The Price of Power

The tower stood like a broken finger against the twilight sky, its stones weathered by centuries of wind and rain. Princess Elise Ventanor pressed her palms against the cold window bars, watching the people of Jural gather in the square below. They looked like insects from this height, scurrying about their evening business, laughing, trading, and living because she would die.

Twenty-four years old. Only one year remained.

The tower had been her prison for three months now, ever since her father—King Aldric the Merciful, they called him, though she found no mercy in his eyes the day he’d ordered her taken—had sentenced her to this fate. Not for any crime. Not for any transgression. Simply because she had been born royal, and the ancient pact demanded royal blood.

“For the good of the kingdom,” her father had said, his voice hollow as a drum. “One life for thousands. Surely you understand, daughter.”

She had not understood. She still did not.

The door creaked open, and Marta shuffled in with the evening meal. The old woman was one of the few who looked at Elise with something other than relief or guilt. Marta’s eyes held only sadness.

“Brought you some fresh bread, milady,” Marta said softly, setting down the tray. “And honey. Thought you might like something sweet.”

“Thank you, Marta.” Elise turned from the window, managing a smile. “You’re kind to me.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong, child. Nothing at all.” Marta’s hands trembled as she arranged the plates. “My grandson… he’s been talking with others. Young people, mostly. They want to find a way to free you.”

Hope sparked in Elise’s chest, a painful and bright sensation. “Truly?”

“Hush now, don’t speak of it loud.” Marta glanced nervously at the door. “The council has eyes and ears everywhere. However, some believe this pact is barbaric. That there must be another way.”

After Marta left, Elise forced herself to eat, though the food tasted like ash. When darkness fell completely, she lit a candle and began her nightly exploration of the tower. She’d searched every stone, every crack, every corner looking for some weakness, some escape route. But the wizard who’d built this place—Ewolve Harkness, the histories called him—had been thorough.

Tonight, her searching fingers found something new.

A loose stone, hidden behind the remnants of an old wardrobe. Elise’s heart was hammering as she pried it free. Behind it lay a hollow space, and within that space, two leather-bound books thick with dust.

She pulled them out with trembling hands. The first was clearly a journal, its pages covered in cramped handwriting. The second was more minor, and on its cover, written in silver ink that seemed to glow in the candlelight, were two words:

For Elise.

She opened it with shaking hands.

Elise Ventanor, if you are reading this, my prediction has come to pass.

She nearly dropped the book. How could he have known her name? Ewolve Harkness had died almost two hundred years ago.

I have foreseen your imprisonment in this tower. I have seen the cowardice of your people, the cruel mathematics by which they will trade your life for their comfort. I have seen the dragon Erahair waiting in his valley, patient as stone, knowing his meal will be delivered as promised.

I tried, Elise. By all the gods, I tried. I fought Erahair seventeen times. Seventeen times, I marched into that valley with fire and lightning at my fingertips, with enough power to level mountains. And seventeen times we fought to a standstill. He is ancient, perhaps as old as the world itself, and his power is immense.

So I made the pact. Royal blood, once every generation. One life to spare thousands. It was not my first choice. It was not my hundredth choice. But I was young then, and I believed it was the only way.

I was wrong.

I followed what they called the Virtuous Path—the magic of sacrifice, of protection, of noble suffering. And on that path, I could never defeat Erahair. Do you know why, Elise? Because the dragon feeds on virtue. He grows strong on noble sacrifice. Every innocent offered to him makes him more powerful, not less. The pact does not appease him. It sustains him.

Elise’s hands shook so badly she had to set the book down. She stared at the words, reading them again and again. The pact didn’t protect them. It fed the monster.

I learned this truth too late, when I was old and dying. But I had one gift left—the gift of foresight, purchased at great cost. I saw you, Elise. Saw you trapped in this tower, saw the date of your birth and the year of your death. And I saw another path, one I never had the courage to walk myself.

