The Atheil Chronicles: A Call to Fire

Chapter 31

     ****TRIGGER WARNING: SA****
Ariana woke up to the feeling of water dripping onto her cheek. She tried to shake away the grogginess that was fogging up her mind but it hung over her like a heavy blanket, unrelenting. She became aware that she was laying stomach down on a stone floor, her hands tied behind her back and her feet tied tightly together with coarse rope. The hem of her dress was pushed up to her mid calves and the rope was wrapped from there down to her ankles, making it entirely impossible to even wiggle her legs, let alone make a run for it.
Panic began to set in as she realized that she was not only tied up and helpless in some distant location but also at the mercy of Morgrean. At that thought, she began scanning what little part of the room that she was able to see. The only thing that she could discern in the darkness was a glassless window right in front of her, rain falling steadily just outside of it. It was now late into the night and the moon was high in the sky, casting a silvery glow in through the window. It streamed in and stopped just in front of her, the rays feeling almost like sunlight to her in the thick black of the room. It had possibly been hours since her abduction, maybe longer, and she had no way of knowing if Tyrynion or Ryonen even knew where she had been taken. No Phoenix here this time to lead them to her, she thought, a catch in her throat.
She felt fury rise up inside of her as she realized that all those countless hours of training with Ryonen and Tyrynion had not helped her. She was helpless once again and she had been able to do nothing to stop him from taking her. The fear that she had felt the moment that she saw him had seemed to freeze her to the spot, the shock she felt at once again staring into those cold, purple eyes filled with malice making her forget anything she knew about defending herself. She didn't have to wonder why he had been in Orlac, it seemed fairly obvious; to find her. Ariana had a feeling that Malor hadn't taken too kindly to him losing her when they were so close to being in the Darklands, though she was also sure that it was by his hand that Morgrean had his own severed hand back.
Almost as soon as this thought had left her head, the ominous clicking of a key in a lock sounded behind her. Her whole body tensed as she quickly squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to move as a heavy wooden door creaked open and footsteps could be heard coming closer. The water overhead continued dripping onto her cheek in an almost hypnotic rhythm and she tried to match her breathing to it.  As they neared her head, she willed herself to stay limp, to keep her breathing shallow, and to not react in any way, no matter what happened.
The figure stopped right next to her left hip, not speaking or making any discernible move. In her chest, her heart pounded rapidly, the sound of thudding filling her ears like a great drum that beat incessantly. It was because of this that, when the hot breath brushed against the skin of her neck, she almost lost it. The sudden closeness of the person was almost too much to handle; she could feel herself having to fight down her impulse to move. It was taking all that she had just to hold still and keep her breathing even as if she were still asleep. She prayed that they would leave her be and go away again.
The next moment, a pair of rough lips brushed the soft curve on her neck just below her jaw. Her heart pounded even harder, the fear inside of her peaking until she could hardly bear it any longer. The lips came away from her skin and she felt the tension ease in her chest. Suddenly, hands were gripping her shoulders tightly and a weight came down on her lower back.
"You never could fool me with your playing dead act." Morgrean's voice said softly in her ear. He brushed a kiss across her ear lobe. "Your beating heart gave you away."
No longer pretending to be asleep, Ariana struggled underneath his weight, trying to toss him off of her. He let out a barking laugh as her efforts amounted to nothing. He was too heavy, and she was tied too tightly, to get any leverage. The water above dripped into her hair as she tried lifting her head to get a look at him.
"Get off of me." She snarled, trying over and over again to kick her legs against the stone floor.
He laughed again and lightened his grip on her shoulders before moving one hand to trail a talon down her back. The feeling made her shudder and she thrashed her head from side to side as she squirmed again.
"I learned my lesson last time." He said, a conversational tone to his voice. "I made sure to tie you up extra tight. We don't want any repeats of past events."
She took in a heaving breath, the efforts of trying to fight him off exhausting her. She was still somewhat groggy from before and it wasn't helping in her attempts to get away. "Where did you take me?" She demanded.
She could feel his laugh reverberate down her spine. "Does it really matter?" When she didnt answer, he laughed again. "You don't think your Prince is going to rescue you, do you?"
"I know that he's going to want to chop off your head," she said, putting as much venom in the words as she could muster at the moment, "and that I'm going to let him this time."
The hand that Morgrean still had on her shoulder tightened and she felt his talons ripping into her skin. She bit back a cry. "Wishful thinking is for the damned. I have no worries when it comes to your Prince."
"So what, you're just snatching me so you can lure him here for Malor to dispose of him?" She asked, bitter anger in her voice.
    "Oh no." Morgrean said, and his sinister tone made her blood run cold. "Malor has his ways of getting to him. This is my own personal project." His free hand stroked her hair. "YOU'RE my personal project."
Ariana took in a shuddering breath, her chest constricting with not only Morgrean's weight but her own rising fear. Water was now dripping into her eyes from her hairline, the cold water then zipping down her chin before plopping onto the ground below her. She tried once again to fight her bonds but realized that he wasn't bluffing; the ropes were too tight. She'd never get leverage. A feeling of defeat filled her heart and she turned her eyes to the window, thinking about Tyrynion and Ryonen. Please, God, she thought desperately, please let them be right outside about to burst in. Please, she begged in silence, her eyes fixed on the dark sky beyond the moon.
Morgrean laughed again, the sound cutting through her thoughts like a knife. "You won't be getting away from me this time." He said, pure joy filling his voice. "No one even knows you're gone. Your little Prince was sulking by himself when you left. Malor has something quite special in store for him but don't worry, your Prince doesn't really care about you, you know. I have a good read on people. He only cares about his own agenda." His talon came up to gently touch her hair, stroking it. Then, without warning, he shoved her head down to the stone and her cheek pressed against it, the small puddle of water splashing from the contact.
He leaned in toward her face again and he was so close that she could see his pupils constricting as they focused on her. "I care about you." He said, a huskiness filling his throat at the words.
Ariana felt her chest tighten. "You don't care about anything," she said, "let alone, me."
"You don't know how I feel." He said, and there was something in his tone that made her freeze. She focused her eyes on his face and saw the same look that he had had that day in the forest outside of the Darklands.
A weight seemed to press down on her chest at the recognition, a feeling like bags of sand slowly filling her up. "No." She said, trying to lift her head but being unable to fight the force of his hand on it. She could hear the pleading in her voice but she didn't care.
"I told you," he said, pleased by her reaction, "I told you that I would make you mine." His eyes were lit up with an unmistakable look of desire as he flashed a fanged smile.
"NO!" She screamed, completely losing her cool and not even attempting to mask it. Fight or flight was kicking in and she was now struggling so hard against her bonds that she could feel the ropes ripping into her skin at every point of contact.
Morgrean, keeping one hand firmly on her head, brought his talons up high before swiping down the entire length of her body, ripping her dress to shreds and piercing her skin in one swift movement. She felt the fabric give way and let out a cry that hitched as the breath refused to come out. It was as if her body was so petrified at that moment that she wasn't able to physically take a breath, her chest constricting tighter with every effort.
She let out a whimper as he roughly cut away the ropes on her legs and the second they were free she began kicking for her life. He was straddling her right leg now and he finally let go of her head to move his hands down her bare back. She only faintly felt the searing pain from his claws having raked down her spine, wholeheartedly focusing on trying to kick him off of her. She squirmed and writhed, using her now free left leg to push against the stone, but her efforts were useless as he was still on top of her other leg and seemed to be anchoring her to the spot.
Her shoulders were groaning with pain as she struggled underneath him and she could hear her blood rushing in her ears even louder than before. As he eased off of her leg and tried to move between them, she tensed her muscles and tried desperately to hold them together.
"Stop." She sobbed, as he moved both hands to her pressed legs and pried them open effortlessly. She felt a spring of blood trickle down her thigh from his talons and start dropping onto the stone below.
"Help!" She screamed, putting every last ounce of energy she could muster into getting away from him. "Please, God, someone help me!" His hand was now removing the last barrier with another swipe. "Ty!" She yelled out desperately. She was sobbing even harder now as she felt him shove aside one of her flailing legs and lift her hips upward. "Ryonen-" Her voice hitched and broke as she felt a stinging pressure suddenly fill her.
Ariana gasped as her head fell to the stone once again, the water spraying her face from the impact. She felt silent sobs softly rising in her throat but stopping there. Time seemed to slow to almost nothing and, at some point, all she could hear was the beating of her own heart as she tried to focus on something, anything, to get her through this.
Her eyes, now streaming with hot tears, turned upward toward the rays of soft moonbeams that flooded through the window. The water from the roof now dripped again on her cheek, though she no longer cared. She moved her eyes to the moon and kept them there, letting the light carry her through the darkness.
* * * * *
Ariana lay in the silence of the room, her body bare and torn on the cold stone floor. Her dress lay in tatters around her with the cool night air engulfing her, though she hardly noticed. She was still looking at the moon, a numbness now having spread not only through her limbs but into her soul.
Morgrean pulled away from her after what seemed to feel like hours, a guttural sound issuing from his throat as he stroked her back rhythmically. She didn't even have the strength in her anymore to struggle beneath him. Her body ached like she had been through a car crash and she knew that she was bleeding in several places as she could feel trickles of blood tickling her skin as it fell. The gentle plopping of the drops of blood hitting the stone floor was the only noise that could be heard now, the rain having stopped some time ago.
Before he left, Morgrean kissed the trail of talon marks down her back, his rough lips irritating the marks and sending sparks of pain through her. He leaned down beside her head to look at her face and, though her eyes never left the moon, she could see the cruel pleasure on his face in her peripheral vision. He seemed to take in her demeanor for a moment before striding across the room and letting the door shut loudly behind him. He left her legs untethered, perhaps sensing that she was no longer a threat and had no fight left in her.
She lay unmoving, not caring whether he came back or left her for dead. In her heart, she no longer believed that Tyrynion or Ryonen were coming for her and they were already too late, anyway. Unlike last time, Ryonen hadn't come bursting in at the last moment to save her. Perhaps she was beyond saving at this point, she thought blankly. She already felt like her world was shattered, could she ever come back from this even if she did get to go home?
Finally looking away from the moon, she turned her face ever so slightly to face the opposite wall and closed her eyes. Since he hadn't removed the binding from her wrists, her shoulders were groaning with pain and her arms throbbed from being locked in the same position. The pain was almost unbearable from her waist down and she knew that she was not only suffering from wounds inflicted by Morgrean but also by her own desperate attempts to get away.
Please let this not be real, she thought suddenly, squeezing her eyes shut even harder as if she could will herself away from this place and her pain somehow. She let herself take a shuddering breath and tried once again to calm herself. If only she could fall asleep, she thought wildly, she would wake up in her bed at home and this would all be a dream. Her mom would come to wake her in the morning for pancakes and Henry would be curled up beside her. She would have dreamt it all.
She clung to this childish narrative, the shock of everything starting to get to her and taking away her delightful numbness and trying to replace it with reality. I'll just sleep, she thought again. She was using every little bit of willpower she had left in her to push away the encroaching panic. Then she remembered the trick her mom used to use on her to get her to fall asleep when she was a little kid.
Taking a deep breath, Ariana let go of all the tension in her body and attempted to make her breathing slow and even. In her mind's eye, she pictured her favorite oak tree back home. It was a sunny day and rays of sleepy golden sunlight streamed down through the holes in the canopy above her. She was laying with her head propped up on the roots of the tree, her body warm in the sunbeams as a gentle breeze blew lazily through the air. She closed her eyes against the light, letting the trilling of the birds above her lull her into a peaceful drowsiness.
As her breathing began to truly slow down and even out, Ariana let herself imagine that she really was home. That all of this was just a simple figment of her imagination. She was warm and safe in the sunlight; all she had to do was just sleep.
* * * * *
Ariana was startled awake by the sound of the door slamming shut. She was still laying with her stomach on the ground and her arms were almost completely numb, only a small throbbing could be felt in her shoulders. She had dreamt of someplace bright and warm, not this cold and dank room. She felt an overwhelming sadness strike her as reality came back into focus around her.
Morgrean strode across the room, plopping a rugged stool down about a foot from her face. When he sat down, he simply looked at her. She averted her gaze and focused it on the window again, trying to stop herself from starting to cry at the sight of him. It was night again, she realized vaguely. She had slept the day away.
He seemed to sense her fear and a pointy toothed grin sprang up on his face. "Not happy to see me?" He asked her, fake hurt in his tone.
She swallowed and willed herself not to start shaking, to stay composed, though it was hard considering she was literally bared to him. Tied up and half naked, she had nothing to hide behind except her own resolve and even that was breaking with every passing second.
At her silence, he made a tsk-ing sound. He leaned forward and she snapped her eyes shut at the sudden movement. A shuddering breath inward signaled that her resolve had never been there at all and had, in fact, been broken the night before.
Ariana heard him lean back on the stool and then a sloshing noise sounded nearby. "Thirsty?" He asked her.
He sounded cocky, so sure that she would relent and be at his mercy. It was precisely for this reason that she responded with a quick, "No." She had made the mistake of drinking what he offered last time and it had nearly killed her but, beyond this, she simply didn't want to give him any more power over her.
He snarled under his breath. "I know you are." He said, his rough voice somehow getting even rougher. "Have a drink, Ariana. Make this easier on yourself. We need to keep up your strength, don't we?" He asked, and the implication in his words were what broke her even more, her legs starting to shake of their own volition despite her every attempt to make them stop.
She heard an intake of breath coming from Morgrean and then he was shoving aside the stool to kneel beside her. "Open your eyes." He said firmly, commanding.
She didn't respond but squeezed them shut even harder.
"Now." He demanded, his voice an angry growl.
Ariana ignored him and then in the next second she cried out in pain as she felt the sting of his talons gripping either side of her face. He held her head in his hand, squeezing.
"Now." He repeated, emphasizing the word with another squeeze.
Blood springing to the surface where his talons were, Ariana obeyed and looked into his face. He was pleased, his eyes an even deeper purple than she had ever seen them. He didn't release her face but kept the initial pressure applied.
"I made promises to you." Morgrean stated, making her maintain his gaze. Though the pain in her face was mounting, she didn't dare move. The look in his eyes was deadly but, worst of all, it was filled with something else . "Do you remember what I said?"
She didn't speak, didn't breathe, didn't even dare blink. Her heart was once again racing in her chest from fear, the poor thing pounding violently against her rib cage like it could somehow escape.
At her silence, he shook her roughly and a cry finally escaped her lips. More blood trickled down her face before dripping at his feet. He looked down at it, a look of pleasure running across his features before he turned his attention back to her. "Do. You. Remember?"
This time she answered, though untruthfully. "No." She let out weakly, her voice managing to crack.
He smiled his fanged smile again. "I think you do," he said smoothly, his voice almost pleasant again, "but that's okay, I'll remind you anyways." Morgrean pulled her closer to him, effortlessly dragging her limp body toward him by her head. When she was an inch from his face, he pressed his lips hard against her mouth, his lips moving against hers as he spoke. "'I would destroy you. I would make you mine. No part of you would be off limits to me. I would tear you apart and knit you back together just for the pleasure of doing it all over again'." He pulled away from her, watching the pain flitting across her face, followed by sheer terror. "You see, I told you what I would do, Princess, and I never break a promise."
He surveyed her appraisingly, seeming to take great pleasure in his handy work. His eyes lit up when they followed the trail of cuts down her back. "I tore you apart and then I let you knit back together again. You know what I have to do now, right?"
He dropped her face suddenly and she fell forward with a moan of pain. Her shoulder hit the ground first, sending a jolt of electricity right down her arm to her fingertips. Before she even had time to move herself, she was being dragged backwards by her feet, her clothes tearing off of her until she only had strips of fabric surrounding her arms and chest. She cried out in pain as her body was pulled across jagged stones and debris on the floor. The remnants of her dress lay scattered, trailing behind her as Morgrean dragged her roughly across the room.
With a jolt, he stopped, dropping her legs. Another sound of talons flashing and her arms were suddenly released. They fell to the ground in helpless heaps beside her, unable to function after so long being tied tightly behind her back.
'No!' She wanted to scream, but her voice wouldn't come. She tried feebly to crawl away by shoving against the ground with her shoulders and her feet but he was already gripping her leg tightly and flipping her onto her back.
The last of the fabric was torn away as Morgrean clawed at her front, violating the last shred of modesty that she still had in this horrible place. He took her body in with a predatory glance, his eyes raking over her hungrily. She willed her arms to respond but they barely twitched in response.
No, she thought desperately, please not again. Please. Please. In her mind, she cried out to anyone who would listen, to whatever God there was out there that was willing to respond. As much as she wanted to fight, as much as she wanted to go down kicking and screaming, her body was frozen in place, refusing to respond to any commands she sent to it. 
Ariana's fingers began to come to life but all she could manage to do was scrape the floor with her fingertips, breaking the ends of her finger nails as they raked across the stone. She gave up after some time of this, the life inside of her seeming to diminish with every second that passed. She came to the conclusion that she would just have to try to leave her body. She could imagine no worse torture than the one she was currently enduring. She would rather have been killed than experience what she was right now.
She felt hatred rise up in her throat like bile. With every passing moment she felt her soul shattering into a million tiny pieces. More importantly, though, she knew that this would never end, not until she was rescued or she was dead. He took sheer joy in watching the cycle of her being broken apart, left to recover, then doing it over and over again. It really would be just like he promised; there was nothing she could do to stop him. She was beginning to believe him, that they would never come for her, that she would be left to endure this hell forever.