My Father Locked Me In A Tower For Being ‘Broken’ — Then A Stranger Bought The Estate
Part 2
For a long second, neither of us moved.
His expression didn’t shift to shock or horror.
The exhaustion in his posture vanished, replaced by a sudden, rigid tension.
Behind him in the hallway, my father’s face appeared.
Craig’s eyes widened in pure, unadulterated terror at the sight of me still breathing.
The stranger dropped the crowbar with a sharp clang that made me flinch.
He stepped fully into the room, boots crushing the splinters of the ruined door.
Walking slowly, he stopped five paces away.
He asked for my name.
I opened my mouth, but my vocal cords were atrophied.
Swallowing hard, I forced air past the dry rust of my larynx and croaked my name.
The sound was horrifying, a raspy, broken wheeze.
The stranger’s jaw muscle twitched.
He turned back to my father, who was sweating profusely in the doorway.
Craig shouted that I was a null, a broken thing who drained the warmth from a room.
My father claimed he had only done what was necessary to protect the family.
The man ignored him entirely, crouching down to bring himself to my eye level.
Up close, he smelled of leather, horse sweat, and cold rain.
It was the most vibrant thing I had smelled in four years.
He asked if I was dangerous.
Looking into his pragmatic gray eyes, I shook my head slowly.
He stood up, unclasped his heavy wool-lined cloak, and tossed it to me.
The residual body heat trapped in the wool felt like a roaring hearth fire.
Turning back to the hallway, he informed my father that according to the contract, he owned the keep and all its contents.
He told Craig that included the ghost locked in the tower.
My father was given one hour to vacate the property before being hanged from the battlements.
Craig opened his mouth, closed it, and fled down the stairs.
The stranger turned back, offering his rigid forearm to help me stand.
The descent was an agony I had not anticipated.
My calves cramped so violently that tears leaked from the corners of my eyes.
He simply adjusted his pace to mine, bearing the brunt of my weight whenever I stumbled.
We reached the ground floor, and the open sky hit me like a physical blow.
The vastness of the world rushed into my skull, too loud and too bright.
Dropping to my hands and knees on the cobblestones, I retched violently.
Instead of disgust, a heavy hand held the back of my tunic to keep me steady.
He pushed a leather waterskin into my line of sight and calmly told me to rinse my mouth.
We climbed into his carriage, and the journey began in silence.
The damp autumn air seeped through the cracks in the door frame, causing a deep, bone-rattling tremor in my chest.
Next to him sat a small brass warming tin, radiating a steady heat.
My survival instincts overrode my fear.
Reaching out with my mind, I grabbed the thermal energy trapped inside it and pulled it across the cabin into my freezing fingers.
A sharp, metallic clack made my eyes snap open.
The man touched the brass tin with his bare hand, watching the frost form on the metal.
I had stolen his heat, proving I was the broken thing my father claimed—what would this stranger do now?