In my journal, I have recorded spells—powerful spells, the kind that kingdoms would go to war for. Learn them, Elise. Master them. But do not let the people of Jural know what you’re doing. If they suspect you’re learning magic, they will call you a witch and burn you before your power can grow. They prefer their sacrifices pure and helpless.

When you have mastered the basic spells, the other sections of my journal will unlock for you. Magic responds to understanding, and understanding comes with practice. When you have amassed enough power to reduce Jural to ashes—and you will need that much, Elise, every bit of it—then you will be ready to face Erahair.

You have less than a year. I’m sorry it isn’t more.

The path I offer is not virtuous. It is the path of survival, of anger, of revenge. Walk it if you dare. Or die with your innocence intact. The choice, as always, is yours.

—Ewolve Harkness, in the 423rd year of the Third Age, knowing my death approaches and my regrets are legion.

Elise sat motionless for a long time, the candle burning low. Then she opened the journal and began to read.

The magic came to her like a language she’d always known but never spoken. The first spell was simple—a flame in her palm, small and controlled. She practiced it for three days until she could summon it with a thought, hold it for hours, and shape it into different forms.

The second spell was more demanding: a shield of force, invisible but solid as stone. She smashed her knuckles bloody practicing it, learning to call it up fast enough to block an imaginary blow. By the end of the first week, she could stop a thrown stone—and she tested this by throwing stones at herself, startling Marta into nearly dropping a dinner tray.

“Sorry,” Elise had laughed, dizzy with the thrill of it. “I’ve been… exercising.”

By the second month, she could read the intermediate sections. Spells of lightning. Spells of wind. Spells that could shatter iron and boil water with a gesture. She practiced when her guards brought food, careful to hide her work. She practiced late at night when the tower was silent. She practiced until her body ached and her mind felt as though it were stretched as thin as parchment.

And with each spell, she felt her anger growing.

Three months into her imprisonment, Marta came with tears in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Elise asked, though she dreaded the answer.

“My grandson,” Marta whispered. “And his friends. They were planning to break you out. Someone informed on them.” Her voice broke. “They hanged them this morning. All seven of them. Made an example, the council said.”

The flame spell came unbidden to Elise’s hand, hot and furious. She clenched her fist and forced it down. “Who informed?”

“Gareth Miller. Said it was his civic duty.” Marta’s face twisted with grief and rage. “His civic duty to send children to the gallows.”

That night, Elise didn’t sleep. She read the advanced sections of Harkness’s journal, the parts that had previously been locked. Spells of destruction. Spells of death. Magic that could turn a human body to ash, that could stop a heart with a whisper, that could make the sky itself weep fire.

Remember, Harkness had written in the margins, power is not evil. But it reveals who we are. The Virtuous Path teaches that we must sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of others. But who decides who must be sacrificed? Who decides that your life is worth less than theirs?

I will not tell you what to do with this power, Elise. Only that you have earned it, and it is yours by right.

By month five, she could level a building. By month six, she could call down lightning from clear skies. By month seven, there was no spell in Harkness’s journal that she couldn’t perform.

Except one.

The final book—a thin volume bound in black leather—refused to open. No matter how she pried or pulled, it remained sealed. Frustrated, she set it aside and continued practicing, pushing her power further and further.

Nine months had passed when they came.

She heard them first—a crowd gathering at the tower’s base. Elise looked out the window and saw perhaps fifty townspeople, more than usual. At their head stood Council Leader Thaddeus, his face grave and determined.

“Princess Elise,” he called up, his voice amplified by righteousness. “We come to check on your well-being and to bring supplies for your remaining time.”

“Remaining time. Three months left.” Elise scoffed.

Elise looked at them—at their comfortable clothes and well-fed faces, at the way they stood far from the tower as if her imprisonment might be contagious. She thought of Marta’s grandson swinging from the gallows. She thought of the seven others who’d died for daring to suggest she didn’t deserve this fate.

