Chapter 5
5
A silent scream lodged in my throat as I writhed in agony, disoriented by the sudden transition from dream to reality. Everything hurt. But the pain sat behind a torrent of fear.
I hung suspended by my arms in a place so dark, if not for the moonlight trickling in through one small window, I’d have never guessed it was a prison. My shoulders protested in agony. My wrists were tender and raw from the chains hanging from the ceiling. The pain was a wildfire, consuming my limbs with a searing, unrelenting heat that left me gasping for air and struggling to hold on to consciousness.
One thing held me anchored. One thing sank its talons into my mind and held me in the present. Beyond the pain. Beyond the unknown. Something strange. A song. A melody that felt as familiar as it did foreign, tossing me through the oddest sense of déjà vu in a world I’d never been. But something about the song coated even the sharpest pain, soothing it, if only for a moment while my thoughts raced to remember where I’d heard it.
“H-hello?” I whispered, unsure if I’d conjure help or another of those demons.
Behind the bars of the prison cell across from mine, a hunched figure shifted. I had to squint through my one good eye to bring them into focus. A slight groan and several movements later, he crept across the floor of his cell, not bound by thick chains as I was.
“Please. Please help me.”
The face of a man shifted into the moonlight as he pressed his sunken cheeks to the prison bars. His long beard, silver and matted, grazed the floor. Wild eyes looked up at me. “Say nothing to the Cimmerians, girl. Not a word. Be strong but silent, lest they take everything.”
His words were powerful. The only offering he had in such conditions.
“I need to get down,” I said. “My hands are numb and my shoulders are on fire.”
The old man laughed. “Be grateful for the numbness.” He moved his fingers forward, pushing them through the bars until they stroked the stream of moonlight.
I nearly vomited. Gnarled and broken, void of nails and stained black with rot, the old man’s fingers were a haunting testament to the horrors of this place. His laughter echoed through the hollow prison, wrapping around me. “Numbness,” he croaked between breaths, “is a blessing.”
The melody hung thicker now, winding through the cells, past the crumbling walls, and into my throbbing skull. My pulse hummed along with the rhythm as if recognizing an old friend. I hated it and needed it in equal measure. I didn’t want comfort.
“Can you hear it?” I whispered, wincing as the chains dug deeper into my raw wrists.
The old man’s laughter waned, replaced by a solemn silence. “Aye. It began when you were chained.”
“Are we alone?” I asked, my voice shaky from the cold and fear, but desperate to hold a conversation, if only to keep myself conscious.
“We’re never alone. The Cimmerians watch and the song observes. Newly observing.”
“We’re being watched by a song?” I asked. The ridiculousness of the idea helped distract from the throbbing pain that continued to engulf me.
“Aye, girl. Sounds have eyes, walls have ears, and shadows play with the minds of men.”
The old man’s cryptic words hung in the frigid air between us. The chains rattled slightly, vibrating with the rhythm of the song that was somehow watching us as I felt it wrap around me like ribbons.
“Is there a way out of here?”
His laughter returned, harsh and brittle. “Escape? If I knew a way out, don’t you think I would have taken it?”
“How… How long have you been here?”
“Time? Time is an honor we do not have. It slips through our fingers like sand in a sieve.”
He must have been losing it. His words grew more twisted and their meanings practically useless. I needed him to focus while he still could. “Can you see anything from your angle? How many cells are there? Is there another prisoner here? Please.”
“I grow weary, child.”
“Please,” I managed, beyond the thick lump in my throat. “I can’t stay here.”
The old man sighed heavily, his thin chest rising and falling like a ghost ship on a stormy sea. He turned his gaze to the window barred with rusting metal. “There is another. One more, far at the end. The song. Then there is only desolation and tortured souls that have long since departed.”
“The humming is a person? One other?”
He fell into a long pause, his eyes glazing over as though lost in the past. “Yes. The other. The one who hums. The rest are gone. Taken by the Cimmerians or simply dead. Their bodies left to feed the starving rodents.”
The old man’s eyes flashed with intensity. The humming stopped. He leaned into the bars. The dampness of his ragged clothes and the sour rot from his lack of hygiene struck me hard. “Remember my warning, girl. Say nothing. Give nothing.” With that, he retreated to his corner, his silhouette blending into the darkness of his cell.
