Why, I don’t know. He’d made no move to prevent Brin from tossing me in here. Even if he came, there was every chance that he might not intervene. He might simply decide to leave me to my own devices. A growth opportunity, as my grandfather had put it.
Still, in that moment, his name was the only one I could think of.
The darkness moved. An impression of wings spreading wide before a shape contorted into something else. Its appearance changed again. Then a third time.
“You’re not Alches, are you?” I guessed with a sinking feeling.
This was something else. Something that regarded me with detached curiosity.
I kept my eyes trained on the entity, instinct whispering that I was in danger. A splotch of ocher lurched forward, twining around my leg like a cat.
A pained noise whistled through my teeth. The only sound I let escape.
Agony lanced my shoulder a second later. The blue magic that was the source of the sensation twisted to face me.
Its appearance acted like an invitation. The colors converged on me.
I gritted my teeth against the pain, curling in on myself and hunkering down.
The entity simply watched as the colors took turns zapping me. I rode the waves of pain. It wasn’t until my throat was raw that I realized I’d started screaming at some point.
Through the haze, I became aware of a pattern. They never brushed against me in the same place twice. Every time they chose new, unbroken flesh. Each lance of pain crescendoing before receding. And when it did, something new flooded in. Like a forest devastated by a fire before experiencing new growth. The old burned away so something new could flower in its place.
Right after that realization, I became aware that each encounter hurt less and less.
They were helping me. Their touches leaving me stronger than I’d been before.
My body was coming alive. Something within expanding into the spaces that experienced the renewal.
My abyss. It thirsted.
This was what Brin had meant by becoming. I was in the midst of a metamorphosis into something else.
Something dark and beautiful. Powerful and strong.
With that glimpse came a knowledge I didn’t stop to question. By instinct I grasped one of the shadows closest to me, pulling it.
Its edges began to rip. Light filtered through the tear I’d created. Not stopping to question myself, I threw myself forward and through it.
And once again, I was falling.
This time the plummet was short. A mere span of seconds before I landed sprawled on a floor of cold, hard stone.
“I can’t believe that worked.”
My ribs protested as I pushed myself upright. The sight that greeted me had a raw laugh scraping my insides.
What was that saying?
Never trust a Fae.
Sound advice if I ever heard any.
That “window” Brin had left led to a prison cell. An oubliette if I wasn’t mistaken.
Carved out of stone, the room possessed only one exit. A hole far above my head over which iron bars had been placed.
I shifted until my back was resting against the nearest wall. “I’m trapped.”
