Everyone knows when you’re in a fight, it’s a death sentence to fall. The moment you’re on the ground, it’s over. So when my knees hit the stone and the kicks start coming, I know I’m dead.
There’s no coming back from this.
Pain showers down on me like pellets of punishing rain. The ominous press of bodies that surrounds my fetal form just oppressive clouds of gray. They land hits and kicks so savagelyit steals my breath. Cracks my ribs. Boots stabbing into muscle and organs, limbs viciously butchered with slices of blades that hit like whips.
I curl up into a ball, head tucked, knees up, and endure. There’s nothing else to do.
My body is pelted with brutality. My clothes are torn, boots kicked off, hair ripped from my scalp. There is no source of pain, because it’s everywhere, all at once. There’s no breath, no thoughts, no anything, except this downpour of agony that I know is going to kill me.
Tears leak from my eyes, burning as they land on my arm, while the deluge floods my system, soaking me through with its torture.
A kick to the temple has me blacking out for a few seconds, my mind heavy with resentful consciousness, though I know my body can’t take much more.
Grief and terror are my inner torrent, but when I nearly black out again, everything suddenly stops. Or maybe it isn’t so sudden, because time feels like it’s been fastened. Holding on with a grudge.
I look up blearily, body floating, and it takes me several seconds for my mind to connect the faces of the twins standing over me.
They look at me with hate, and then I’m pulled away, body caught at the ankles. I’m dragged off the stone pavilion and through the snow, but I don’t try to struggle or move.
I can’t.
The snow is actually a reprieve, since the cold offers a numbness I long for.
My eyes are nearly swollen shut. My sides scraping out soggy breaths. I’m hurting in so many places, I can’t track them all.
They leave me lying on a hard stone surface against a shadowed wall. I blink, trying to see where I am, and see two soldiers laugh as they walk away, following the trail of blood I’ve left behind in the snow.
For several seconds, all I do is stare and breathe, but even that is difficult.
Pain iseverywhere.
“Hello?” a feminine voice echoes, and I look up at the cavernous ceiling. Maybe I’ve died and I’m in Dronidylis’s temple. If I am, she needs a new decorator. Didn’t take her for someone who liked the cold.
“I said are you alright?”
“Annoying goddess,” I say around a bloodied tongue.
“What?”
My eyes roll, shifting to look in the direction of the voice. Just my luck, it’s not a goddess. It’s a woman tied to a pillar. I’d laugh if I didn’t think it would crack a rib.
“Who are you?”
“I can be anyone,” I mumble.
“What?”
Great skies, why can’t I just die in peace?
“Hello?” she snaps again.
With a grunt, I force both eyes to fully open past the swell and shove myself up to a sitting position. I gasp in pain, but I think, by some miracle, my ribs aren’t actually broken. It’s the stone band around my back that’s been snapped, and its rough edges are digging painfully into my ribs. Maybe this thing protected me a bit.
I reach up and tear one of the pieces away, though I nearly black out again at the pain it takes to move.
I’ll just get the other piece…later.
My head swims for several seconds before I’m able to focus on the pillar on the other side of the room. The female tiedthere has pure white hair and fair skin. On the other side of the pillar is a male with a darker complexion except for a pattern of light skin around his mouth and nose. Even from here, and even with swollen eyes, I can see one very important detail about them.