I swallowed, trying to drown the fear welling up inside me. The sound of chains echoed through the prison once more as I shifted my weight from the tip of one foot to the other. Somewhere, beyond the confines of my cell, heavy footfalls echoed. Each thud felt as if it landed directly on my chest, threatening to steal whatever breath I managed to draw into my burning lungs.
I forced my uninjured eye open despite the spots dancing in my vision. Perhaps the wound to my face was a mercy. With one green eye and one blue, if I ever escaped, they’d know me instantly. I wrapped my mind around that single blessing as the stomps drew nearer. I wanted nothing more than to let my head hang and pretend I’d died, but I doubted they’d be so easily tricked and truly, I needed information from them as much as they needed it from me.
Two guards entered, their bulky shadows blotting out the faint moonlight that leaked in from the small, barred window. Their eyes remained hidden behind those dark masks with intricate designs etched into them. The Cimmerians were the guards from the alley. And I’d killed one of their brethren.
“She wakes,” one said, voice muffled behind the metal.
“Murderer,” another hissed, shoving a key into the door of my cell and twisting.
I held my breath. Half in fear and half from pain, as trembling caused my limbs to burn. I tried, gods I tried to keep from crying out as the man moved forward, pulled a whip from beneath his robes and sliced it through my cell, shredding the cloak I still wore. Warm blood leaked from the fresh wound, blooming across my stomach.
“Confess to your crimes.”
White light lanced across my vision as another strike came, hard and fast. Hot tears streamed down my face. The only thing I could hold on to were the words of the crippled old man. Say nothing. Give nothing.
There was a profound silence. The only sound was the rhythmic thump-thump of my heart and the ragged breathing of the Cimmerian. He snarled, pulling his whip back for another strike. It came faster, more furious than before, the pain hot and cold simultaneously.
I couldn’t hold on to my silence. In misery and agony, I let out a wail that surely rattled the rusted iron bars as much as the chains holding me. I hated it. I’d broken so easily. How could an old, decrepit man last for so long, when I’d gone mere minutes before making a sound?
The low, ominous chuckle of the Cimmerian guard turned my veins to fire and rage. Fuck him. Fuck the god that’d sent me to this hellhole to die. Fuck the realms. They could burn. I was not a hero.
I was not a hero.
I squeezed my eye shut, preparing for the next strike. Only Quill’s beautiful blue eyes kept me company as lash after lash shredded my skin to ribbons. Across my stomach, my thighs, even my neck.
Unable to see a thing, I listened as the guard stomped across the cell. The sound of shifting chains echoed through the small space, accompanied by the hiss of metal on metal. Only then did I realize I’d been spun around. He circled me again, though raising my head to follow him was a chore.
“Speak and I will release you from your chains.”
I bit my tongue and couldn’t feel it. The slice of my teeth was nothing compared to the ruination of my body. Of the skin hanging from bones. My clothes were nothing more than shreds of fabric soaked in blood.
I took three more lashings across my back before the world faded away.
“Pity.” The old man’s voice dragged me from unconsciousness.
I lay on my side in a puddle of dried blood. The humming returned, coating me, wrapping around me as if it were only mine, speaking to the dancer I used to be. Never again.
“Come,” he said. “Come closer to your bars, child. Let me see your face.”
I couldn’t move at all. Not an inch. I’d been dropped to the floor, and the chains were gone, but I was sure my cheekbone had been broken in the fall.
“You must fight through the pain, or you will die here. Move.”
“Water,” I rasped.
“You broke. Though it was clear your mind had already protected you. You begged for mercy.” He shifted forward, those gnarled fingers gripping the bars in front of him. “That is why they released you. But they will be back for more. Do better.”
“Water,” I repeated.
But he only responded by humming along with the tune seeping through the old prison until it lulled me back to sleep.
When I woke, stars spun in a dizzying dance over my head. Or maybe that was just the blood trickling into my eyes. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. Dawn was breaking, streaks of merciless light pouring through the tiny window near the ceiling, illuminating the dried blood and dust floating in the stale air.
A day had passed. But had it only been a day? Might I have been here longer? How long had I been unconscious? Did they bring me here first after knocking me out in the alley? Had I been drugged? The sluggish weight on my mind made me think so. I’d already lost track of the pressing countdown delivered by a god that didn’t care about the realms. Maybe that was always his plan.
