“Nelle!” Evvie shrieked, pushing to her feet, wincing as she hobbled toward us.
But my mother’s pace quickened as she yanked me along.
The tithe prison was much like a silo, but this one was made from adamere that glittered with silver in the gloom. It was enormous, stark, and foreboding.
Momma pressed the stone against the curved wall, and a sudden ripple of greenish light scored up and across and down, creating an outline of a doorway. She pushed against it, and the door yawned wide, and all I could see inside was black.
My eyes went wide. No, no, no.
I tugged and flailed, trying to yank myself free.
The wind stirred, and the earth trembled beneath our feet.
It wasn’t a natural quake.
It came from me.
Momma jerked me closer. That’s what terrified me more than if she’d shouted at me in anger. Her deeply rooted fear. The panic shining in her eyes. “I’m sorry.” The flat of her hand met my back, and she shoved me inside.
I stumbled into the dark and spun around, about to run for the door and freedom. But it shut with a rumbling thunk, and daylight winked out.
My nightmarish screams ricocheted off the walls and rebounded in the darkness.
I gasped in relief when the door reopened shortly after, then whimpered when my mother shunted a box of food and water inside, along with tissues for the toilet—clearly meant for the human tithes we captured—before the door slammed shut with heavy finality.
I screamed in terror and shrieked and sobbed until my tears ran dry.
No one came to free me.
Time was endless without the sun to count the passing of days. I had no idea how long I’d been capsized in darkness.
A day or two? A month? A year?
I tentatively paced, walking tight circles in my circular cage, my breathing shallow, my mind teetering on the verge of spiraling into insanity at being submerged in the dark. Other times I pinched my inner wrist with sharp, stinging nips to remind myself that I was alive, whole, I lived in a body.
But it became too much…too much to endure…
And my imagination spun at what our House had trapped inside the prison walls over the years.
Mortals with a taste for killing.
Otherswith terrifying powers.
Otherworldly beasts that liked to feast on the bones of little children.
My mind whispered that those things could be imprisoned with me, and I fell into mindless terror. I collapsed in a tangle of limbs onto the floor, my mind turning inward to protect me.
How long I lay there, I didn’t know.
When I rose to consciousness, it was because I’d sworn a slender shard of sunlight pierced the darkness, and my sister’s face had been hovering over me. But when my mind awoke fully, I was alone in the dark, unable to see my hand in front of my face.
And then I heard her.
Whispering behind the thick stone.
It shouldn’t have been possible for her voice to breach the dense wall, yet her words reached me. I scrambled to my feet, edging closer.
Tears of relief leaked down my cheeks. “Evvie! Evvie!” I banged my fists on the prison wall until they throbbed in agony, but she didn’t hear me. And yet, not hearing anything in return, Evvie never left my side.
