Just as I give in to that desire, Dorsin stops. I groan helplessly, blood dripping from my temple, my body now nothing more than bruises and abrasions. I get lost in the pain for a beat, and darkness begins to seep into my soul. When nothing happens for far too long, I risk looking up from my pitiful position on the cold stone floor. My eyes are filled with hate, and I’m all at once ready and eager to push this bastard and force him to give me the sweet release of death I find myself suddenly craving.
Shock ricochets through me when my battered and enraged gaze doesn’t find a set of brutish blue eyes staring down at me with evil intensity. No. Instead, the gleam of fairy light on a sharp blade catches my eye. A blade that’s being held to Dorsin’s throat by a...skeleton. I blink, trying to clear the illusion from my gaze, but the bone-white fist gripping the handle of the dagger doesn’t disappear. I can’t make sense of what’s happening until two other skeletal beings appear from behind Dorsin and move further into the room.
It’s a glamour,I realize as I watch them stride confidently into the chamber. Sable leather encases strong legs, arms, and tapered torsos. Any skin not covered by armor or weapons appears inky and dark, that is, aside from the white of the bone correlating with the body part that’s exposed. Skulls appear in place of male faces. Metacarpals and phalanges are all I can see of their hands. One of them turns, and I can count the vertebrae showing in place of his neck. Instead of empty sockets, I find onyx, emotionless eyes that are shrewdly studying their surroundings. Each of them has raven-black hair that’s been pulled tight and knotted at the backs of their heads, and just like the orcs, none of them make the barest whisper of a sound as they move.
I snap my stunned gaze back to Dorsin, whose features are quickly morphing from shock into fury. He opens his mouth to say something, but the shining blade presses tighter against his throat, and Dorsin seems to think twice about whatever words are sitting on his tongue.
“Got it,” a deep, no-nonsense voice declares, and before I can turn my head to identify what the stranger found, the blade at Dorsin’s throat is drawn and hot blood sprays out of the wound.
Terror and repulsion detonate in my chest, and I twist away as Dorsin’s life force showers me. I witness, with disconnected and deadened emotion, as the skeleton removes Dorsin’s hand with a skilled chop of an ax, tossing it casually to one of his partners before letting the fae that was just attacking me drop dead to the floor with a heavy thunk.
The three glamoured beings don’t even spare me a look as they make their way over to an empty expanse of wall, staring at it as though it’s more than blank tan stone. I try to breathe through the fear coursing through me, terrified that my panicked gasps are creating so much noise that it’ll be my throat they slit next. Without thinking about what I’m doing, I crawl over to the green puddle that was once an orc and pluck two long daggers from the sludge. The handles are slippery, and things I don’t want to think about ooze through the seams of my fingers, but I tighten my grip all the same, not knowing what’s going to happen next.
I will my newfound weapons to make me feel better, but I’m once again crouched in the corner, only this time I’m now naked, battered, spattered with blood, and there are three new threats standing on the other side of the room, staring at a wall. I hurt everywhere. I try and fail not to choke on fear as I watch what feels like a real-life game of Trumps unfold at my feet. However, instead of observing a card game where one higher suit trumps another, I’m watching monsters do it. Just when I think I know who and what to be afraid of, something new and even more dangerous is laid atop the deck.
The sound of stone scraping against stone catches my attention. Between the wide shoulders of the three skeletons, I see the large-bricked wall in front of them moving. Slowly, the rectangle stones fold in on themselves to reveal a small antechamber with rows and rows of shelves displaying things I can’t make out. One of the skeletons disappears into the space and then quickly reappears, handing a small bag to one of his partners while tucking what looks like folded parchment into the inside of his tunic.
“Get everything?” the one with the small bag asks as he ties it to the waist of his pants.
“Everything we needed. I even left something to remember us by, not that anyone will be getting in there after tonight,” the one with the parchment stuffed inside the front of his chest plate answers.
The skeletons move away from the open wall, and it immediately starts to brick itself back up. I stare mesmerized, or maybe I’m officially in shock, who’s to say at this point of this horror-filled night?
“Want to do anything about her?” a cool voice asks, and I startle at the realization that one of the skeletons has silently moved closer and is looking down at me from only a few feet away.
I tighten my hold on the daggers, and I swear I see a tic of amusement move the corners of his lips. His mouth is made to look like the teeth of a skeleton’s maw, but it doesn’t stop me from making out the plush fullness under the glamour as well as his square jaw and defined cheekbones. Like a wraith appearing from shadow, another skeleton is suddenly by his side, observing me.
“She’ll probably go to the flesh market if we do nothing,” the first one points out.
“Not our problem,” the third states as he moves toward the still open window.
“I can kill you if you’d like,” the second offers, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s talking to me. “You’d be better off dead than what this lot will do to you,” he goes on, his black eyes hard and his tone even, factual.
“We need to go,” the skeleton by the window calls out, a bite of irritation in his tone.
“Do you want me to kill you?” the other skeleton asks again, unhurried.
Do I?
I stare at him, uncertain. I was ready to die when Dorsin was kicking my bones in, but now...now with three monsters dead and two daggers in my hands, everything feels different, less desperate, less hopeless.
“Help me,” I answer instead. “Take me with you,” I plead, pushing up from my crouch in the corner. I cry out as my ribs object to the movement, my broken body forcing me back to the ground on my knees.
“You can’t even walk, and if you could, we wouldn’t be able to take you, little moonbeam. You’re better off dead,” the skeleton closest to me declares, and something about his calm assessment reignites my anger.
My eyes harden against his, and I say nothing as I pull my knives closer to my body in warning. Black eyes rake over me once, and then both skeletons near me move to meet their friend by the window.
“Suit yourself,” one of them calls over his shoulder, not even bothering to look back at me, like I’m not even worthy of one last pitying glance.
Renewed panic starts to hammer at me as they move to leave, but what can I do? They’d rather see me dead than help me, and I don’t trulywantto die. It’s one thing to think it amidst agony and defeat, when there’s no way out and death is the only thing that will spare you more suffering. But as I sit among the slain, daggers in my hands, and the moon’s healing call just on the other side of the skeletons now crawling out of the window…I want to survive.
I want to make anyone who would dare to hurt me again...pay.
Hot tears drip down my cheeks as the skeletons disappear out the window as stealthily as they arrived. Deep, cruel words echo in my mind as I move to Dorsin and search him for the key to my chains.
“You’re better off dead.”
That heartless statement is all I can hear as I cut Dorsin’s tunic from his body and wrap the fabric around me, covering what I can with the soft silk. I try not to puke as I desperately search the orc goo for the keys to my freedom, but they must be in the desk, and my chains don’t stretch that far. The soft touch of night caresses the bruises from my skin. The moonbeams that sneak in through the still open window painfully pop my bones back in place, healing the damage that Dorsin rained down on me. Sadly, the healing does little to restore my strength, and no matter how I try to wedge knives into the links of the chains or stab the locks on the cuffs, I can’t get myself free.
