Married To Darkness
Chapter 336: A Tower Unknown

Chapter 336: A Tower Unknown

Jaefel chuckled softly, though his dark eyes held a heaviness, a weight of sleepless nights and worry. "By keeping you from collapsing in a hallway."

Emma opened her mouth—whether to argue or apologize again, she wasn’t sure—but nothing came out.

Jaefel shifted, adjusting his stance. "I wasn’t just following you, Emma," he admitted, his voice quieter now. "I was watching over you."

Her heart stumbled at the words—not from romance, no—but from a guilt she didn’t know she still carried.

The time of evil.

When she had first heard of Jaefel—the knight with ties to the Thrud Prince and the Seventh Princess—she had feared him.

Rumors whispered of betrayals and shifting loyalties, and Emma, like many others, had cast suspicious glances his way.

She had thought him one of the bad ones.

And now here he was—steadying her as her body betrayed her—kind and patient, with not a flicker of judgment in his gaze.

Emma swallowed. "I thought you were... dangerous."

Jaefel smirked, a flash of white teeth. "I thought you were strong enough to tell someone you were sick."

Her cheeks burned. "I didn’t want to be a burden."

Jaefel arched a brow. "And now?"

Emma managed the smallest, most fragile smile. "Still a burden."

Jaefel chuckled again—soft and genuine. "You’re not a burden, Emma."

Silence settled between them—the kind that wasn’t heavy, but rather something gentle and understanding.

Emma leaned back against the tree, her body too weak to move, and Jaefel still didn’t let go of her arm.

For once, she didn’t pull away.

She closed her eyes, swallowing the bitter taste in her mouth, and muttered, "Thank you."

Jaefel only nodded. "Rest a little."

And for the first time since Lady Salviana went missing, Emma allowed herself to breathe.

~~{────────

~~~~~~~~~~~~}~~~

The room was suffocatingly still after the captor left, the echo of his mocking laugh lingering like a stain in the air.

Salviana stared at the untouched plate of food.

It wasn’t much—stale bread, a wedge of cheese, and something that resembled dried meat—but the jug of water beside it glistened like liquid salvation.

Her throat ached. She didn’t realize how dry her mouth had been until now.

She grabbed the jug and drank deeply, the water cool against her parched lips, trickling down her chin.

She didn’t stop until the jug was half-empty, and when she set it down, her hand trembled—part from exhaustion, part from the faintest sliver of relief.

The food, though... She forced a few bites down, but each mouthful felt heavier than the last. It did nothing for her strength.

She didn’t feel better—if anything, the dry bread sat like a stone in her stomach—but the water had cooled her enough to ease the sweat clinging to her skin.

With a slow, unsteady breath, Salviana pushed herself to her feet. Her knees wobbled at first, and a dizzy spell nearly toppled her again, but she gritted her teeth and stayed upright.

Her gaze drifted back to the window.

She moved toward it, the floorboards creaking under her bare feet, and then carefully perched on the narrow ledge.

The night air kissed her flushed cheeks, but her focus wasn’t on the cool breeze—it was on the drop below.

The distance was staggering.

How high up was she?

A sick sort of fear curled in her stomach as she studied the long stretch of stone wall, the ground lost somewhere in the shadows far below.

A tower. She was in a tower.

But what tower was this? And why didn’t she remember it?

Wyfn-Garde had many towers—she knew most of them by heart—but this one... It was foreign, too tall, too isolated. Hidden away.

Her fingers brushed the window frame, and her eyes shifted to the faint shimmer in the air just beyond it.

The magic barrier.

It wasn’t something you could truly see—no, it was more like a ripple, a faint distortion in the space just past the glass.

It didn’t shine or glow like the barriers she’d read about in Egasrae; it was subtle, cruelly so, blending with the wind and the night.

But it was there.

And it was keeping her in.

Salviana slowly reached for it again, her fingers extending past the broken burglary.

The barrier pulsed. A soft, almost imperceptible hum.

Her fingertips brushed it—then crack.

A sharp sting shot up her arm, a jolt of magic that made her yelp and pull her hand back. The skin of her fingers tingled—burned—but there was no mark.

She clenched her jaw, chest heaving.

"Damn it," she whispered, her voice cracking.

Still, her gaze didn’t leave the barrier.

She was trapped.

But this... this was just magic.

And magic had rules.

She just had to find the cracks.

Salviana’s hand trembled as she reached out again, fingers grazing the invisible wall of magic.

The sharp jolt snapped up her arm, and she hissed, yanking her hand back.

It was like trying to grasp a bolt of lightning—painful, unforgiving—but that only meant one thing.

There was a crack somewhere.

Magic could bend. Magic could break.

Her mind raced—test the barrier, find the weak points. If there was even a hairline fracture in the spell, she’d find it. She had to.

Her eyes darted around the small room, and then she grabbed the empty jug and the plate the captor had brought, her movements jerky with desperation.

Without a second thought, she hurled the jug at the barrier.

The jug didn’t shatter.

Instead, it hit the invisible wall and—bounced back.

Fast.

Salviana barely had time to move.

The jug shot past her face, so close she felt the gust of air against her cheek before it clattered to the floor behind her.

The plate followed a split second later, rebounding just as violently and missing her shoulder by a hair’s breadth.

She stumbled back with a sharp yell, hands flying to cover her head.

The sound of ceramic cracking against stone echoed through the room, but it was nothing compared to the scream that tore from her throat—raw, broken, and helpless.

She was trapped.

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