She thought of the dragon in the valley, growing fat on noble blood.

“No,” she said quietly.

“What was that, Princess?” Thaddeus cupped his ear theatrically.

Elise smiled. She raised her hand and spoke a word of power, a spell of force that Harkness had marked with warnings in the margins: Dangerous. Unstable. Only use it if you don’t care what you destroy.

The base of the tower exploded outward.

Stone and mortar erupted in a cloud of dust and debris. The crowd screamed and scattered, covering their heads in panic. When the dust settled, Elise walked through the gap in the wall, wearing flowing robes she’d conjured from the tower’s old curtains, styled after the wizard’s garb described in Harkness’s journal.

“You wanted me to be a victim,” she said, her voice carrying clearly in the sudden silence. “A sacrifice to appease a creature for your benefit. You killed those who would have aided me, those strong enough to stand against fear.”

She leaped, and the robes billowed around her like wings. A spell of levitation brought her gently to the ground before the stunned crowd.

“Who will stand with me to face the dragon?” Elise declared, her voice ringing off the tower stones.

Silence. Then, slowly, a few stepped forward. Marta, tears streaming down her face. A young woman named Sera who’d lost a sister to the dragon twenty years ago. Resrick, a blacksmith who’d always spoken against the pact. A handful of others, no more than a dozen.

The rest stayed back, fear written clearly on their faces.

“Girl, you’re mad,” Thaddeus said, trying to sound authoritative but unable to hide the tremor in his voice. “The dragon cannot be defeated. That’s why we have the pact—”

“The pact is why he can’t be defeated,” Elise interrupted. “Every sacrifice makes him stronger. Ewolve Harkness learned that too late, but he learned it.”

“Lies!” someone shouted from the crowd.

A man pushed forward—Gareth Miller, the one who’d informed on the would-be rescuers. “You’re a witch! That evil magic has corrupted you! We need to put you back in the tower where you belong, for everyone’s safety!”

He lunged for her, hands outstretched to grab her arms.

Elise spoke another word, and Gareth Miller ceased to exist. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. A simple flash of glowing crimson of which not even ash remained, just a waft of smoke and empty air where a man had been.

The crowd gasped and recoiled. Several screamed.

Elise turned to face them, and in the fading light, she knew her eyes must be ablaze with power. “You would sacrifice an innocent to save your own skins.” She smiled, cold and sharp. “If I believed in the path of virtue, then I would be innocent. As you can see, I am no longer.”

She turned to those who’d stepped forward to join her. “We march to the valley at dawn. Those who come with me may die. But we’ll die fighting, not cowering.”

“And those who don’t come?” Marta asked quietly.

Elise looked at the crowd, saw their fear, shame, and desperate hope that someone else would solve their problem. “They can wait here and see if we succeed. If we don’t… well, they’ll need to find another sacrifice.”

She walked away into the night, her ragtag army following behind. The crowd watched them go in silence.

They camped in the foothills that night, building a fire against the cold. Elise couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking of Gareth Miller’s face, the surprise in his eyes in that last instant before he vanished. She’d killed him and erased him. It had been so easy.

“Regrets?” Sera asked, sitting down beside her.

“Should I have them?” Elsie said with a hollow tone.

“He did kill those trying to help me.” Elise stared into the flames. “He killed children for trying to do the right thing.”

“He was afraid,” Sera said. “Fear makes people cruel. Doesn’t mean he deserved to die.”

“Doesn’t it?” Elise felt her anger rising again. “How many people have to die before someone deserves punishment? How many innocents?”

“I don’t know.” Sera poked at the fire with a stick. “But I know that once you start deciding who deserves to die, it gets easier each time. My father was a soldier. He told me that before he died.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“Why are you here?” Elise finally asked. “You could have stayed safe in town.”

