[THIS STORY WILL BE TAKEN DOWN ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2024]
He had hunted me, captured me, and locked me in a tower.
Season 3 'Of Crows and Thorns'
***
While in RISING, Tabitha discovers something peculiar that may assist Nelle in her plan to escape the...
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Dodging around the coffee table, tramping over the sheepskin rug, weaving around beanbags and the comfy armchairs and couches, I picked a random wall and started there.
I scrambled through the shelf at waist level. My fingers pulled on the novels frantically. I dragged each one of them out, letting them spill haphazardly to the ground as I moved to the next. My feet trampled over the top of the cast-off books as I went through the shelf, before moving to the next shelf, higher up, in a systematic panic.
Too late, too late...
A storm of footfall and the library door crashed open.
I heard my name being called down below.
"Wychthorn..."
Horror exploded inside my chest.
Oh gods. Jett was already here. The five minutes had flown by.
I scrambled faster, tossing book after book onto the floor, hoping that my fingers would latch around one that wouldn't budge easily. That I'd hear an audible click. Or a door would mysteriously appear.
There were too many books.
I froze, as did the air in my lungs, crystallizing into abject terror. Down below came an ear-piercing sound of a blade being dragged along the stone floor. A scraping-sparking noise that hackled the fine hair on my body. The noise was followed by lazy footfall that made metal creak before a low, goading voice spun through the air. "Times up, Wychthorn. Here I come, ready or not."
Mindless panic seized me. I fumbled with more and more books. More and more novels were flung to the floor. I scrambled through the shelves. Higher. Lower. I didn't know. My gaze bounced sideways at all the remaining shelves. My stomach pitched into a dizzy freefall.
It was impossible.
I'd never check all of them in time.
Yet as impossible as the task was, my sight landed on a collection of books on a shelf adjacent to this one. Why in all the chaos, the panic, my feet sliding and slipping upon the discarded books piled on the floor, that my eye would catch one in particular?
But I did.
No.
Yes.
Surely not.
Excitement thrummed through my veins.
I lurched, twisting sideways, stumbling over the books scattered on the floor, to scan the small collection of books amongst all the paperbacks. It was the same series that had captured my attention when Graysen first brought me to the library. The series of books were all the same size, with similar widths. All with a title regarding a princess. Just as the first book in the series suggested, 'The Princess and the Mechanic,' it would seem the princesses were trying their hands at a new career.
