Iron's Match

 They’d left the keys there to taunt her. 

Naa lunged. Stupid.  Like the first thirty times, the chains on her ankles tensed, snatching her back. Pain tore across her body as she slammed into the dungeon’s icy wall. She wheezed through chattering teeth. The glowing orange manacles around her wrists continued to shrink, their sinister laugh echoing in the darkness. 

She chuckled. Her tummy cramped. ‘I’ll need a long beauty rest after this.’

Wind whooshed in through the window slats, carrying sounds of distant brass harmonies and beating drums. The coronation! 

Seven days. That was how long the strongest–or most stubborn–magic wielders could survive before the manacles fused with their skin, sucking all their ability. It had been six days since Jasim threw her in, clearing the final obstacle to his coronation tomorrow. Naa’s chains rattled as she scrambled to her feet. She could not hang around for another day. 

If she could just reach the stupid keys! 

As if reading her mind, the iron bracelets snickered again. 

The fuzzy outline of a large key ring lurked just outside the dungeon’s bars. Naa threw her eyes about, seeking something, anything, long enough to reach the ring, anything she could have missed in the last six days–

She gasped. Was she…seeing right? Because it turned out having only a pair of fiery iron bracelets and occasional wisps of sunlight for six days triggered wild hallucinations.  But…that pointy protrusion on the wall to her right was really there, right? She ran her dry tongue over drier lips.  Could that be a piece of wood? 

‘One way to find out.’ 

She crept closer, dared to touch it. Rough. Scaly. Promising. Naa pulled. 

It sliced. 

‘Aah!’ 

Her palm burned. She let go, landing on her rear, one thumb pressing down on her fresh injury.  ‘Curse you Jasim!’ 

Her shackles laughed louder. 

Something poked the back of her head. ‘I can’t even be angry in peace!’ 

With both hands she clawed her damp hair for the offending creature, her fingers coming away with a small, narrow object. She held it closer to a sliver of moonlight. 

Her hairpin!

Naa’s eyes lit up. Why hadn’t she– how had she not–

‘Doesn’t matter.’ She held the hairpin closer to the keyhole between her iron bracelets. Her forehead creased as she concentrated on the activity she could hardly see, fingers sticky with blood. ‘Any moment now.’ 

Click. 

The shackles popped open. 

White light burst from her fingertips. Naa’s eardrums buzzed as energy coursed through her bloodstream. Her ankle chains slunk into oblivion. When she raised her hands, the bars swung open. 

And shut. 

Naa blinked. 

‘Ah, Naa.’ Outside, a silhouette came into view. ‘Always so stubborn.’ 

Jasim! 

Sweat broke across Naa’s back as she watched the chains slither around her ankles. She crumpled to the floor, her energy fleeing. ‘How–’

‘I will be king.’ One of her brother’s hands coiled around a bar. ‘You won’t stop me.’

 

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Okay, just under 500 words. 

Hopefully you enjoyed that. 

Reworked short story from this post.