Chapter 29
Castle Dracula, Transylvania
Mina stirred, the ache in her ankle drawing her from a dreamless sleep.
She shifted, trying to find a less painful position, but it was no use—she would find no comfort in the cold stone beneath her, draining her of all bodily warmth, or the chain latched around her ankle, tethering her to the wall.
She peeled open her eyes, though the shadows around her didn’t provide much more to look at than the blackness behind her eyelids had.
Time seemed to drag on eternally in the shadows of the castle’s dungeon.
Despite there not being a single window to take note of the sun rise and set, Mina had done her best to keep track of the days—for what else was she to do with her time down here?
It helped that the driver, Vasile, brought her a meal twice a day—or at least it had seemed to be twice a day, given that the first meal was always a thick porridge, and the second was always some sort of stew with a chunk of bread.
It was only because of these two meals that she was able to sense the movement of time.
Vasile had brought her eleven meals, which meant that today was the sixth day.
Six days since the Count had brought her down here, chaining her to the damp wall of the underground.
Six days since she’d seen the sun or the moon.
Six days since she’d seen anyone but Vasile.
Foolishly, she hadn’t truly believed the Count would abandon her for long.
In the weeks she’d known him, he had been gentle, considerate, and, at times, passionate.
Surely that wasn’t an act. She was his wife, and while she supposed that meant less to him than originally thought, it had to mean something.
At first, she had held out hope that he would be back after a short time.
That he had only done this to scare her.
But by the third day, fear had clawed its way into her chest—fear that she might die down here.
Or, a far worse possibility, that he would ensure her survival, having Vasile bring her just enough food to keep her alive, but nothing more than that. A slow kind of torture.
By the third day, the thought had motivated her to act.
To push past the still-lingering pain in her ankle and the deep bruises in her ribs to escape somehow.
She’d been determined to break open the chain around her ankle.
Once she freed herself, she would need to lie in wait for the driver’s arrival.
Then she would attack him, knock him unconscious somehow, and slip away.
She played that plan through her mind over and over again as she tried to find a weak point in the brace around her ankle, but the iron was firm and she only managed to break her fingernails in the process.
She tugged on the thick chain, finding no weakness in the loops.
She looked to the wall, feeling with her fingers and trying to tug it free, but it didn’t move.
She’d tried to stand, feeling disoriented in the blackness, testing how far she could go before the chain stopped her—it was only a few steps away before the chain tightened.
She’d spent hours looking around the dark room, squinting through the shadows, hoping she would magically lay her eyes upon some sort of tool to help her escape, but the room was bare, all stones and dampness.
She shifted her approach, deciding that Vasile would be the key to helping her escape.
She’d rarely seen the man since arriving at the castle with Jonathan, but that didn’t mean he had no humanity.
Perhaps he had children, a wife, a sister that he would think of when looking upon her, guilt seeping in at this treatment of her.
When he brought her meal that night, she’d put on her softest tone, using everything in her to play into his sympathies. He hadn’t even acknowledged she’d spoken, simply placing her tray within reach and locking up behind himself.
And then she was alone again in complete and utter silence, with nothing but her thoughts and the ache in her limbs to pay her company.
By the fifth day, the anxiety in her chest was nearly too much to handle.
The thought of being here, trapped, for days, weeks, months ahead, made it difficult to breathe.
For a moment, she imagined another way out—a way to leave all of this behind.
When Vasile brought her meals each day, he left only a spoon, its edge soft and smooth.
If she could convince him to bring a knife, or even a fork could work.
She swallowed thickly, a sudden horror at what she was considering.
Tears slipped down her cheeks for the first time since her arrival.
They flowed and flowed, seeming never to end.
She cried for the trepid hope she’d had when she first arrived.
She cried for the way things had gone so terribly wrong.
She cried for Sofia, for the woman whose life had ended so swiftly, for no reason other than a man with power wanting to prove a point.
And she cried for Lucy, the best friend—the sister of her heart—that she’d left behind.
She cried for all the women she’d watched make sacrifices for their families, endure emotional distress, physical pain, all in the hopes of keeping their family safe.
By the time she’d stopped crying, her head pounded, and she lay down on the hard stone, with no energy left for regret.
And that’s when it set in how right the Count had been.
She was weak.
She was fragile.
Even in a matter of life and death, she could not save herself.
In many ways, she deserved to die.
Maybe that was why God had brought her here—why she’d been brought to the Count.
She’d deserved all that happened to her.
That night, she dreamed that she had escaped.
That somehow, she was back in the castle, knowing she had to go, had to flee before they realized she was gone.
And yet she could not find her way in the darkened corridors.
She took turn after turn, feeling her way in the shadows, desperate for a door, but there were none, only an endless maze of stone enclosing her.
A heavy groan cut through her dream, and she awoke, panting and blinking through the blackness. She swallowed against the dryness in her mouth, her heart racing as she listened. Had that noise been that of a dream, or had it been real?
And then, a dull scrape. A metal clang. Like something heavy being shifted.
A muffled voice sounded off in the distance, then another responded to the first. Mina could not make out their words, but these did not sound like the voices of the Count or the wives. They sounded gruff, and she envisioned a group of men. The raiders. Had the raiders returned?
She froze, fear washing through her for a moment before she realized this could be her salvation.
Mina tried to call out, but her throat was dry, her voice scratchy from lack of use. She coughed, swallowing against the dryness in her mouth.
“Hello,” she called weakly.
The voices carried on, as though they were fighting with one another.
There was a thud. A metallic rattle.
“Hello?” she called out again.
She thought back to the man she’d encountered the night she’d tried to go to the watchtower.
The memory of his question burned like acid down her throat: Are you here of your own volition?
How different it all would have been if she had just gone with him.
Perhaps he would have harmed her, but at least she would have been free from this castle, from the terror inside these walls.
Another thump echoed through the halls, and she began to shout.
“Help!” she cried, her throat raw. The exertion made her feel lightheaded almost instantly, but she didn’t care. It didn’t matter who those voices belonged to or what they might do to her—anything would be better than this eternal dark, the cold seeping into her bones.
The voices echoed in the distance, but they seemed to be moving farther away, growing quieter each time she heard them.
Had they not heard her? Were they unaware that she was here, locked away in this dungeon? That her own husband had been the captor?
Then another possibility set in, filling her eyes with tears—what if they’d heard her calls and were pointedly ignoring her?
What if these were not raiders, but men brought by the Count for some unknown purpose?
What if he had warned them of the mad woman in the dungeon—had told them to ignore her ramblings in the dark?
Her chest seized painfully as the realization sank in: No one was coming.
“Help me,” she whimpered. Her throat thickened with emotion, but she had cried herself dry. She slid onto her side, pain pulsing through her ribs for a moment before the chill of the stone sent a shiver down her spine.
Mina closed her eyes, welcoming the darkness of her own making over the darkness she could not control.