“Because my sister shouldn’t have died, and neither should you.” Sera looked at her directly. “But don’t mistake me, Princess. I’m here to kill a dragon, not to become another monster’s accomplice.”

Elise wanted to be angry, but found she couldn’t. “Noted.”

At dawn, they climbed toward the valley. It took three hours of strenuous hiking, and by the time they reached the rim, Elise’s legs were burning. But the exhaustion fled when she saw what lay below.

The dragon Erahair lounged on a bed of bones—centuries of bones, human and animal mixed in a vast pile. He was immense, easily the size of a large house; his scales were the color of old bronze, and his eyes were like molten gold. Smoke drifted lazily from his nostrils.

When he saw them, he smiled. And that was a terrible expression on a dragon’s face.

“Well, well,” Erahair’s voice was deep as thunder and smooth as silk. “How unexpected. The little princess has come early and brought tasty friends. How… amusing.”

“I’ve come to end the pact,” Elise called down. Her voice didn’t shake, though her hands did.

The dragon laughed, and the sound echoed off the valley walls. “End it? Child, you can’t end it. It’s written in blood and sealed with magic. Every generation, I get my meal. That’s how it works.”

“The pact made you strong,” Elise said. She began descending into the valley, her companions following. “Every sacrifice fed you. But no more.”

“Oh?” Erahair raised his massive head, studying her with ancient eyes. “And who are you to deny me? A girl who’s played with magic for a few months? I have lived for many thousands of years. I was old when your kingdom was founded. What makes you think you can challenge me?”

For her answer, Elise raised both hands and spoke the words of lightning.

The bolt that crashed down from the clear sky was as thick as a tree trunk, white-hot and screaming. It struck Erahair square in the chest, and the dragon roared—not in pain, Elise realized with horror, but in pleasure.

“Yes!” Erahair bellowed, spreading his wings. “More! It’s been so long since I had a proper fight!”

He exhaled, and a plume of flame rolled toward them like a tidal wave. Elise threw up a shield, and the fire broke around it, scorching the rocks on either side. The heat was incredible even through her protection.

“Spread out!” Resrick shouted. “Don’t give him one target!”

They scattered, and Erahair laughed again. He took to the air with powerful beats of his wings, circling above them. Elise threw lightning again, and again, each bolt striking true but seeming to do nothing except invigorate the dragon.

He feeds on virtue, she remembered. Noble sacrifice makes him stronger.

These spells were defensive, protective. They were born from the Virtuous Path. They won’t work.

Elise reached deeper, into the darker spells Harkness had taught her. Spells that didn’t protect but destroyed. Spells that weren’t noble, but necessary.

She spoke words that tasted like iron and ash, and the ground beneath Erahair erupted. Spears of stone, sharp as swords, thrust upward. The dragon twisted in midair, but not fast enough—one spear pierced his wing, causing black blood to rain down.

And Erahair roared in genuine pain.

“That’s more like it,” the dragon snarled. He freed his wings and folded them as he dove, claws extended. Elise rolled aside, but she wasn’t the target—Sera was. The young woman tried to run, but Erahair was too fast for her. His claws closed around Sera, and—

There was a sound of a hammer blow to the dragon’s foreleg. Resrick had thrown his war hammer with all his strength, and the impact made Erahair’s grip loosen just enough for Sera to squirm free. She fell six feet to the rocks below but rolled and came up running.

Marta was chanting something, her voice high and reedy. Elise recognized it—an old folk blessing, meant to ward off evil. It shouldn’t have done anything, but Erahair flinched away from the sound. Old magic, belief given form.

The battle became chaos. Elise threw spell after spell, mixing destruction with protection, offense with defense. When Erahair breathed fire, she created wind to blow it back. When he dove to attack, she turned the ground beneath him to mud, making him stumble. When he took flight, she called lightning not from virtue but from fury, and these bolts actually harmed him.

