No, your eyes are not deceiving you - this is really the first chapter of that multichapter I've been promising you for so long. I'm sorry for the delay. It's been almost a year since my previous multichapter and I honestly don't know what happened. I hope you're still out there, though!

I promised, so... Nia, this one's for you - because it's been so amazing to meet you and spend one short day with you on Broadway, and because you helped me with some things regarding this story - in real life, rather than through social media, which is so awesome!

Humberto, it's also for you, because it's been just as great to meet you on your journey to Europe! :)

This story isn't entirely finished yet, but getting there. Updates will be approximately every two or three days, because we all know I suck at keeping a regular updating schedule. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Prologue

She was brought in late one night, when most of the prisoners had already gone to sleep on their cots and the dungeons of Southstairs were mostly silent. Mostly, because it was never completely quiet down there. There were always the moans of someone in pain, the soft weeping that echoed off the walls, or at the very least the grunts and snores of sleeping men.

Fiyero had been listening to the sound of rain falling just outside the small window that was situated high on the wall of his cell, almost against the ceiling. There were only iron bars in front of that window and sometimes icy cold gusts of wind came through it, chilling him; nonetheless, he considered himself lucky for having been placed in a cell along one of the outer dungeon walls, allowing him to have that little window. He liked to listen to the sounds of the people in the streets during the day and to know what the weather was like in the city above him. It made him feel more connected to the outside world.

It had been raining off and on for the past couple of weeks, or maybe they were months – he couldn't be sure. It had to be autumn by now, if not winter, and the weather had turned cold and grey. He had always liked rain, but now it made even him feel disconsolate. Still he listened to it. It wasn't like there was much else to do down here, after all. The prisoners hardly ever spoke to one another; at first, they always tried to strike up conversations, but their attempts usually died down once they realised that talking wasn't going to help their situation. Perhaps it could help them stay sane, but very few of them wanted to stay sane down here. It was easier to bear if you weren't consciously aware of certain things.

The prisoner that was brought in now, however, clearly hadn't figured that out yet. Even at the back of the low, dark dungeons, Fiyero could hear the fight she was putting up.

"I can walk for myself, thank you very much!" she snapped and he heard the sound of shuffling feet on the stones and the clinking of chains. There was the low murmur of the guards' voices and then the female voice again. "Don't you dare lay a finger on me or I swear that you will regret it until your dying day." From most people in her situation, such a threat would have been silly, almost funny, because what was a prisoner in chains going to do to a fully armed guard? Still, somehow from this prisoner's mouth it actually sounded… almost threatening.

Fiyero sat up on his cot, hearing the footsteps come closer. He could see the faint light of the guards' torch now and then he saw the outline of the new prisoner. A girl still, and not a very big one at that. She wasn't exactly small, but smaller than Fiyero had expected her to be after hearing her snap at the guards like that, and gangly. She had long, raven black hair that hung in tangles down her back and over her shoulders. Her eyes seemed black in the scarce light, but he would have seen the fire in them even if he hadn't heard it in her voice before. She was wearing a tattered grey dress and no shoes, despite the cold, and she was in chains and accompanied by two guards. At first Fiyero thought he was imagining things, or the light was playing tricks on his eyes, but now that she was so close he could tell that her skin was actually a vibrant, emerald green colour.

One of the guards opened the door to the cell beside Fiyero's; the other pushed the girl inside and went in after her, fidgeting with her chains. Trying not to seem too interested – interest in anything that wasn't food was usually used against the prisoners here – Fiyero glanced through the bars separating him from the girl. He clearly saw that the guard who was with her slid his hand up her skirt and Fiyero felt a faint twinge of anger, but the girl seemed quite capable of defending herself. She jerked away from the guard and when he tried to grope her again, she spat into his face. "Don't touch me."

He slapped her so hard her head snapped back, but she just glared at him. "Don't you know what I can do?" she asked him in a low voice that was somehow more threatening than the loudest scream. "Do not touch me again."

The guard didn't say anything, but he didn't try to touch her again, either. Instead, he unchained her and left her cell, locking it behind him.

"You won't get away with this," the girl said from her cot. She rose to her feet and walked over to her cell door, looking at the guards. "One day," she said fiercely, "you will all pay for what you've done."

The guards laughed. "And you're going to be the one to make us, I take it?" one of them asked. "Get your head out of the clouds, love. You'll be dead before you're old enough to marry." They laughed again, but the girl just smiled – a smile that didn't reach her eyes, which were furious. The sight of it sent shivers down Fiyero's spine.

"Maybe," she said. "But I'm not the only one who could make you pay. Tell Morrible I said that. Tell her that as long as we're alive, she will never win. Tell her that one day I'll come for her, alive or dead, and it will be my pleasure to make her regret everything she has ever done in her sad, miserable life." She spat those final words, clutching the cell bars so tightly her knuckles had turned white.

The guards didn't seem too impressed. "Keep dreaming, love," one of them said and then they left, taking the light with them.

Fiyero sighed longingly. He missed the light already. There was always so little light down here, despite the small windows. If he could make one wish, it'd be to see the sun again – to really see it, standing outside with his face raised to the beautiful blue sky, basking in the sun's golden beams.

The girl had turned her back on her cell door and was looking around now with a scowl on her face. She glanced to the cell on her left, which was empty; and then to her right. When she saw Fiyero, she tilted her head a little to the side, curious, but she didn't speak. Instead, she sat down on her cot and picked up the blanket to wrap it around herself. She was shivering.

He broke the silence. "Why are you here?" he asked.

She looked over at him again, huddled in her blanket now. "Conspiracy against the Crown," she said mockingly. "As if we don't all know that it's Morrible making the decisions, rather than King Oscar." She was quiet for a moment, then added, softly, "As if we don't all know that everyone who so much as lifts a finger against her will be punished in the worst possible way."

He nodded. He knew.

She studied him more closely. "What about you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "My father had power," he said. "He tried to stand up against her. Against Morrible." He knew he didn't have to continue – everyone knew what had happened to the people who tried to speak out against Morrible – but he did, anyway. "The Gale Force came. They murdered my family and they made me watch. Then they took me away."

The girl was quiet for a while, so long he thought she wasn't going to say anything at all anymore, but then she whispered, "I'm sorry."

He scoffed softly and she sighed. "I know. They're empty words and they don't help. I'm sorry about that, too." She clenched her fists. "One way or another, though, I'll make her pay," she swore. "We won't let her get away with this."

He shrugged again and lay back down on his cot, folding his hands on his stomach and staring up at the ceiling. It was still raining; he could hear it. "That doesn't bring back the people she killed."

"No, but it prevents her from doing the same thing to others." She shivered again. Fiyero could hear the chattering of her teeth even from where he lay. "How long have you been here?"

Another shrug, even though he knew she couldn't see that in the dark. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "They came a few weeks after the Summer Fair."

He could sense her shock. "But… that's over four months ago! Don't they kill everyone who comes here within a few days at most?"

Four months. He hadn't realised it had been that long.

"Sometimes," he answered her question. "It depends on who it is. They like public executions, to scare everyone. I don't think they'll kill me, though. If they'd wanted to, they'd have killed me along with my family. For me, being the only one left, living the rest of my life down here would be worse than dying."

More silence. Then, "You won't."

"I won't what?"

"Live the rest of your life down here," she said firmly.

He had to smile a little at her determination, even though it was a faint, wan smile that wasn't so much happy as it was mildly amused. "I don't think I have much of a choice."

She didn't say anything to that. Fiyero could hear her shift as she lay down onto her cot; he could also still hear the chattering of her teeth. After a few more moments, he couldn't bear it any longer and he got up, pushing his own blanket through the bars at her. "Here."

She turned large, questioning eyes on him and he said with yet another shrug, "You need it more than I do. My clothes are thicker, not to mention the fact that I'm wearing shoes."

She looked down at her bare feet and sighed. "I lost them on my way here. It was a long journey."

"Take it," he urged, still holding out the blanket; and although she hesitated for a moment longer, she eventually took the blanket and wrapped it around herself as well, heaving a contented sigh.

"Thank you." She turned her head to look at him. "I don't even know your name."

"Fiyero," he said and her already large eyes widened further.

"Fiyero Tiggular?" she asked incredulously. "The Vinkun prince?"

