And then darkness swallowed me whole.
16
I woke to the taste of blood in my mouth.
My face was pressed against something hard and cold. There was a puddle beside me, of what I could not tell.
I groaned, the sound low and harsh, seeming to cleave itself from my very bones. Shackles bit into my wrists as I pushed myself upward, my entire body screaming in protest.
Blinking, I tried to find my bearings. The room I was in was horribly dank, swept up in shadows and dust and a frightening sense of hopelessness. Behind me, I could feel the rough ridges of a wall.
“You’re alive.” The darkness spoke, its small voice not at all how I imagined the goddess Nyx would sound.
“Who’s there?” I managed, the words clunky on my tongue. I sounded drunk.
“Melitta,” came the voice again, and recognition seeped through me, followed by a rush of disappointment.
She had not made it.
Had any of us?
I could hardly recall what had happened in those final moments. My mind was like a shattered mosaic, rattling with so many broken pieces I didn’t know how to fit back together. I remembered the panic, the chaos, my heart hammering in my chest as if it might explode…
“How long was I out?” It hurt to talk; my whole face throbbed,and there was a sharp sting above my left eyebrow.
“All night,” Melitta replied. Her voice was thin. Defeated. “I thought you were dead.”
“Not yet,” I muttered, wincing as I shifted to sit more upright. “The others?”
“They took them to another cell.”
I heard her sniffle, trying to fight back tears.
“I told Melanthius this was a foolish idea. I told him—”
“He did this for you, for your…” I trailed off.
My eyes were slowly adjusting to the dimness, and I could just make out Melitta’s outline, the crumpled curve of her body.
“You know what they do to slaves who try to escape, don’t you?” She was crying now, the sound seeming to make the darkness feel heavier around us.
I said nothing, waiting for the fear to seize me. The panic.
But all I felt was a horrible, echoing numbness.
Perhaps it was too much for my body to accept, the soul-crushing realization that all my hopes and dreams had just died in my hands.
Perhaps a part of me had always known I would never escape this nightmare.
“I’ll tell them it was my idea. I’ll say you were forced into it,” I said.
Melitta hiccuped a sob. “What? Why would you do that?”
“Because you have something to live for.”
“And you don’t?”
I had nothing to say to that.
