known since her fourth birthday, or more precisely, since the accident. 

Today, the bells toil at the same hour as any other day, their ringing rises peacefully into the clear blue sky. For Helen, she can not see the sky nor the bells, only the brick walls of her prison. It's a rough fate for a princess to endure. She cradles her aching hand to her chest, unconsciously hiding her palm from unseen eyes.

A maiden approaches the heavy wooden doors and unlocks the smaller food tray without a word. Helen half turns towards the noise of the lock and perks up a bit.

"Nina," she calls out to the girl. "Have you sent word to my mother yet?"

The girl whispers: "I have, my lady."

"What did she say? Will she visit me this year?"

A silence stirs between the two girls. Nina, who has served the princess well despite her fear for the past 4 years, holds no pity for the princess. Rather, there is a fear there that keeps her from speaking.

Helen senses her hesitation. "Her words will not cause your punishment. Speak."

"The queen has important matters to attend to in the western reaches of the kingdom, my lady. She sends her best wishes." The maiden sternly shuts the little door of the food tray. "Enjoy your meal." Her muffled voice sounds through the door, followed by her echoing steps.

Helen stands slowly, careful of the jagged rock floor, and moves towards the door. The same meal awaits her each morning and evening, a large bowl of porridge, bread, and water. Occasionaly her meal would be supplemented with seasonal fruits and steamed vegetables, sometimes the water would be replaced by milk or honeyed wine. These were the surprises of her daily life for the past 18 years. Today, her meal is the same as any other day. Porridge, bread, water.

She laughs to herself. Her birthday a special day? It's the same as any other even to the cook. She takes the tray to her desk and eats slowly, staring at the eternally burning candle. Its flame flickers eagerly, as if happy to meet her gaze, and its dance casts a warm glow across the wood and the pale porridge.

Helen raises her aching right hand to her cheek, where a voice speaks against the tears there. "Please," it says. "Stop drowning me."

"It's your fault." She responds.

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The voice lowers into laughter. "How so? I only came as called. If anything, it is your own fault."

She rips a piece off the bread with her teeth, keeping herself from arguing any further by chewing instead. She wipes her remaining tears with the back of her left hand. She turns her right hand around, revealing the mark on her palm in the candle light, casting an eerie orange glow across the circled burn there. The skin flinches against the light and opens slowly, a black eye blinks out at her.

"What?" The eye speaks, its disembodied voice has a hint of worry to it.

"Back then-" she begins, but stops herself. "Ezra, do you ever resent me?"

"First of all, my name is Ezekiel, not Ezra. Second of all, yes."

Helen scoffs but says nothing more, turning instead to what is left of her porridge.

"What about me?" Ezra whines.

"I thought you didn't like porridge?"

"I don't usually, but it's a special day today."

She turns back to him and represses the impulse to clench her hand. With a sigh and a small smile she takes a scoop of porridge to her hand and watches a small spirit rise from the eye, its wispy body would have disappeared into darkness if it weren't for the constant motion of it. Ezra eagerly inhales the grains of rice. His exagerrated excitement lingers on an almost morbid copying of human habits.

Afterwards he retreats into her marked palm in silence. Helen returns her gaze to the flame. Its slow dance jumps along the sparsely filled room, from the bed to the bricked up window to the tall ceiling where it hardly reaches the utmost top. The hexagonal room fills easily with the eager flame.

She begins to hum an old song to herself, its long forgotten words lending a heaviness to the melody that wasn't there in her mother's voice. The tears begin to well up once more, but this time something in the eternal flame changes. It dies, leaving the room to darkness for the first time in Helen's life.

"Ezra," she whispers in spite of herself. Panic rises up her throat like bile.

Before the spirit in her can wake, the candle bursts into a blue flame, rising higher and higher until its furthest wisps have reached beyond Helen to engulf eveything she knows. A voice spills from the fire.

"Princess of the western lands." There's a familiarity in the strange voice. "I have come to make things right."

Helen stares in awe of the image in the blue flames. A tall young man in white robes and with serious eyes reaches out towards her.

"Do you wish to leave your tower?" He asks, his voice gentle despite his intense blue gaze. Even his blonde hair, despite being disheveled gives him an air of trustworthiness.

"Who are you?"

Her right hand begins to ache both in favor of and against the strange youth. She carefully reaches for his hand.

"I am an apprentice wizard and I have come for the wind that has been sealed within your hand."

Ezra's wispy form peeks out from between her fingers at the stranger and the flames. "A portal?"

"Quickly," the man says, turning his eyes behind him. "Take my hand."

Helen turns towards her cell, her lonely home of the last 18 years and sees each shadow pushed backward by the blue light. She sees it all and notices for the last time how small her world is. She turns her gaze back to the apprentice wizard and without another word reaches into the flame and the stranger's hand.

After 22 years of life, Helen of the western lands of Emeis leaves the toiling bells of her castle behind.