ChapterOne
Aloud clang of metal slamming against metal jolts me awake. Stale air reeking of filthy bodies and unwashed chamber pots fills my lungs, and I gag at the offensive stench. Bitter cold settles deep in my bones, eliciting a shiver and igniting a flare of confusion.
Where am I?
The thought feels thick and hazy as it tumbles around in my mind. I try to open my eyes, but they’re crusted shut. There’s a twinge of pain from the pull of my eyelashes as I struggle to open my lids, and I rub at my eyes to clear them. My heart kicks up with worry as foreign, unwelcome sensations continue to assault my senses.
Something is very wrong.
I don’t know what’s happening or why my body aches as though it’s been to war. I try to piece my chaotic confusion together, but it’s as though I’m attempting to boil water with a fire that’s all but gone out. I fight against the pounding in my head and the panic in my chest, and painfully I force my eyelids open. All I find for my struggle is endless layers of blackness all around me.
A quiet groan slips out of my mouth when I turn my head to better take in my inky surroundings. The slight movement invites the ache in my skull to spread down my neck and into my shoulders. Pain rolls through me like wind-pestered ripples over the surface of a glassy lake, and I pull in deep breaths of fetid air to try to fight the black spots that start to speckle my already dark vision.
Nausea roils in my belly, and I clench my fists, the movement a lethargic reaction to the misery coursing through me. My short nails scrape roughly against the frigid floor I’m sprawled across as the need to fight whoever has done this to me floats in my blood. Too bad everything about where I am orwhyis blank. It’s as though someone hastily erased all the vital details of who I am, leaving only streaks of chalk and murky clouds of dust in their wake.
Barely suppressed sobs draw my attention somewhere to my left. My eyes struggle to adjust, to bring into focus what the surrounding blackness has wrapped in its cloying grip. I swallow down my trepidation, suddenly noticing the flavor of terror in my mouth as though it crawled inside, died, and has been rotting on my tongue for who knows how long. Bile tickles the back of my throat as my eyes finally sharpen in the drowning darkness all around me. I blink once against the onslaught of images, straining to catalog things as I take them in.
It isn’t just the chilly stone underneath my battered limbs that’s sapping my body of heat and comfort. There are metal bars surrounding me. Tall ominous rods embedded into a frosty stone floor and capped off by a baleful blackened metal top.
I’m in a cage.
A cage in part made of iron, and that realization triggers a jolt of panic and adrenaline—although I can’t seem to remember why or how I recognize the danger in this metal. My body is clearly trying to tell me something, something it thinks I should know, but everything in my head is leaden and vacuous. Somehow, the parts of me Ineedin order to understand these reactions, are missing. Fear spikes even harder in my chest. My heart gallops like it’s surging for first in a race. My body is responding in kind to my frantic emotions, but my thoughts are tripping all over themselves. My head is in last place with no hope of catching up to my body.
I squint into the darkness, seeing more cages. They line the walls of the room, some empty, their open maws ready and waiting to devour unsuspecting victims. Others are filled with helpless heaps like me. Once again I hear the hushed, terrified cadence of soft crying. I try to trace the shattered song to its source, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from.
Panic unfurls in my belly, and pain screams through my arms as I force myself up from the ground on shaky limbs. A silvery lock of hair falls into my face as I move. I freeze. Staring at the unusual hue of the wisps, I wait for the color or texture to trigger some kind of recognition, any kind of cognizance in my addled, pockmarked mind. Nothing comes. I reach for a tuft, tugging at it gently, and feel the roots of the strands tighten against my scalp. It’s definitely my hair.
Why do I feel so confused by that?
I sit up further, despite the warning twinge of my stiff and angry muscles. I rake long fingers through my tresses, pushing the dense strands out of my face. The ends tickle my lower back, but it’s my hands that I’ve now pulled in front of me to stare at.
I don’t know them.
Dread lodges in the base of my throat, thick and intrusive, as I run the pads of my fingers over the unfamiliar features of my face. Long lashes, straight nose, puffy lips, pointed ears, these are things I know, and yet…I don’t. I’m not shocked by what I find at the tips of my fingers, but an image of what those parts create as a whole doesn’t filter into my mind.
I don’t know who I am.
Alarm-tinged certainty clings to that fact. I try to muddle through my memories, to look for anything that exists beyond waking up inside of this cage, but there’s nothing there. My mind is black and barren, and all I find are questions and fear flying around inside of me like feathers on a violent rush of wind.
What’s going on?
Faint shouting erupts somewhere outside of the room of cages, and a few of the others locked inside these iron bars release terrified squeaks of warning. Once again my body responds as though it knows exactly what they’re afraid of. Adrenaline surges in my veins, helping to clear some of the cobwebs from my head and the ache from my limbs. Dismay tightens my muscles, and my heart starts to beat so loud and so fast that it’s suddenly all I can hear. It’s as though the blaring rhythm is trying to drown out the sounds of what’s coming, trying to protect me from the horrors of what I’m going to encounter.
Instinct has me scurrying back in my cage, trying to get as far as I can from whatever is going on. A sizzling sting rips through my bare shoulders as they come in contact with the bars at my back. I yelp as I jerk away from the burning iron rods. The smell of scorched skin clings to the inside of my nose as I scramble to the middle of my cage. I reach behind me, hissing as my fingertips test the throbbing new injuries. It seems that my sleeveless shift protected my back at least, but I burned the backs of my shoulders and both arms. A helpless whimper slips from my lips as I huddle in the middle of my cage, eyeing the iron barriers as the yelling outside gets louder.
Iron hurts the fae.
Out of nowhere, my fear-laden mind provides this fact as though it’s something I should know.
Fae.
Is that what I am? I wait expectantly as though the answer will pop up in my head just as unbidden and unexpected as the previous thought, but nothing comes. There’s no sense of knowing or rightness at the notion offae, only pain and panic.
The heavy tread of multiple feet reverberates somewhere outside the room of cages. I watch helplessly as other prisoners fold in on themselves as though they’re trying to disappear into the darkness itself.
“What’s happening?” I rasp, surprise moving through me at the discovery that I can use my voice for more than just whimpers and pained groans.
Before anyone can so much as wince in my direction, a large door at one end of the room slides open with a piercing screech. My eyes snap shut from the painful stab of light that slices into the room. I cover my head with my arms at the sound, my sensitive ears pounding from the abuse. No matter how much it makes me ache, I force myself to peek at the newcomers. I need answers, and I can’t hide away from finding them, no matter how petrified I am.
