Fractured Crown (Book 1: Terra)

Chapter 34

Raena could hear the voices before the blackness in her vision cleared, replaced by a blinding light above her head. She winced, lifting a hand to block the illuminous lightbulb – then stopped abruptly. Restraints were strapped around her wrists, and legs too, she discovered, when she tried to move the lower half of the body. One across her stomach too, firmly ensuring she was pressed against the hard bench beneath her.

Panic ensnared her, and Raena kicked and thrashed. She was trapped – like her prey when caught in one of her many, creative snares. Beaded sweat formed at her temples, and Raena looked around wildly, her mouth opening in the beginnings of a scream, when two nurses dressed in mint green surrounded her bed, face masks covering their mouths. One pressed down on her chest, forcing her to remain still, while the other held up a long, menacing-looking needle.

A sob escaped Raena. "P-please. Don't put that... that thing in me."

She didn't understand anything. Her mind was a complete blur of the night's event. She somewhat recalled a boy, about her age, and then a cloth being stuffed into her face and then – Raena began to thrash again, trying desperately to push against the restraints that kept her tied and bound to this gods-forsaken torture bed she had awoken to.

The second nurse, a male, lowered the needle towards her arm, and Raena looked at them both with pleading eyes. The male was familiar. Where had she seen him before? Neither of the two met her gaze beneath their hairnets. The female nurse only gripped her tighter, her knuckles whitening with the pressure, while the male knitted his dark eyebrows together in concentration. The needle's point pricked her forearm ever so slightly, and Raena jolted back as far as her restraints would allow, determined to not let the needle's end sink beneath the surface of her skin.

"Wait," a deep voice rumbled.

The two nurses immediately stepped back at that familiar voice that Raena was so certain she had heard before but couldn't quite place – a vision from the ball flashed in her mind, and her skin crawled as she remembered those piercing dark eyes that had burned into her before exiting the townhall via the back entrance.

Her mouth had already dried before Jasper came into her line of vision.

"Princess Anahita Caedusis," Jasper breathed, as if only taking in her true identity now that she was strapped to a bed like a feral animal before him. "Interesting, isn't it?" he murmured, his dark eyes never trailing from her own blue ones. "How in the course of a week, not one, but two long-lost princesses, have been found once again. It seems the prophecy speaks true, doesn't it?"

Raena didn't dare respond. She weighed the situation like a huntress. He was the predator, his eyes gleaning with both eagerness and savage curiosity at the type of rare animal he had managed to capture. She was the prey, bounded from the stomach and down, leaving little opportunity for escape. Raena gritted her teeth.

"What do you want from me?" Raena demanded hoarsely, her voice foreign in her own ears. How long had she been out?

Jasper only observed her with a tall, erect posture, two hands clasped behind his back in a contemplative gesture.

"You," he mused, his eyes trailing to her flesh-bitten wound on her arm – then dismissing it as he met her gaze again. "Could very-well be the salvation of this district. Or," he let out a sigh through his nose. "At the very least, a very important pawn that could shift the balance of power in this game of war."

"I'm worthless to both you and my own people," Raena spat coarsely. "And anyone else for that matter."

He tutted, eyes grazing over her facial features, no doubt for any hint of fear. She would give him nothing. Raena's lips thinned and her jaw jutted out in defiance.