She Dreamed Her Empire Would Burn, So She Set Out to Break Four Collars novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The Bear
The grey guards let her through the service yard without a word.
They had their orders, and the orders were to let her walk.
Brannoch was at the anvil with the blank key clamped in a vise and a small file in his hand.
The forge was warm and dim, and the other three had gone up to the tower to sleep.
He did not look round.
"Close the door, Highness," he said. "The cold gets in the iron."
She closed it.
She put the Emperor's decree on the bench, and he glanced at it and went on filing.
"Can you read it?" she said. "I can't, not with the Chancellor listening."
He wiped his hands and read it twice, slowly, with his lips moving.
"Then it's real," he said. "And nobody has told me how it's meant to be done."
"Nor me." The file rasped. "But I can make a thing that opens."
He picked a collar off the nearest peg and held it up next to the key.
It hummed in his hand, one low note, with a ragged buzz underneath it.
He filed one more stroke on the key, and the buzz thinned.
Another stroke, and it thinned again.
"I've been cutting at it for a month," he said. "I didn't know what for. Every cut I make, it gets nearer to the note. When the buzz goes, it'll turn in any clasp the Tree made."
"How close is it?"
"One cut." He set down the file. "And I don't think it's mine to make."
She came around the anvil.
Up close he was warm as the forge, and the leather apron smelled of coal and honey.
Keep reading free with an account. Start She Dreamed Her Empire Would Burn, So She Set Out to Break Four Collars from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 17 · All chapters · Chapter 19 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend