Northbound Pilgrimage II

Chapter CXLVIII - Adapt or Die

Aeyrin came to with her head pounding as bone-chilling frost wreaked through her body.

Oh Gods. So cold. So cold.

That was worse than any cold she had remembered. Was she lying in snow? Wait... was she naked?

Why did this keep happening to her?!

She didn't remember much. She knew that the vampires overwhelmed her just as she was getting so stupidly cocky about disposing of them. She really felt stupid. Among other things. But she needed to concentrate on what she knew.

She didn't remember anything about the attack. Her head was spinning, but she had experienced enough life-threatening blood-loss to know that that didn't happen to her. She wasn't really woozy that way. She wasn't feeling sick. She knew that a vampire bit her. But it always felt a bit worse when they fed off her.

Did they not? Why? They didn't turn her, did they? They couldn't, right? She was a... a monster already. She had never heard of someone being... both.

Stop. Focus.

Right. She didn't lose much blood. If any. She lost all her clothes though. That was for certain. And she couldn't feel her necklaces or any of her rings on her hands as she started to feel herself up with stiff and shivering hands. They took her rings! They took her engagement ring.

Monsters! Who does that?

That was low, even for those vampire freaks.

Alright... maybe it made sense. Rings and clothes and anything could be enchanted. It made sense they took all her things. It was strange though, she didn't even feel battered and bruised. She didn't feel any wounds. Just the headache. She knew she was hit in the head, but then they did nothing to her. Odd.

She should probably be happy about that. But the sense of horrible dread didn't leave her.

There was something else she felt. Metal cuffs around her wrists. They were so heavy. But she wasn't chained to anything – even the cuffs weren't chained together. What could be the purpose of that?

She opened her eyes slowly, but all she saw was bright white everywhere. It took her a long time to make sense of it.

An icy chamber with bars over its entrance arch. This was their idea of a prison cell. She had a blanket under herself, but that did not stave off all that snow on the ground. And she really had no way to protect herself from it. Her trembling hands gripped the blanket and she tried to huddle herself into it, shivering, teeth chattering. The blanket was wet and cold and it didn't help much. It may have made the cold worse. But she felt better like that for some reason.

But there was one thing worse than any of it – worse than the cold, the uncertainty or that headache.

She had no idea how long she had been here. How much time was left until Bishop's execution? And what if all the citizens were dead already and Siddgeir wouldn't pardon him anyway?

She couldn't have been in this cell for too long. She would have frozen to death by now. Wouldn't she? A vampire wouldn't. But they didn't really feel cold, did they? No. She was definitely not craving any blood, aside from spilling that of these monsters. But she still could have been in this place longer than in this cell. She had no idea.

Her hand went to her neck briefly as her trembling fingers touched the familiarly sore spot. There were definitely fang-marks there. And she could feel the dried up blood there. But she was sure that she hadn't lost too much of it.

Unless... she lost a lot of it and only now her body's regeneration replenished it. That could mean that she had been here for days!

Gods. Gods. Breathe.