One Spirit.
One Life.
I am adrift in a suffocating void. The darkness is absolute, empty yet full, all at once.
Every inhale is shallow, a fight against the thick cloying mist, my fear like thick syrup in my mouth. I try to call out, but the sound is swallowed before it reaches my lips. Just a raw, silent scream tearing at my throat.
A roar of anguish reverberates through me, and there is a sudden flare of light in the dark, the golden tendrils in my hand igniting with searing hot pain.
“Alaya, where are you?”
I hold on to that voice like my life depends on it, his voice my mooring in the storm.
Yet, as I drift further into the void, the voice weakens, the pain dulls to an ache, and the light fades.
No, no, no … ! My hand stretches out, the golden etchings barely glowing now—like dying embers—and I reach for him. But I’m moving through nothing, going nowhere, and I cry out in frustration.
As the golden thread’s last light is extinguished, I have nothing left to anchor me, and my mind spirals into the nothingness.
Alone.
Kidnapped.
The word echoes through my mind as reality crashes back in, the fog lifting from my head.
My heart hammers against my ribs, the sensation spreads through my chest, making it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to do anything except feel the overwhelming dread that’s consuming me from the inside out.
I don’t dare move, keeping my breathing low and shallow, hoping they haven’t heard the slight shift as consciousness returned.
I’m propped against a rough rock, my wrists bound with rope. Just across from me are two Equitae locked in a heated argument. Thankfully, they’re far too caught up in shouting at each other to notice I’m awake.
“Do you know who that is?” A hulking Equitae with a shock of red hair standing up the centre of his shorn head points at me without turning around.
“I’m not stupid, Rawson,” the one I know as Domanikk replies, crossing his arms.
“Well, it sure seems like it. Shit—his wife, Dom? What the fuck were you thinking? We were only supposed to be trying to get intel on where our captives were being held.” Rawson sighs, turning towards me now.
I quickly look down so as not to alert him to my consciousness as his glowing amber eyes flash in my direction.
“Though it’s got fuck all to do with you, you know I can’t resist collecting pretty things. Besides, I told you what happened when we first met.”
“Then you know we just need to slit her throat right here and be done with it.”
Fear pulses through me like a wave at his words, and I scan my surroundings. It’s hard to see in the near pitch-black evening, but the ground beneath me is dry and sunbaked—we’re in the Barrens. I can just make out a thick treeline to my right, which seems strangely out of place.
I’m pretty sure I don’t want to die here tonight, reduced to nothing but a pile of bleached bones.
“Though, it seems I’m not the only one who came back with toys.” Domanikk smirks, walking over to two kneeling hooded figures I can’t quite make out. He kicks the nearest one, and I hear a grunt as they fall back onto the hard dirt.
“Collateral. One of the fuckers jumped me as I was trying to leave the castle. You know he’s going to chop our balls off for this, right?”
“I’m quite partial to mine.” Domanikk swaggers back closer, grabbing the crotch of his tight leather trousers.
“Look, let’s just leave them all here to rot. He’s going to be waiting for a report on what we found out.”
Rawson’s words send a shiver of terror through me. Then I realise that the biting evening air pricks my skineverywhere.
I’m still naked.
