Heyy all,
Before we begin, I want to mention that as of today, there is a spin off of Black Blood online called Claws and Fangs. It contains spoilers for the ending of this book so you can see for yourself if you want that. I would love it if you take a look.
Immediately Micca pushes away from me. My wrists are above my head, my eyes magnified. The realization penetrates slowly, the painful realization of my own action. I would like to say it was an accident, an action under duress or some other lame excuse. But I can't. This was my choice, my action and anything but under duress. I wanted this. I wanted to forget everything without consequences. Unfortunately, every action has consequences, whether you want it or not.
'Dawn, open the door,' a male voice calls from the other side of the door, before another loud banging echoes on the wood. My heart shoots into my throat, my body petrifies. In total shock, I stare at the door whose banging continues to reverberate. The sound glides through the narrow house, echoing against the old wood.
'Upstairs,' Micca hisses as he points to the wooden stairs. As if my body immediately does what the man in front of me says, I push myself off the couch, get up and run to the stairs.
'Open the door or we will open it.' With trembling legs, I run creaking further up the stairs, imagining where there might be a place to hide. Holding my breath, I look along the small hallway with three doors. The bedroom, the bathroom and a closet. The bathroom is the only room that has a lock. The closet, too small to hide in past all the junk Micca has collected over the years. In the few times I've accidentally opened that closet instead of the bedroom, I know the man is a collector of old shells, books and furniture.
My only option is the bedroom, however obvious.
'Good evening gentlemen, how may I be of service?' I hear Micca ask from downstairs. I pull open the bedroom door. The only two options the not-too-large bedroom offers me are the closet and the narrow space under the bed. Both so obvious as to be laughable. As the men make their way through the house, I don't stand a chance. There's no chance they won't see or think about those obvious options. The window is ajar not nearly big enough for a man to get through. I've heard Micca open the window often enough to know that thing is anything but silent.
Frustrated, my gaze slides across the small bedroom. An idea I'm sure I'll curse in a few minutes swings in my head. I can only shake my head as I slowly and silently close the bedroom door. If this works, my karma will be gone for the rest of my life. Gods help me, I can think as I shuffle behind the door with my hand wrapped around the dagger on my leg.
'I can assure you that I missed the presence of the princess. Such a woman is hard to overlook.' My grip clenches around the handle of the dagger as the heavy footsteps on the stairs echo through the narrow house. There is only a hum from one of the men as the hard kicked-off shoes get closer and closer to the end of the stairs.
My heart pounds harder in my throat as soon as the shoes make their way across the wooden planks of the second floor. The creaking can be heard unmistakably through the narrow walls. Closer and closer to the door until I hold my breath to avoid the slightest sound.
'You have no business here.' The moment Micca's voice echoes along the walls of the room, the reverberation of the heavy shoes stops. As if Micca's becoming is an order to the trained men. There is no retort, no sound or aggression until the shoes start moving again, this time away from me instead of toward the door. As quickly as the shoes walked in my direction, they move down the creaky stairs again.
The further the shoes move away from me, the more courage I gather to exhale my breath. My grip on the dagger weakens, but not for long. Soft rustling sounds a few feet from me, I turn and look straight into two all-black eyes.
'Sorry,' is the last thing I hear before everything around me turns as black as the eyes.
-
It's not the unmistakable headache or twisting that wakes me, but the unprecedented chill that runs down my back and legs. My trembling limbs pull me out of the black haze in which I have spent an indefinite amount of time. The already not strong muscles are petrified thanks to the damp cold stone floor on which I find myself.
It is impossible for a mage to grope in this darkness, to see a clue to life in the blackness. It is my increased night vision that gives me the eyes of a cat. It is my knowledge of this place that immediately knocks the air from my lungs as soon as I see the familiar steel rusted bars before me. That chilly stone hall of dark rooms, the smell of death gnawing rats and the icy cold of the groundwater. It's that musty rotten smell I've been trying to get out of my nostrils for months. That smell combined with that cold can only connect one place.
The dungeons of the castle.
It takes me several deep breaths in and out before I begin to control the panic and slowly try to look around me. I want to reach for the holder around my leg to see if they were foolish enough to miss the dagger, but I realize soon enough that my father isn't taking any more chances. My wrists are chained behind my back to the familiar steel handcuffs. The steel chains, attached to the clammy wall behind me, are heavy and thick.
I have often enough seen men and women screaming, pulling and crying at these chains, but know it is of no use. The walls of the dungeons have steel chains bricked into them, reinforced with spells. My knees lying in a pool of groundwater is no accident either. I may be dozens of feet underground, but even the cold and water are spells that bring prisoners to their slow but insane end faster. It never gets dry or warm here, no matter how little rain falls above ground.
This darkness hidden deep beneath the already dark castle was once built by one of my grandfathers. Not because there was a surplus of prisoners, not because there were not enough dungeons, nor because direct executions took too much time. Everything in this deep underground corridor system was built to drive the prisoners to madness. The cold, the stench, the water and the rats. One might wonder to what extent it really existed or whether it was the spells that clung to your mind.