“Break…” her voice slipped through an iron-barred window of the Long Fang Mountains Keep, catching on the wind.

“Break,” she insisted. The air pirouetted around the twin curved peaks, descending again to devour her plea. Beckoned onward by her fervor, it collided with the Keep’s wall. Its billowing form condensed and slithered through the bars into the prison cell of Ablee Urough.

Moving with a will of its own, it coiled along the cell’s diameter. Its loops slowly tightened, converging on the room's center, wrapping around the “impudent runt” of the warlord Karich.

Ablee strained against her shackles as rivers of sweat poured from her shorn, auburn hairline. “BREAK!” She demanded. The piney perfume of the living wind played on her tongue. Constricting her in tight circles, it wicked the moisture from her skin and drenched gray overalls.

She started to shiver and grind her teeth as she pushed forward. Her calloused feet slipped across the damp stone, and she fell, arms held back by her restraints. CLACK. Her chin hit the ground.

“Ablee!” exclaimed the caricature of a woman with a basket of apples hanging from the crook of her arm. The woman, part of a colorful chalk-drawn scene on the cell's walls, dropped to her knees. “Are you all right,” she asked.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Depicted around her were a brilliant kaleidoscope of other concerned villagers, draped in a charming woodland village that wrapped full-circle around the room. They observed the real, flesh and blood girl, struggling in the cell's center.

Ablee struck the floor with a fist and lay prone for a moment, bathed in the dim white light of The Tower. Her eye peeked out from its corner to gaze upon the glowing titanic pillar, her barred window framing it like a picture of what she’d been denied.

Rolling to her side, her determined eyes narrowed. It was Karich’s greatest ambition: Topping The Tower.

I’ll beat him to it.

The woman’s face was drawn with worry. “Do you need help? I can call for Glimin.”

Ablee’s eyes turned to the woman. Smiling, a stream of bloody spit rolled down her cheek. “Nah, Thalia, I juth bit my thongue.”

Taking her feet, she spat on the floor. With crimson dripping down her chin and her shackle-scraped wrists, her playful demeanor was like the calm of a storm’s eye. “Thee, no worth for wear!”

Thalia nodded, sensing her resolve. “You’ve got this. Keep going!”

As the force of the wind battered Ablee, her head whipped back and forth, trying to track its movements. Small puffs of loose chalk dust trailed it as it rolled along the walls. What the hell is going on here?

“Cline?” she called out, a coy smile on her face. “You have another breakthrough with your chalk—” A prolonged burst of icy air cut off her voice. The surge didn’t relent, pushing her backward—one step, then another—until only the bindings on her arms held her in place against its force.

This has to be a sign... Tonight’s not another wasted night... Tonight is different!

She wrapped the chains around her fists, pulling herself forward along them. “You’re right, Thalia!” Ablee shouted above the wind, locking eyes with her. “Five years gone, but this ends now!”

Straining, she repeatedly slammed her heels into the floor, refusing to stop. Finally, she gained purchase and then yanked. The iron of her restraints began to stretch like wet clay. “Yes,” she grunted, “Yesss!”

Drawn on the adjacent wall, a rum-addled pirate with “PIN BEARD” stitched into his tricorn hat raised his mug and voice. “Aye! Give it yer all, girl!” His long pointed goatee bobbed up and down as he hollered. “Get yer brother out of this damned brig!”

“Cline…” She growled, reminded of her stolen sibling. Looking down at the second set of shackles, lying abandoned on the cell’s floor, her memories overtook her.

----------------------------------------

“Pin Beard had an eye patch, right?” Cline asked, turning his head from his drawing to look at her through moppy black hair.

“Yeah, he did. The comic kept switching which eye it was on!” Ablee responded, her face and shackled hands poking up from the ground. The rest of her lay submerged in the stone-turned-paint like she was bathing in mud. The “Runt” was even runtier at fifteen, her body not yet conditioned by three years of failed escape attempts.

Cline’s mouth pulled into a wide grin. “Ha, wonder why they did that? Maybe he still had both eyes and got tired of keeping one shut.”

“Doubt it. The artist was probably being lazy.” She kicked out a leg, trailing a gray splatter through the air.

“No!” His cheeks sank into a scowl, and he yanked his screeching, chalky red finger across the wall. “Do you know how many hours Roma works a week!?”

Ablee narrowed her eyes at Cline, annoyed. Then the cell door slammed open; BANG!

Their father, Karich, stood outside, the doorway cutting off the view of his hairline and arms. His eyebrows were caught in their perpetual furrow.

She sat up from her mud bath, beads of the stony paint dripping down her glaring face. Her brother took a step back, butted up against the room’s edge; Thalia hovered behind him, a motherly presence.

Ablee’s tongue overrode what little reason she could muster. “Rude! Can you come back later? We’re having an important conversation.”

The warlord lowered his head and turned in a shoulder, entering the room sideways. As he did, his cloak caught on the iron door’s hinge. He grabbed its clasp and forced it forward, dragging the doorframe into the cell. CLANG. The door pounded onto the ground.

His gaze pierced Ablee, searching for some way to bring her to heel.

“Well?” She said, refusing to be cowed. Cline grimaced as the steps of Karich’s steel-toed boots reverberated through the chamber, trudging toward his sister. “Dad...”

Karich looked down on her. “You’re finally figuring out your Ambrosia." he said, referring to her unique ability. His tone relayed no emotion.