Her companions fought with whatever they had. Resrick threw rocks enhanced by Elise’s magic, each one striking like a cannonball. Sera had brought a crossbow and put bolts into the dragon’s eyes—they didn’t penetrate the scales, but they distracted him. Marta kept up her chanting, and wherever her voice reached, Erahair seemed unable to focus his power.

But they were tiring, and Erahair was not.

The dragon landed in the center of the valley, breathing hard but still immensely powerful. Three of their number lay dead—crushed by falling rocks, burned by fire, broken by the dragon’s tail. The rest were wounded and exhausted.

“Enough games,” Erahair growled. He began to chant in a language older than human speech, and the air itself began to bend and twist. Reality warped around him, and Elise felt her magic being drawn away, sucked into the vortex of the dragon’s power.

He was going to eat her spells. Consume them and grow stronger.

Desperation gave her clarity. She couldn’t fight him with magic alone—he was too ancient, too practiced. But she didn’t have to fight him alone.

“Everyone!” she shouted. “Your weapons! Throw them to me!”

They didn’t question. Resrick’s hammer spun through the air. Sera’s crossbow and remaining bolts. Knives, rocks, even Marta’s walking stick. As each one came near, Elise spoke words of enhancement, of sharpening, of binding. She wove them together with threads of pure will, creating not a single weapon but an arsenal, all moving as one.

Then she threw them.

Not at Erahair. At the bones beneath him.

The weapons struck the ancient ossuary, shattering it. Centuries of bones exploded outward, and with them came something else—the screams of all those who’d died there. Not real screams, but the echo of them, preserved in marrow and memory. The anguish of generations poured out in a psychic wave.

And Erahair, who fed on sacrifice, suddenly found himself drowning in it.

The dragon shrieked and thrashed, trying to shut out the voices, but they were inside him now. All those deaths he’d consumed, all that fear and pain and despair, all of it coming back at once. He’d eaten it gladly when it was offered as sacrifice, but now it came as accusation.

Elise walked forward, gathering power for one final spell. This one wasn’t in Harkness’s journal. This one she created herself, born from her own anger, pain, and desperate hope. A spell that didn’t ask the universe for favor but demanded it to obey. A spell that didn’t beg for protection but seized it.

She placed her palm against Erahair’s scales and spoke the word that meant enough.

The dragon’s chest collapsed inward. His heart—impossibly huge, beating for millennia—stopped. His golden eyes went dark. And with a final, rattling breath, Erahair the Eternal died.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Moments later, Sera was hugging her, Resrick was cheering, and Marta was crying tears of joy. They’d done it. They’d actually done it. They won.

Elise stood in the center of the dragon’s corpse, power still crackling around her hands, and felt something vast and terrible inside her chest. Victory. Vindication. And beneath it, a hunger for more.

She looked back toward Jural, and in her mind, she saw the town burning. Saw the council members who’d sentenced her to death begging for mercy. Saw Gareth Miller’s family—those who’d benefited from his betrayal—torn apart by the same magic that had killed him.

“Elise?”

She turned. Sera stood beside her, her face bloody but her eyes clear.

“We won,” Sera said softly. “It’s shameful that the others didn’t come to face this beast. But I can understand their fear. They were afraid of dying, of leaving those they cared for to the ravages of this beast.”

“They were cowards,” Elise said, her voice hard. “They wanted me dead to save themselves.”

“Yes,” Sera agreed. “But isn’t that what we all do? Try to survive? They chose wrong, and people died for it, but…” She looked back at the dragon’s corpse. “We have a chance now to choose differently. To show them that fear doesn’t have to rule anymore.”

Elise’s anger flickered, like a candle flame in the wind. She thought of her father, who had ordered her to the tower. She thought of Thaddeus and the council. She thought of all the townspeople who’d looked away as she was imprisoned.

She thought of Gareth Miller, erased from existence.

“Then we will tell them that they no longer need to be afraid,” Elise said slowly, feeling the words reshape her. “Let us return with our stories of victory, and the acts that will allow all from this moment forward to live lives without fear of this beast. And we will do so together.”

