The simmering rays of the sun’s unforgiving morning light beats down through the dome over our city as if our method for protection only maginifies its ire.

Growing up, I’d thought that was why the sky crackled – it was baking under the heat just like we were.

It wasn’t until I came into my powers, while ironically running from physical education class, that I’d learned the truth.

No one was allowed in the part of town I’d inadvertently fled to.

No one except the patrol of guards, who missed me by moments, because a crackling orb abruptly appeared around me, rendering me somehow invisible.

I’d frantically scanned my surroundings for my savior within the wasteland that was left behind as a reminder of the war against the dragons, but it was my hands raised in instinctive plea for leniency that the magic had emanated from.

I think I said something profound then, like, “Hoo boy.”

It’s not like we weren’t allowed to have magic, but only irrelevant skills.

For example, Mother only boasted her ability to light up a room.

Literally.

She glowed bright blue.

But defensive magic? Especially warding?

I kept that thing wrapped around me for weeks until Mother’s glow dulled in my absence, but I knew it would go out entirely if the royals ever saw me or my gift.

No one with impressive or useful magic was ever seen again, rendering us all hopeless and trapped on the outskirts while those in the grandiose castle, perched under the peak of the dome, thrived on our ‘assistance.’

Even now, we’ve been in a drought for months that one of our leaders’ decorative fountains could cure alone.

A wealth of water enabled by our complacency.

Just last week, stupid little Timmy developed water magic and decided to put on a show for everyone in his excitement.

The real show was watching all the adults attempt to tackle a soaking wet adolescent before the guards found the source and deprived us of him.

My people weren’t successful.

Stupid Timmy.

I smack my dry lips together as I continue the trudge to the castle along with the masses.

No, I’m not going there to see if Timmy is capable of drowning.

I like the way you think though.

It’s time for the monthly proposal, of course.

The ritual that resembles a semblance of democracy in a world where the people otherwise have no say over their lives.

It’s genius, really.

Decades of letting the oppressed pick how they’re entertained without considering the expense of their request for once because of the royalty’s oath of appeasement.

Forcing us to spend so much time considering the opportunities within our seclusion that, eventually, we no longer see the bars of our cage.

Last month was my neighbor Randy’s turn to propose, as the head of his household, and he suggested that whoever beat the King in a dance battle would win a pony.

The King was delighted, much to our dismay.

I’m convinced that husk of a human can recall the moment that dirt was summoned into existence, but man can that decrepit degenerate dance.

It was fine though.

I didn’t want a pony anyway…

But this month?

There’s a reason I’m not the only one headed there early.

The royals have delayed this particular household’s proposal for decades due to the patriarch remaining in chains beneath the castle.

It doesn’t exactly paint the picture of the ‘people’s freedom to choose’ that they’re going for.

But every family has gone at least twice now.

I’m pretty sure that was Randy’s third attempt at obtaining a pony.

So, to maintain the image of equality, they’re allowing a criminal to propose today.

His crime has only been discussed in hushed tones and the story naturally changed over time, but it centers a similar theme – demanding freedom.

From the dome, from oppression.

As I close in on the eagerly writhing crowd, waiting before the raised stone stage erected just off the castle grounds, lest we taint them with our undesirable magic, I just pray they haven’t broken the criminal enough to change his ways.

I swear, if our one and only hope at escape asks for a pony as well, I’m going to lose my mind.

We have to get out of here.

The sun seems to target me as it rises over the thickening crowd.

Sweat soaks my threadbare tunic, similarly to the time I’d tried to dismantle the dome myself.

Anyone who comes into contact with it is instantly turned into ash, but I knew our rulers would have me maintaining it if I were caught.

I’d have to touch it to do that, right?

I refuse to contribute to our captivity, but it was worth a shot to see if my powers worked the opposite way, too.

Upon contact – I’m still not sure if the lightning strike was a coincidence or not – I was blown back from the force that surged where I’d stood.

I’d sagged in defeat against the crates my body broke, but I swear I got the fleeting feeling of greeting.