I peeked into the old man’s cell with pity. I knew he’d been here longer, was far older, and had likely been through far worse than me. Maybe I was weak. Maybe I was nothing more than a vain dancer from Requiem, shoved into a bargain I had no right making. Maybe I wasn’t a hero, but I was more than this. If he could be strong, so could I.
“There,” he whispered, pointing to the corner of my cell. “Get yourself over there and drink, lass, before the rain freezes.”
I turned my head toward the window, letting my one good eye follow the trickling rain. There was no question of pride here. I’d drink rain water off a prison floor if it meant I’d live. But I wasn’t sure if I could make it all the way over there.
“Start with your fingers, one at a time. Good. Good.”
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to give up. But that soft voice of a tortured soul would not let me. So, I moved. I crept across the floor, letting my tears fall. Everything hurt. Still, I pushed. Until little by little, I crept across the floor and sank my fingers into the water.
“See that? It tastes of victory.”
I hadn’t been able to lift my head, only turn until my lips pressed into the puddle and then I drank. The tang of water shocked me. Whatever this flavor, it certainly wasn’t victory. But it was something. If only a morsel of comfort. I closed my eyes and listened to the stranger’s haunted humming. The lament was sad, languid and beautiful. And though sometimes the singer’s voice broke, and I could only imagine silent tears filled that space, they always continued. Perhaps in their own way, it was a rebellion against Wisteria’s evil guardians.
But when the song abruptly stopped and the guard’s stomping began, I felt a small piece of my heart break. I wasn’t ready. I’d never rise again after another beating. I could feel it in my bones.
The old man cleared his throat, dragging my attention to him. He pressed one gnarled finger against his lips, and then he began humming the haunting tune. The cloaked figures returned, but this time, rather than facing me, they gathered around the cell across from mine. I couldn’t breathe beyond my panic. He would never survive a lashing like the one I had yesterday.
A Cimmerian knelt before the other cell, dragging his baton across each bar as he taunted. “So you know how to make noise, old man. Confess to your crimes.”
“No,” he answered, his voice far weaker than it had been. Likely coated in fear. Had he truly never made a sound until now? He’d done that for me? Stealing their attention and saving me. And there was nothing I could do as they wrenched open his door and grabbed him. I held my breath as they dragged the old man from his cell and down the hall. His eyes locked with mine as he pressed his lips into a fine line and dipped his chin. And though I couldn’t hear him, nor could I be sure, I thought maybe he mouthed, be strong , before they faded out of the light.
The echo of their departure reverberated in the grim silence of the cell block. The old man’s vacant space stared at me, a terrible reminder of my own inevitable fate. I lay there for ages, watching the light appear and disappear through the window as time passed. Days passed. I could guess seventy-two days remained at this point, but it would only be a lie I told myself for comfort, counting down my own demise.
The person down the row who hummed the tune did so on a cycle. I knew when they slept. When they wept and when their heart hurt the most. Their song changed, melting into another based on their mood it seemed, reminding me of Quill. Of how everyone around her knew how she felt, simply by proximity. Because that was her power. And likely her damnation. Everyone’s.
I slept, woke, searched for the old man, and slept again, my body trying desperately to heal. The water had long since dried before I woke to the old man staring at me from across the way. He said nothing, didn’t move at all as those forlorn eyes spoke of the horror he’d been through. His cheeks were more sunken in than they had been, and dirt and blood stained his long beard.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
But he simply blinked and turned away, his broken body moving more slowly than mine. I stared at the rise and fall of his shoulders, listening to the harsh rasp of his haggard breathing. Only then did I realize the muted singing had stopped. The Cimmerians were coming again already.
Though still laying on the cold ground, I balled my fists and prepared myself. They would come for me this time, and I would shout from the rooftops, demanding it if I needed to. I could be strong. Just as he’d been. I would be his shield, just as he’d been mine.
The stomping boots matched the cadence of my heartbeat as they approached, their masks as ominous today as they’d always been.
I stared into their eyes, lifting myself into a sitting position.
Come and get me, you fuckers. I’m ready.
The second the door swung open and the guard gripped me beneath my arms, I quickly learned I was not, in fact, ready.