Fiyero nodded and the girl cursed vehemently. "They killed the Vinkun king?!" She was clearly outraged. "How much longer does she think she can get away with this? The moment she starts killing off royalty, the people will stand up to her, won't they?"

"They won't," Fiyero told her. "They're too scared to do that. Besides, you already knew them to be killing noblemen, didn't you, Elphaba?"

She fell silent once more, turning her head the other way so he wouldn't be able to see her face.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," he said. "But I know who you are and what happened to you and your family. The skin colour is a bit of a giveaway regarding your identity, you know."

"I know." She shook her head. "But she didn't do those things to my family because they stood up to her," she said, so softly he could barely hear her. "She did that because of me."

He knew she was right. This girl was Elphaba Thropp, the Munchkin governor's eldest daughter who left home a few years ago, at age sixteen, to join the rebellion. Governor Thropp had insisted he had sent her away to stay with family for a while, but the truth had come out when Elphaba and some other rebels had staged an attack on a group of Gale Force soldiers to try and free some of their prisoners. The attack had failed and some of the rebels had been killed. Elphaba, although she'd gotten away, had been recognised by the soldiers as the governor's daughter – after all, there weren't any other green people in Oz – and a few days later, her father and sister had been arrested and put to death in the Emerald City for aiding the rebellion. It had been a public affair, news of which had reached even the Vinkus, a little less than a year before Fiyero's own family had been murdered. He remembered hearing about it from his father.

"At least you stood up to her in some way," he said now. "That's more than most people ever dare to do."

She didn't say anything.

"Besides," he added, "even if you hadn't left to become a rebel, Morrible would have found some excuse to murder your family, sooner or later, and then you'd have been among them. At least now you managed to aid the rebellion for a couple of years and to make a difference."

"I didn't make much of a difference, though," she whispered, crawling deeper into her blanket. "And…" She swallowed audibly. "I couldn't stay away from that square." Her voice grew even softer until it was barely above a whisper. "I don't have to tell you what it's like to watch your father and your little sister die."

The memories were still so vivid, lurking under the surface, and they instantly came to him now. His father, shouting at Jermain to get Fiyero and his sisters to safety right before he was run through with a sword. His mother's screams as one of the men bashed her head against the floor until there were no more sounds from her at all, only a pool of blood and a pair of broken eyes. The soldiers ripping twelve-year-old Aora from Jermain's arms, then holding both Jermain and Fiyero back as they put a rifle between the girl's shoulder blades and shot, again and again and again. Aora couldn't even scream; there had only been a horrible gurgling sound as she slumped to the ground.

Jermain had tried to fight them off so Fiyero and Myah, their other sister, could free themselves and run, but they had never even loosened their grip on the two siblings. Myah had fought as hard as she could; Fiyero had seen the terror in her eyes, but she hadn't shed a tear, hadn't cried, hadn't begged, not even when she'd seen them murdering her parents and her sister. She'd fought them every step of the way. She'd kept her chin up and her back straight and Fiyero wished, more than anything, that he could have had the chance to tell her how proud he was of her. Even when the soldiers had held them both and made them watch as their comrades beheaded Jermain – Fiyero's role model, his hero, the big brother he'd always looked up to – and Fiyero had lost it completely, Myah had kept fighting to get away. It had been of no use, though.

Fiyero had only been able to scream when Jermain died. He'd screamed like a madman until they knocked him unconscious with the butt of a rifle. When he'd woken up, he'd been in a prisoner's wagon, on his way to the Emerald City. He could only thank Oz that he had been knocked out before he saw Myah die, too, even though at the same time he felt guilty because now she'd had to die alone.

They were the things nightmares were made of, and his still were. Every night, ever since it happened, without exception.

"They shot her," Elphaba said, drawing Fiyero's attention back to the present, "and they beheaded him."

He felt a pang at the catch in her voice. "Empty words or not," he murmured, "I am sorry."

She chuckled mirthlessly, but when she said, "Thank you," she sounded sincere nonetheless.

They slept only a little that night, though they didn't talk much more, either. Instead, they mainly sat together in a silence that was somehow comforting, if only because they both knew they weren't alone.

