The Archer

Part 1

Author's note: This is a complete work, posted in 6 sections. It is a romance with strong flavors of reluctance and domination. It takes a minute to get hot, but when it gets there, it stays there. Thanks for reading.

When Aslin woke, the first sensation was the swollen tightness of her face. It felt as if her face had been stretched, and when she tried to open her eyes she couldn't see clearly through one of them. The delicate muscles involved in the attempt to open her eyes set off a chain reaction. She felt a sharp stinging on her forehead and tried to close her mouth, but failed. Moving her lips made a groan leave her lungs, but it died before escaping. Only secondarily did she realize the tang of blood in her mouth, the smell of it all over her face, like hot iron.

She struggled to think of where she was, her mind sluggish. Had she been asleep?

She moved to lift her head from where it was resting against her arm, and her neck cried out at the shift. She was sure it had been locked in place for some time. She swayed on her feet, marveling at her ability to stand, before realizing that she was not standing, but rather hanging.

She was hanging by her arms, tied together above her head, the rope affixed to something above her she could not see. She had been hoisted so that her feet touched the ground, but only barely. Looking up, Aslin could see her arms, could see the black fabric of her uniform sleeves, but she could not feel them. They were at least attached to her body, she thought grimly. Her legs felt equally numb, just dead weight dragging her downwards. She felt another moan deep within her trying to rise, and this one managed to emerge, gurgling somewhat at the liquid in her mouth.

There was a bright light shining down on her, but with her one good eye she couldn't make out much else, the room around her seeming large and dark. She heard nothing but the pounding of her own heartbeat, reassuring her. You're alive. You're alive.

Never had she ever felt so strange and disembodied. It took all of her capacity just to concentrate on what had happened, what she was doing in this terrible place. She remembered the dark sleeves of her uniform. That's right, she had been scouting the keep with Riley. Their order had been simple enough. For the fifth night in a row they climbed, clipping onto the bolts they had left before, and hammering in more as they ascended in the dark. The cliff must be scalable if they were ever to aim for a surprise attack on the Almanian keep.

The work was exhausting and the going slow, but Riley was a good partner for it. The two of them had been chosen for the mission because of their diminutive size, but rather than gripe about it they found a kind of camaraderie in being the two smallest in the command, light, and quick on their feet. Riley was quiet, like herself, but they had formed a fast friendship in their nightly ascents, neither of them willing to say aloud that the task was more treacherous than anything either of them had ever attempted. So instead they joked, poking fun at the others in the squadron, making light of the perilous work it had fallen upon them to undertake.

As her mind painstakingly reviewed this memory she was interrupted by the screech of a heavy door, and the approach of two figures into the foreground of the hazy space. There was a kind of shuffling of other bodies in the room, and it dawned on Aslin that she had not been alone.

There was a string of incomprehensible spoken words and she frowned, confused, and momentarily felt a wash of true fear. Had she lost her mind?

Then the other man replied, and his words rang clear as an early morning bell in her consciousness.

"Is this the archer?"

The meaning reached her with some delay, her mind needing time to process. She sensed the speaker's skepticism before understanding his words.

"Yes, my lord," came the answer. "He was captured a few hours ago and brought here directly." This voice was slightly higher pitched, but still masculine. Wheedling, she thought. An inferior.