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


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


    Moving with a will of its own, it coils along the cell’s diameter, surrounded by the colorful chalk-drawn scene on its walls. Its loops slowly tighten, converging on the “impudent runt” of the warlord Karich Urough.


    Ablee strains against her shackles as rivers of sweat pour from her shorn, auburn hairline. “BREAK!” She demands.


    The piney perfume of the living wind plays on her tongue. Constricting her in tight circles, it wicks the moisture from her skin and drenched gray overalls.


    She starts to shiver and grinds her teeth as she pushes forward. Her calloused feet slip across the damp stone, and she falls, arms held back by her restraints. CLACK. Her chin hits the ground.


    “Ablee!” exclaims the caricature of a woman with a basket of apples hanging from the crook of her arm. She kneels down, draped by the village square portrayed on the cell’s walls. Its buildings and inhabitants are cartoonishly drawn in a chalky kaleidoscope of colors. “Are you all right!?” She asks.


    Ablee strikes the floor with a fist and lies prone for a moment, bathed in the dim white light of The Tower. Her eye peeks out its corner to gaze upon the glowing titanic pillar, her barred window framing it like a picture of what she’s 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 is drawn with worry. “Do you need help? I can call for Glimin.”


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


    Straining, she repeatedly slams her heels into the floor, refusing to stop. Finally, she gains purchase, and then yanks. The iron of her restraints begins to stretch like wet clay. “Yes,” she grunts, “Yesss!”


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


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


    <hr>


    “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!?”This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    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.


    <hr>


    Ablee’s focus snaps back to the present. Cline’s drawings, her friends, watch with eyes full of hope. The metal of her shackles continues to warp and twist as she strains against them.


    Flexing, she pushes her arms to their limit. Her bindings stretch 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 join in.


    “This is it!”


    “Don’t quit!”


    “FOR CLINE!”


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


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


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


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


    Her right foot drops back, and she leans onto her left. The riotous gale continues to surge, pitching to a scream!


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


    She throws herself forward, taking a step, then hopping and landing into a crouch. Capitalizing on her momentum, she fully extends her legs and rockets into the air.


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


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


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


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


    He was right!


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


    A viper’s grin peels from ear to ear, and she wrenches her chest to the right, dragging her left arm forward through its shackle.


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


    As she flies through trembling air, her wild grin splits, “Ha-Hyahahahaha!” Descending side-first, she bounces off the ground and rolls to a stop against the wall.


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


    Pin Beard reaches 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 points a flint-lock pistol from his sash to the sky.


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


    BANG!


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


    She sits up and eyes 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 cheer.


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


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


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


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


    She looks around, all patience having fled her, then paces to the wall beside her cell door. A few chalky villagers move to get out of her way. She leans her head into the stone wall, and it turns to thick, muddy paint around her. Poking through to her shoulders on its other side, she wipes her eyes and looks up and down the lantern-lit stone corridor. Glimin’s chair sits empty.


    “I can’t believe this guy.”


    “GLIMIN!” her voice carries down the hallway, “A gun went off in the warlord’s daughter’s bed-chambers! What in the hell are you doing!?”


    No response comes. She strides forward, dripping stone paint along the hall.


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


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