Kingdom Chronicles: Awakening

Chapter 1.1 - Imprisoned

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you may yet be able to deliver on that promise," a female's voice said.

Mara squinted against the darkness, trying to decipher who her visitor was, but the firelight behind the woman cast her whole face in shadows.

"Do you have my food or not?"

"Not, I'm afraid, but I've brought you something better."

Mara leaned her head back against the wall. "I doubt it. Who are you, and what did you bring me?"

"I cannot say my name aloud. Not here. There are too many who may still be lurking about and would love to use my presence here against me." The woman paused, and Mara saw the silhouette move closer to the door. "But you know exactly who I am."

The woman's voice was faintly familiar to Mara, like a dream she'd had but couldn't quite remember. She closed her eyes, though it was just as dark with her eyes open.

"And what if I don't remember?" Mara asked. "Is it really important, or can you just give me what you have and leave me in peace? My food should be here any minute."

"Your food isn't coming," the woman said. "At least not for another hour. Its server had one too many drinks without stopping to wonder where it came from."

Mara focused on the woman's choice of words and cadence, comparing it to all the voices she knew well. "You drugged him?" Mara didn't really care to hear the answer, but she needed to keep the woman talking.

"I told you. No one can know that I was here."

"Except me?"

Silence.

Mara ran through the voices of everyone in her castle she knew, and none of them matched. She reached farther back into the recesses of her mind, back to her younger years as a child visiting the other four kingdoms. Recollecting something so long ago and on the verge of forgetting entirely strained Mara's mind and body.

"Remember, Mara," the woman said, dropping her voice to a whisper, "never cease to questions those above you."

Mara's thoughts halted. That was it. There was only one person who had ever told Mara that as a child, and it had stayed in her mind all through her school years.

"How did you find me?"

The woman laughed. "You know better than anyone how predictable your father is. He has no new tricks. I simply had to ask myself where he would send anyone he didn't want the trouble of having to kill himself."

"Then why are you here?"

"I need you to..." A crash of stone hitting stone echoed down the passageway, and the woman whipped her head to the right. She stood there, unmoving, for many long minutes, the drops of water still marking the passage of time.

Finally, she turned back to face the cell and pressed herself against the barred window in the door, and Mara caught a glimpse of her long, wavy dark locks as the firelight bounced off of it. "I need you to kill someone for me," the woman whispered.

A short laugh escaped Mara's lips. "Didn't you hear? I failed. My personal targets are still alive."

"I know all about your attempt to take your sister's life," the woman said. "But very little happens in the five kingdoms that I don't know about, and I know that wasn't a failed killing due to your inexperience. It was a sloppy mistake no doubt due to rashness because of your own personal feelings. A mistake I trust you will not allow yourself to make again."

"Certainly not. Because I'm locked inside a prison no one cares to remember," Mara scoffed. "Elias is my only opportunity to kill again, and I much prefer him alive so that I don't completely starve, even if the food is worse than pig slop."