As if it was the wall’s way of saying ‘hello.’

The crowd roars and brings me back to the veritable surface of the sun as the king emerges on the stage, arm in arm with a man who looks like death despite their obvious efforts at cleaning him up.

Disgust overtakes my overheating body.

The audacity of the king to pretend his prisoner is his friend while guards circle their back.

As if everything is fine and normal.

It’s never been less so.

The captive’s watery eyes abruptly meet mine.

I’m too worn out to restrain my gasp.

He tilts his head forward slightly, as if we’ve come to an agreement on something beyond my knowledge.

His attention slides to the King’s moving mouth and the sounds of the crowd returns from my periphery outward.

I didn’t even notice it had left.

“…. so what do you propose?” The King is playfully saying.

The longer the man pretends to think, the louder the whispers of the crowd, and the tighter the elderly monarch’s grip visibly becomes on his arm.

“I propose…,” the man draws out in a rasp as though he’d spent years screaming, “that a person of my choosing touch the barrier.”

The crowd explodes in gasps and accusations of his time in chains corrupting his mind to wish to witness such torture, but multiple telepathic guards turn my way in response to the involuntary volume of curses that inundate my brain.

The King is, of course, even more delighted than he had been at the prospect of revealing his impressive hip flexion, and encourages the prisoner to choose.

The world loses focus beyond the raising of his shaky pointer finger, aimed right at me.

The crushing crowd parts as if I’m cursed.

They’re not wrong.

The guards I’d startled approach me warily, but I stride past them and toward their horses without resisting.

I’ve admittedly never been on one, but I think I do pretty well for a sweat slicked peasant riding towards their own demise.

I hear the crackle before I see it.

I could swear it almost sounds like it’s laughing.

My dismount is more of a graceless leap and then I’m striding resolutely to the barrier, where the King impatiently awaits with the prisoner.

The criminal pins me with his intense attention, but if he imagines a conversation occurring, it’s entirely one sided.

“Begin,” the King encourages imperiously.

My fists clench at my sides.

I numbly allowed myself this far out of habit.

An acquiescence he implemented in exchange for societal acceptance in order stave potential rebellion and ease his mind that’s as closed as his borders.

I finally snap.

“Am I not rendering myself ash fast enough for you?”

Everyone gasps except the telepaths, whose hands had already gripped the pommels of their swords in response to my treasonous thoughts.

The King sputters, never having needed quick wit or retorts in his charmed life of lies.

My eyes hold his wide ones as I harmlessly shove my hand into the barrier after years of practice, begging fate and the familiar magic to let it be time to dissipate and set us free.

A breeze cools my heated skin.

The dome seems to join in my sigh of relief as if it were created on a breath that was never released.

The very atmosphere seems to thicken and then I’m blown back from the contact once more, but this time, I’m not alone.

Even the King, with all his magical aid, lays splayed in the dirt he predates.

The terra beneath us trembles in a wave as the dome recedes from above, finally colliding with itself above the castle and turning the turrets into rubble.

The ache on my face has my hands rising in fear of injury, but the only aberration I find is a smile.

I turn it towards the prisoner, who wears a matching one.

Which makes sense, as he’s my father.

I’d only aged a winter when the war hero, who saved us all by creating the dome, was imprisoned with his story rewritten once he realized that the monarchy intended to manipulate the isolation for their own gain.

Finally ensured a small freedom in the form of a proposal, it’s only fair that his magic, that I inherited, offers him the reward his quality of character deserves.

I note strange lush greenery in my periphery, but I’m more focused on the guards recovering quickly.

But after passing glances, it’s not the King they gather to assist to his feet, but my father and myself.

One even begins to brush dust off me until I give him a look.

The King trembles where he sits, eying all of us like he can’t compute how forcing compliance doesn’t garner the respect they just freely gave the woman who quite literally burst his bubble.

My father comes to stand at my side for the first time in my life.

The smile is a permanent fixture on my face as I bend to enter the King’s personal space and advise,

“I propose you run.”