“Why should you care? I’ll never use it for---”

"Because it was a gift!" He shouted, his ogre-sized foot crashed into her wet cheek. She huffed and tried to hold her own against the force, but the action was futile. "The Food of the Gods. Wasted on you embarrassments!"

"It wasn't a gift. You forced it on us," She hissed through gritted teeth as her muscles strained and gave way under his weight. Pushed down to the floor, his boot’s heel dug into her throat while its toe threatened to collapse her temple.

“Dad, stop!” Cline protested. “Please, what do you want!?”

Karich twisted his leg, applying screaming pressure. “Aa-aaahh!” Ablee stammered.

She fought the urge to sink into the ground, but her instincts won. She gasped a quick breath before her head and body dropped into the stone. She heard Cline’s voice as she sank below. “Slip your shackles and swim away! There’s nothing special about metal; it’s all just paint!”

Her hands, held by their bindings, remained above the surface. Pulling herself up, her scalp met again with the steel sole of Karich’s boot. She bobbed against it as if caught beneath the rime of an icy lake.

Suspended in a black abyss, she couldn’t see anything. Only muffled shouts reached her ears.

She lost track of time. Grabbing the rough-threaded pants around her father’s calf, she dug her nails in, yearning for any form of vengeance.

More shouting. She couldn’t hold her breath. Her mouth opened, flooding with the dull taste of stone.

----------------------------------------

Ablee’s focus snapped back to the present. Cline’s drawings, her friends, watched with eyes full of hope. The metal of her shackles continued to warp and twist as she strained against them.

Flexing, she pushed her arms to their limit. Her bindings stretched further, leaking frigid liquid iron down her wrists and into the creases of her clenched fists.

Across the chalky village, a host of hopeful voices joined in.

“This is it!”

“Don’t quit!”

“FOR CLINE!”

Her eyes were wide, her jaw set with focus. Two plumes of hot breath billowed from her nostrils. Puff, puff, puff. The wind tugged them like a dragon’s whiskers.

She took three long steps back. The links of her chains, slackening, plinked to the floor.

The chill air tore along the walls, stirring into a storm of loose chalk dust. Ablee’s eyes, locked on some distant point, didn't waver, didn't blink.

He has to be right. There’s nothing special about metal.

Her right foot dropped back, and she leaned onto her left. The riotous gale continued to surge, pitching to a scream!

Jump through it. It’s all just paint. You’ve got this... go... Go... GO!

She threw herself forward, taking a step, then hopping and landing into a crouch. Capitalizing on her momentum, she fully extended her legs and rocketed into the air.

The chains rose behind her like twin serpents refusing to release their prey.

Roaring, the undulating chalk dust storm rushed to meet her head-on.

She swung her right arm, an iron-painted fist at its head. “HYYAAAAHHHH!”

The wind, changing direction, quickly jerked away from her strike. Her chain clung to its anchor, its links screeching in desperate protest. The shackle, wrung like a sponge, vomited slick gun-metal paint that splattered the floor.

He was right!

Its form started to split, pulling apart around Ablee’s wrist and reforming on its other side. CLINK.

A viper’s grin peeled from ear to ear, and she wrenched her chest to the right, dragging her left arm forward through the other shackle. CLINK.

Her now unrestrained fist smashed into the snout of the veering wind, and a piercing wail shook the chamber. WAAAOOOO—!

As she flew through trembling air, her wild grin split, “Ha-Hyahahahaha!” Descending side-first, she bounced off the ground and rolled to a stop against the wall.

Behind her, the discarded chains clattered toward the window in the wake of the retreating wind.

Pin Beard reached for the sash at his hip, “Ye’ve done it, girl! When you top that tower, etch ol’ Pin Beard’s name inta its roof!” He pointed a flint-lock pistol from his sash to the sky.

“Pin, the guards!” Thalia shouted and rushed to stop him, her basket tossed aside in a shower of red and gold produce.

BANG!

As the echoes of the shot diminished, the crowd looked down at Ablee, lying on her back, still shaking with laughter, “Let ’em come!”.

She sat up and eyed the iron cell door, cupping her hands to her mouth, “DAAADDYYY! Send whoever you want! I’m gonna find you, and then I’m GONNA BEAT YOUR ASS!”

“Yeah!” The chalk-drawn villagers cheered.

Ablee got to her feet. Eyeing the door, she rubbed her iron-coated palms through her hair.

“Hey Glimin!” She shouted, tapping her foot.

Pin Beard finished reloading his flint-lock, “The coward’s probly runnin fer yer dad...”

Ablee sneered, “I’m not waiting around here all night. He needs to hurry it up..."

She looked around, all patience having fled her, then paced to the wall beside her cell door. A few chalky villagers moved to get out of her way. She leaned her head into the stone wall, and it turned to thick, muddy paint around her. Poking through to her shoulders on its other side, she wiped her eyes and looked up and down the lantern-lit stone corridor. Glimin’s chair sat empty.

“I can’t believe this guy... GLIMIN!” her voice carried down the hallway, “A gun went off in the warlord’s daughter’s bed-chambers! What in the hell are you doing!?”

No response came. She strode forward, dripping stone paint along the hall.

Bang. She heard a muffled gunshot. Bang. Then another. Pulsing with excitement, she flung herself back through the wall to her cell, “Good thinkin’ Pinny, get ’em all riled up!”

Pin-Beard turned to her, his brow furrowed in confusion. “That wasn’t me, lass...”