Current Book Project – Princess Escapes the Tower

The working title is Sage’s Tower. I may adjust it later!

But! We all know the trope of the princess being locked in the tower for various reasons and awaiting her prince charming.

Well, this tower is a wizard’s tower, and this princess? Teaches herself how to escape with the help of the undead spirits that haunt the tower.

Prologue

This was easily the hardest thing that Tilhart had ever had to do for his king and country. Last night, the red-haired child had sobbed because she had never been apart from her parents for so long. He had no comfort he could offer. Tonight, she cried again, but without the sobbing, only sniffling.

He wondered if she was even going to make it considering what the plan was. It all weighed on him heavily. On the third night, he thought about just taking her and running, perhaps to Eirenn, perhaps across the ocean. Surely that would be enough of an effort to thwart the chaos attached to the princess’s fate?

But, that morning, as he looked into her unusual blue eyes with the clear brown heart shape in a splotch in her right eye, he knew that if he did not come back to the king and report it done, they’d send people looking. The very forests would turn on them, they might even send forest gods to recover her and ensure she was properly contained.

She looked at him hopefully though. She was so small, as if he would offer her warmth somehow, or an explanation for why he had taken her from her parents like this.

He wished those parents had tried to explain it. It was the first time he felt something like resentment for his king, even in his long time serving as the Guard Captain.

He ran his hands through his brown hair, and he stood up. “Let’s go.”

He lifted her onto the horse and mounted his own, another day or so, they’d have reached the tower.

That evening, it was easy to see, standing like a great knife above the trees. He hadn’t seen it in person, but he had heard it described like a stake into the dark and haunted woods of Old Miron. The tower was ivory colored, with silver or steel inlaid on the walls that shone brightly in the setting sun, making the whole thing a little metallic looking. Supposedly placed there by a great mage to seal darkness beneath the land, it was believed that offering the princess to it would trap her prophecy as thoroughly as it held down the darkest demon.

He was afraid to get too close to those woods in the dark, so they made camp early.

She didn’t cry. She tried to talk to him, but he didn’t answer her. He couldn’t bear it; he was afraid that if he spoke to her he would be unable to complete his mission.

The next morning, he had to defend them several times from beasts with misshapen bodies and glowing eyes. There was a black mist around the base of the tower that felt dirty as it brushed his skin, and he took her by the hand up the stairs.

To get her far away from the beasts and the demons, he took her almost to the very top floor. There was an abandoned library and strange bones strewn on that floor, so he went with the one beneath it – which seemed to be a bedroom and old storage area. After inspecting everything to ensure nothing seemed harmful, he set up the altar for her. He said the ritual, he felt the draw of magic from him as it glowed. He waited a few minutes, and after, there was a glow, a half dozen sweet treats on a leaf.

It was working.

But.

Nothing haunted him like the way she screamed for him when he locked and sealed the door. It would follow him through all the long decades of his life.

Hooked yet?

Let me know below! There is no ETA, I am just working on writing on it every week and seeing how long it takes!