What would you do if your body and your kingdom were stolen?
[A FEATURED STORY]
Uther is a young prince who's reluctantly thrust into having to defend his throne against his usurping uncle and all-around powerful wizard, who uses his powers to s...
Septimus's recent, first-hand experience with captivity taught him that shooting, beating, chaining, starving, and raping were to be expected. Comfortable beds and warm blankets were not, yet that's where he found himself. A blue light flooded the room, making everything look ghostly. A wisp, he thought. They were fae lights, and he hadn't know a wizard who'd ever figured out how they worked.
The sludgy memories of how he'd gotten here surfaced like gas bubbles in a swamp. The morning after their escape, Brinn woke him, and she'd put a finger to his mouth. He'd listened and at first, thought it a dream. Arniel Gains was outside the tent. They weren't going to have to scour the entire sarding wilds for him. He'd come to them!
Brinn went out to grab him first, and Septimus readied himself. He thought he'd been prepared to meet the man, to deal with him. At the sight of Arniel's round face, Septimus barely controlled himself, but they'd needed answers.
Things went into a mess, he thought. Arniel managed to turn the tables on them, and he'd gone after him...and what? Septimus asked himself. His head was heavy and filled with fog.
He turned his head to the side, where Brinn slept beside him. Her breath was slow and deep. He felt bad to wake her, but after a bit of shaking and calling her name, she stirred. Her gaze focused on him, and she murmured, "Septimus...you're okay."
"Where are we?" he whispered. They weren't bound or in chains, but there was a niggling sensation in the back of his mind that they were still being watched.
"Arniel. He's with the fae," Brinn breathed, her voice weak. "I don't know where they've taken us. This fae...she did something...like wrapping night around my mind. She's powerful. I think we're in trouble."
"Don't say that," Septimus whispered, attempting to sit up. He couldn't move his right arm and looked down to see why. His sleeve and robe, all the way to his collar, were ripped open. His wounded shoulder was bandaged in place, and he sniffed it, gingerly prodding the edges of the binding as well. His fingers came away sticky, and the pungent scent of herbs rose from the wound.
"Someone applied a poultice," he said. The wound didn't throb with heat any more. Septimus reached across Brinn and grabbed a wooden glass off a bed table. It was filled with water, and there was a pitcher as well. Septimus sipped the water while Brinn sat up to have a drink, too.
"This is odd for a trap," Septimus said, "or for someone who wants us dead."
Brinn gave Septimus a sideways glance. She asked, "What are you thinking? I know I'm not wrong, thinking that's a wisp. There're fae around."
Septimus nodded. He didn't know much about fae. Their magic was different from a wizard's, and they loathed metal, but above all iron. The general idea was that the good ones were mischievous and sometimes curious about humans, and the bad ones loathed humans and expressed it in a variety of creative ways. It was too much to hope, he thought, that they'd been taken in by one of the good ones.
"I think that I'm surprised we're anywhere," Septimus said. "As in, not dead."
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