Page 7 of Lies Within the Darkest Tower

My pulse shuddered. I was having a premonition.

My fear from the premonition deepened along with the worry of someone discovering that something was wrong with me.

I’d never had two premonitions within a fortnight of each other, let alone in the same day, and I couldn’t let anyone knowabout my ability. Edred most of all. If he knew I had the ability to sense the future, he’d try to force me to use it for his personal gain. Except I had no control over my premonitions. I didn’t know when the darkness would come over me or what it would warn me of. Sometimes I couldn’t even figure out what it meant because all I got were vague sensations.

But in this case, I already knew Sawyer was in danger, and I didn’t need my unusual instincts to remind me.

Except this premonition was so much stronger than any I’d experienced before. The others had always been darkness joined with a flash of emotion. I’d never experience the fog before and the emotion filling me now was overwhelming.

A cold wind gusted, chilling the sweat on my body, cutting through my thin summer dress and stinging my skin as if I’d stepped through a fae ring to someplace freezing. The mist whirled around and around then opened up revealing Sawyer.

He lay at my feet, his lifeless eyes staring at nothing and his pale skin ashen. Behind him, freestanding in the mist without any sign of a wall, stood a massive black door engraved with writhing shadowy monsters. The Shadow Gate.

It was exactly like the drawing I’d seen when I was a child. Except it was so much bigger than I imagined, towering above me and stretching wide enough for at least half a dozen carriages to pass through side by side.

The fear twisted tighter and an overwhelming sense of urgency seized me. Sawyer’s body was going to give out while he was in the Gray, and it was going to happen soon.

CHAPTER 5

Sage

My heart poundedand the icy fear shook me. I couldn’t let Sawyer go into the Gray. I had to stop this. We had to flee?—

Except there was no way we could run. Even if half of Edred’s men weren’t in the great hall, Lord Quill would stop us. I doubted we’d even get out of the hall, and even if we did, there was no way Sawyer would be able to run far enough, fast enough for us to escape the fae.

No, the binding spell couldn’t be avoided. But the moment he stepped into the Gray, his life was in danger. I didn’t have a fortnight. Everything within me said I had days and that wasn’t enough time to do anything. I couldn’t let Sawyer be the one bound to the Black Tower.

“Girl!” Edred barked.

I jerked my attention up, losing my balance with the sudden movement. Someone grabbed my arm, steadying me and sending a shock of something powerful and breathtaking zinging through me, and the mist and darkness vanished. My world snapped back to the great hall — although I knew I hadn’t actually left — and Lord Quill held my arm while everyone stared at me.

“I said bring the summons here so Sawyer can do his duty,” Edred said as he unsheathed his dagger, his gaze daring me to speak up and argue against Lord Quill’s announcement… which I hadn’t actually heard because I’d had a vision, an honest to goodness actual vision, not just a premonition.

“I—”

“Are you alright?” Lord Quill asked me, his voice soft and soothing and doing nothing to ease the fear still clutching my aching chest.

My gaze dropped to his hand on my arm, his grip firm and warm, almost reassuring — if agripcould be reassuring. I could feel the frozen mist and overwhelming fear writhing at the edge of my senses, but they couldn’t get past whatever it was in Lord Quill’s touch that kept me rooted in my body.

“You said his name?” The words slipped out even though I’d known what Lord Quill was going to say. A small part of me had still hoped I was wrong despite Edred’s reaction to the fae’s arrival and my vision.

“Yes.” His expression darkened and the tightness I’d seen in his face earlier returned.

I’d promised there wouldn’t be any weeping. And there wouldn’t be. Sawyer wasn’t dead yet and he wasn’t bound to the Black Tower. He wasn’t ever going to be bound to it. If anyone was going to be able to find a way to break the binding spell it would be Sawyer and he wouldn’t be able to do that in the Gray. I couldn’t let him go through with it, and if running away wasn’t an option then someone else had to take his place.

Oh, Father! That someone had to be me.

I was the better swordsman and could withstand the rigors of training better than he could. We had the same red hair, same sharp facial features, were roughly the same size, and I doubted Lord Quill had taken a good enough look at either of us to tell the difference.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could hide the fact that I was a woman forever, but all I needed was to hide long enough for Sawyer to get as far away from the Five Great Kingdoms as possible. After that, I could beg for the Lord Commander’s mercy or hope Sawyer found a way to break or block the binding spell so I could escape.

Maybe if I was really lucky, I’d be able to keep my secret until Sawyer came of age and was able to petition the king without needing to go through Edred first.

“Girl,” Edred snapped again.

I bowed my head and bit my lip, reopening the wound Edred had given me so I could dab my blood on the medallion and complete the binding spell.

If the text I’d read about the spell was correct, there were no outward signs that the spell had been awakened or that someone was bound to the Black Tower. Only the recipient felt the spell sealing his fate. He would be compelled within a few days to go to the Gray or the spell would slowly start to drain his life, eventually killing him.

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