Ona didn’t know how many days – and nights – have passed since she arrived Arelt. Her vision, her mind, her whole being felt like made of spiderweb, thin and trembling, shivering on every single gust of wind. All she knew was that she was in pain, and her body was enduring things no one should ever have to face. Each time she woke up, she remembered hands. Hands on her throat, on her arms, around her waist… on her thighs… and pressure inside her body, tearing her apart.
Her skin bled. Her mind thrashed inside her skull like a frantic, caged animal – terrified to death. Maybe it wasn’t her blood. Maybe it wasn’t even her body. Maybe she was already dead, and this was the some sort of afterlife: cruel, hazy, unfocused… and painful.
When the men left her alone, she tried to speak. To herself. To anyone. To the goddess. To the faery gods. Speaking – through a clenched throat – was agony, but she did it anyway. She mumbled incoherently, trying to find a meaning. Her mind latched to the words and slowly tried to pull itself from the pit they pushed her into.
Until someone answered.
“Ona…”
Ona.
Ona. That was her name. Someone knew it, someone knew her. Her limbs tensed, ready for another portion of pain. She was touched – yes, but not with force, gently. Calmly, even lovingly. She felt love in those hands, in that voice, even in the scent. It reminded her of home, before the faeries destroyed it, turned it into a decayed battleground.
“Ona… why did you come here? I told you not to. They’ll kill us both now. I tried so hard to protect you…”
“Ona… please… they’ve drugged you…”
“Ona… you must not drink the water…”
“They force it into me…”
“I know… Ona… you can’t drink it… but… I know, yes.
“I’ll give you something. Eat.”
“No…”
“Eat… It’s the only reason I’m still alive. Not submitted. Not dead.”
Ona sensed pain and despair in the voice. Was the speaker witnessing what they did to her? Water… she shouldn’t drink it. But she was always thirsty. When they offered it, it felt like a blessing. A reprieve from torment. A touch of the goddess’s grace in an underworld of vile beings.
But the next time they gave her water, she felt the difference. The soft, spongy thing the caring woman had offered to her seemed to work. After a night of shallow sleep, her mind cleared. The drugged water no longer clouded her thoughts. She realized where she was.
She lay on a stone floor. Her skin was pale and bruised. Her clothes – a thin dress she didn’t remember ever wearing – were stained with blood. Her breath quickened. She inhaled and exhaled, trying to make sense of it. They… she met with that child, strange child with fevered eyes. And drank something. Drank something they called The Light.
It was a drug. They immobilized her mind, and her body to do… what? Was she…?
“Ona…”
The voice. Her heart quickened. The voice she heard every day here. The voice that saved her. The voice…
…she knew.
It was her.
The one she had searched for, for so long, so desperately. The one, she would do everything for, only to see her again, alive.
Her sister.
Isnan.
“Don’t move, Ona. They might be watching. They can’t hear us, but they see. They left me here with you because you were drugged. They…”
Ona closed her eyes, her muscles tensing.
“What… what were they doing to me?”
Her voice, thin as colas bread, must have sounded like a mouse’s squeak. She knew what they were doing. And Isnan… she had to watch.
“Ona, they want me to release my power. I–I was close to doing it, when they… but no. The goddess didn’t allow me, my power is locked, my abilities weaker every day. What they will do isn’t just to relief that mad being from whispers in his head. They will release the consuming shadows, hungry and cruel. If they escape him – the vessel that traps them – they’ll seek a new host.”
“Shadows…” Ona couldn’t fully grasp her sister’s words, but Isnan spoke quickly – urgently – both helpful and overwhelming.
“The Praetor. He’s possessed by the faery king. I hear Sindr’s emotions every time he visits us. I hear his pain – and I hear the shadows. And with them, him. The shadows are the fae king’s punishment, and they’ll flood the Arelt Valley and beyond the moment the Praetor dies.”
Ona dragged her knees high under her chin, both in protection before danger and her sister’s words. Isnan had tears in her eyes. Her kind sister, her beloved friend, had to watch as these men desecrate her. That and her defenselessness when they were hurting her, she was numbed, left to be abused by fanatics. Tears started to well in her eyes too. She didn’t remember – not fully – her own torment, but Isnan saw everything.
“Was… I willingly taking them?” Ona turned to her sister with pain painted on her face. “Did this water cause me to… receive them?”
Isnan’s pale face was ghastly, her pain palpable. It hung in the prison cell like a weight, thick and suffocating. It even had a scent – old rust and dust, decay and time. It would take a long while before either of them could heal from it. If they survived at all.
“No, Ona,” Isnan’s throat tightened as she spoke. “No, my dear.”
Silence settled over the cell, adding another layer to the dust-laden air. Isnan crawled toward Ona and began to speak to her, just as she had on the days before. Ona accepted it. Her sister’s hands – thin, sickly white – gently caressed her bruised skin.
Isnan had been here for months. Who knew what they had done to her? What horrors she now carried in her mind?
And what more awaits them now?
“What you gave me to clear my thoughts?” Ona murmured into Isnan’s arm. Her mind were sharper but she was exhausted by the days of starvation. She allowed Isnan to cradle her. So long she had to be tough, hard as stone. With Tiyan… with herself. But she was young and afraid. She wanted to drown in her sister’s arms.
“Mushrooms” Isnan whispered into her ear. “From the walls. They do not know what grows in their own prison, in this damp cage they sentenced us to. But I do. And I plan to use every gift from the goddess to get us out of here.”
“Will I feel as sick as after all mushrooms you ever prepared?” Ona tried to laugh, but coughed. A raw rasp escaped her throat and shook her body. The cell was too humid and cold, she was too famished and her health hung on a very thin thread. A memory of childhood glittered in her thoughts, weak and soft, like an additional loving touch.
“Yes” Isnan smiled. Pallid smile over even paler face. “You will. It’s almost like home. Mushrooms, and two witches…” she gazed at the entrance. Her jaws clenched tightly, her throat moved like she had a bile inside, skin stretched. “Almost like home.”
The lock gave way with a sharp crack as the key turned in the hole. The two sisters exchanged a glance, but Isnan kept her arms tightly wrapped around Ona’s frame. Ona… felt achingly powerless. She was too weak to protect them. Her bow, her spear, her knives – everything had been stripped from her. If they tried again…
“Isnan, I…”
She couldn’t finish. They had arrived.
Torches gleamed in their hands, the light stabbing at the sisters’ tired eyes. Isnan’s grip on Ona’s arm tightened.
And then came the Torch of Arelt, gleaming with a different kind of light.
He radiated shadow.
A torment of faery device.