They gathered their dead and began the long walk home.

Jural greeted them with a mixture of joy and shame. Some ran forward to embrace them, calling them heroes. Others hung back, unable to meet Elise’s stare. Council Leader Thaddeus stood in the square, and when he saw Elise, he knelt.

“Princess,” he said hoarsely. “We… I… we were wrong. I have no words to excuse what we did.”

Elise looked down at him and felt nothing. No anger, no satisfaction. Just emptiness where her rage had been. “Stand up,” she said. “You look ridiculous.”

She walked past him, past the cheering crowds and the fearful whispers, and returned to the tower. It felt strange to walk through the hole she’d blown in the base, to climb the stairs of her own free will.

The black book was waiting where she’d left it.

As she entered the room, it fell open.

Elise the Wise, they will call you, Harkness had written—slayer of incredible beasts. If you are reading this, then my visions have been fulfilled.

“You crafty bastard,” Elise whispered. “You knew.”

She turned the page.

I foresaw your triumph, and it is well deserved. But now you must choose your true path. You have defeated the threat of the beast, and now people know you as a powerful wizard. Some will walk alongside you. Others will look at you with fear and jealousy. You have walked the path of virtue and strayed. How far you wish to stray will be up to you.

“My true path?” Elise asked aloud.

She continued reading.

You have power now—more than any wizard since myself. You could rule this kingdom, bend it to your will. You could punish those who wronged you, and who could stop you? You could become the thing they feared you were becoming, and in doing so, prove them right.

“What?” Elise felt her throat tighten. “I’m not a monster.”

The following lines appeared before her eyes, as if the book was responding to her words:

No, you are not a monster. However, it is up to you not to become one.

I walked the Virtuous Path and failed. I thought my intentions mattered more than my actions. I created a cycle of death that lasted centuries because I was too afraid to pay the real price—not someone else’s life, but my own comfort, my own safety, my own belief that I was good.

You have learned that sometimes survival requires us to be less than virtuous. Sometimes the right thing and the good thing are not the same. But remember this, Elise: the world is full of people who justify their cruelty by calling it necessary. The world is full of people who become the monsters they fight.

You have the power to destroy. I’ve taught you that. But I never taught you what to build, because I never learned it myself. That lesson, you’ll have to write for yourself. Choose wisely, Elise Ventanor, not for the kingdom, not for the people who betrayed you, but for yourself. Choose the person you want to be when you’re as old as I am now, looking back at this moment.

Choose, and live with your choice. That’s all any of us can do.

—E.H.

Elise closed the book and sat in silence for a long time. Outside her window, the sun was setting over Jural, painting the sky in shades of gold and crimson. She could hear the sounds of the town—laughter, conversation, life continuing as it always had.

She thought about power, revenge, justice, mercy, and all the gray areas in between. She thought about the look on Gareth Miller’s face and the weight of that death on her soul. She thought about Sera’s words: once you start deciding who deserves to die, it gets easier each time.

She thought about the dragon, feeding for millennia on noble sacrifice, growing fat on virtue.

And she thought about the person she wanted to be.

Elise Ventanor stood, gathered the books—Harkness’s journal and the black volume both—and walked down the tower stairs. Tomorrow she would meet with the council. Tomorrow she would begin the hard work of building something new, something better. Tomorrow, she would start writing her own story, making her own choices.

But tonight, she walked out into the streets of Jural, her wizard’s robes traded for a simple dress, and joined the people celebrating in the square. When someone offered her a glass of wine, she accepted. When someone thanked her, she nodded in acknowledgment. When someone turned away in fear, she let them go.

She was Elise the Wise, Slayer of Dragons. And she would spend the rest of her life trying to figure out what that meant.

The path ahead was unclear, the choices uncertain. But they were hers to make, and no one else’s.

And that, she thought, was enough.