"No matter what happens," Elphaba whispered at some point, "I will never stop fighting them."

He didn't say anything. She said that now; he'd always said that, too. But that was before. When everyone you cared about was dead and you were spending the rest of your days wasting away in a dark, damp dungeon, one tended to lose the will – and the strength – to fight. He of all people could know.

She looked at him. "Is there nothing we can do?" she asked almost desperately. He wished he could reassure her, but he couldn't. Not really.

"There might be," he said, more to make her feel better than because he believed it to be true. "I have no idea what, though."

"I'll find a way," she vowed fiercely. "Somehow, someday, I will bring that witch down, if it's the last thing I ever do."

It was quite likely it would be, Fiyero thought, if she'd succeed at all – not to mention if she'd live to see the end of the week. He didn't say that, either. He admired her spirit and he didn't want to be the one to burst her bubble. "I hope you will, Fae," he muttered. "I really do."

He could hear the surprise in her voice when she queried, "How do you know that name?"

He smiled a little wryly – it had slipped out without him even realising. It was how he had always thought of her because it was the name he'd heard her called by the most. "Almost every rebel knows the name you go by, Elphaba. I don't need to remind you that you're quite famous among them."

She huffed through her nose. "They thought they'd stand a chance with magic on her side," she said, a hint of mockery in her voice, but she mainly just sounded sad. "They didn't realise that magic can't solve everything, even when wielded by someone completely in control – which I have never been in the first place." Her voice turned bitter. "I bet I've been nothing but a huge disappointment to them."

"I'm sure that's not true," he said, but she didn't respond.

Instead, she asked, "So how do you know my rebel name? Are you a rebel?"

He almost laughed at that. Almost. "Not exactly, but my parents… knew things. They had connections. And besides, you're not the only one down here with ties to the rebellion." He'd talked to a lot of the other prisoners, in the beginning, when he still thought a difference could be made by talking. What was the use, though, of talking to people who always disappeared again after less than a week?

Elphaba clearly hadn't figured that out yet, though, and he couldn't deny that it was nice to have an actual conversation with someone again.

"There are others?" She sounded hopeful now. "Down here?"

"Not anymore," he said shortly and even in the dark, he could see her deflate.

They were quiet again. After a while, Fiyero wiggled his hand through the bars separating them, holding it out for her to take, and she laced their fingers together. They spent the rest of the night like that, holding on to another living person as if that was the only connection to the outside world they had left.

When morning came, Elphaba sat up on her thin straw-stuffed mattress and unwrapped the blankets from around herself, pushing them both back into Fiyero's cell through the bars. "Here."

He protested. "You need them yourself. I'm not cold," he lied. The fact that he was freezing was the main reason he'd hardly slept all night; but Elphaba, in her thin, ragged dress and with her bare feet, needed the warmth more than he did.

She smiled another smile that didn't seem very happy. "I won't need them anymore," she said simply.

Fiyero sat up, too, alarmed at the resigned tone of her voice. She didn't seem like the type to be resigned. With the grey light of morning now entering their cells through the small window in his cell, he could make out the darker-coloured swelling of her cheek where the guard had slapped her the day before. "What do you mean?" he asked dumbly.

They both heard the dungeon door open, as if in answer to his question. Footsteps resounded through the dungeons, coming down the path between cells.

"I'm a rebel," Elphaba said simply. "It was too late last night to give me a public execution, which is why they threw me in here in the first place. My time's up now, though." The footsteps came closer and she lowered her voice so the guards wouldn't hear her talk. "Thank you for making my final night more bearable, Fiyero," she said and he heard the sadness she was trying to swallow. "It's good to know that kindness hasn't been completely driven from this world yet."

"Fae…"

They reached her cell. They pulled out a key and opened the door, going inside. She snapped and snarled at them, especially when they tried to touch her again, but they just laughed and put her in chains once more. They roughly yanked her to her feet and dragged her out of her cell. She looked back over her shoulder at Fiyero only once; he met her gaze and held it until she had to turn her head again and the circle of light from the guards' torch disappeared. She was gone, never to be seen again, and Fiyero lay back down on his cot to stare up at the ceiling once more. Outside, it had started raining again.