Chapter 7 - Ash and Rebirth
The ceiling groaned above us, a burning beam crashing onto the stone floor just three feet from where Clara was chained. Sparks showered across her bare arms, but she barely seemed to notice the pain; her eyes were locked onto my face, tears cutting clean tracks through the thick layer of soot on her cheeks.
"Mia..." she gasped, her voice barely audible over the roaring inferno above. "Did she make it? Did she find you?"
"She's safe," I said, dropping to my knees beside her in the rising river water. "She's at the manor, Clara. She's in my bed. She's safe."
A sob tore from Clara's throat—a sound of pure, unadulterated relief that seemed to wash away twenty-two years of captivity.
I pulled out my sidearm, racked the slide, and aimed directly at the heavy iron padlock securing her chain to the wall. "Cover your face!"
Clara buried her head against her knees. I fired two rounds in rapid succession. The heavy steel link shattered in a spray of sparks. I grabbed the broken chain, looped my arm under Clara’s waist, and lifted her off the flooded floor. She weighed almost nothing, her frame wasted from years of meager rations and daylight deprivation.
"Hold on to me," I commanded, pulling the wet wool blanket over both of our heads.
The main floor above finally surrendered to the fire. A massive section of burning timber collapsed directly into the cellar, blocking the drainage pipe we had just used. The air turned into an incinerator, sucking the oxygen straight from our lungs.
"The river gate!" Clara choked out, pointing toward a heavy iron grating submerged in waist-deep water in the far corner of the cellar. "The release valve is behind the pillar! That's how my daughter got out!"
I waded through the murky, boiling water toward the submerged iron grate. My hands found the rusted iron wheel set into the stone wall. I strained against it, every muscle in my back screaming as the twenty-two-year-old rust resisted.
"Come on!" I roared, throwing my entire weight against the metal.
With a deafening screech of grinding iron, the valve turned. The heavy submerged grate rose six inches, then a foot, then swung outward into the river current. Cold Delaware River water rushed into the burning room like a tidal wave, cooling the smoke instantly.
I took a deep breath, wrapped my arm tighter around my sister, and dragged her beneath the surface, swimming with the current through the flooded tunnel and out into the open river.
We broke the surface of the water twenty yards downstream, coughing and gasping for air under the crisp, clear morning sky. Luca and four guards were already waiting on the riverbank, wading into the shallows to drag us onto the muddy grass.
I collapsed on my back on the bank, my chest heaving, watching the river cottage crumble into a pyre of smoking ash against the limestone cliff. Beside me, Clara lay on a warm wool blanket, staring up at the blue sky and the green pine trees with wide, wonder-struck eyes, reaching out with trembling fingers to touch a blade of grass she hadn't seen under the open sun in over two decades.
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"It's over, Clara," I whispered, reaching over to take her cold hand in mine. "The nightmare is over."
"Not yet," she murmured, turning her head toward me, a fierce, Romano fire burning behind her tears. "Vincent is still breathing."
