The Princess of Wrath

Chapter 9 - Part I: Isolation

When Asura regained consciousness, it took her a considerable amount of time to open her eyes. The pain she felt emanating from every corner of her body, from the muscles to the nerves, was such that her first reaction was to let out a long, agonizing sigh. Her mouth was dry, tasting the metallic and lasting flavor of blood, and her eyes felt heavy and sore on the back.

She was surrounded by pure darkness and abysmal silence only interrupted by the faint collision of drops against the damp ground. She realized that her arms were open and she could not move them at all, and not precisely because they felt so painfully cramping. She could move her legs, even feeling a lot of weakness in them, but with her arms fixed in their place it was impossible for her to move.

She gathered what little strength she still had in her body and tried to free her arms from that strange paralysis, but she failed. Her action only caused a curious metallic clink to the sides...

"She is awake."

Asura was startled by hearing that deep voice suddenly out of nowhere. Consequently, she realized that she was not alone in that inexorable darkness.

"W-who ...?" she asked weakly as she felt a slight pain in her throat. "Where am I?"

"Would it be wise to warn him?" came from a different voice, but with a similarly gloomy tone.

"He did not specify anything about her regaining consciousness."

"Then I better let him know."

"P-please help me...," Asura begged, but neither person felt sorry for her. "I cannot move!"

The darkness of that unknown place was partially banished when one of the two people opened a metal door at the opposite end of where Asura was standing, but despite the fact that her vision gradually improved and the pain in her eyes diminished, it was not enough to let her see around in a better way...except for a fuzzy detail she glimpsed in the person who walked out the door: a mask with strange but disturbing patterns.

"Wraiths...? Are you Wraiths?" she asked, confused but beginning to tie up loose ends little by little as her mind woke up from its slumber. She remembered almost nothing of what had happened and the time available to remember was not in her favor, since the door was opened again and three people entered accompanied by the Wraith.

The darkness dominated again for brief seconds until the two Wraiths began to light the four torches of the place, two on each wall. The magnitude of the illumination was not enough to break the gloom, but it revealed to Asura that she was indeed in the dungeons of the Bastion of the Wraiths.

There were no instruments of torture hanging on the stone walls and ceiling as she remembered, but that subterranean humidity made it clear that she was, minimally, on the second level of that place that prisoners compared to the Abyss.

"Thank you, Wraiths. Leave us."

The two guards left, leaving Asura in the company of those three people who were hiding in the remaining shadows at the back of the cell. She could recognize one of the three; that male voice rich in conceit was already too familiar to her to forget.

"Roland?" saying his name out loud caused a stabbing pain in her head. The memories piled up chaotically, showing her from their reunion at the Astronomical Tower a month ago to the series of events that took place in the Crystal Ballroom, just before her memories blurred like blank pages.

"Hmm... It seems that the psychological effects have finally started to recede. The curse must have given up control of her brain," the Alchemist of the Astronomical Tower steppedout of the shadows, holding onto his electromagnetic cane calmly and dressed inthe black, elegant robe that identified his superior rank among scholars. "How are you feeling, Asura?"