Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 209: Caged

Toren Daen

I didn't wake up all at once. Instead, I vaguely remembered flashing in and out of consciousness. Images barely recalled flickered like old film in the depths of my psyche. The low heat of someone's body close to mine. Rhythmic breathing. A dimly lit room. The cold as I was left alone. Metal biting into my wrists. Firelight. Something soft beneath my body. An effervescent ache that yawned from my core and dripped like boiling water across my veins.

I slowly pulled my eyes open, the action like lifting the portcullis of a castle wall using only the strength of my body. I groaned in pain as the lingering sensation of backlash scratched at my channels. I blinked blearily, adjusting to the low light of whatever room I was in.

I was in a small chamber of dark stone. There were no windows within these confines, leaving me in mute darkness that seemed to blanket everything in a chill. Yet despite the grim state of the room, the bed I lay on was remarkably soft. A blanket was draped over me with notable care, warding off the chill.

Groggily, I tried to wipe my face with my arms.

And realized they were shackled together.

I felt the pit drop out of my stomach as I stared at the metal cuffs binding my hands. Belatedly, I realized I couldn't feel my own mana. I was cut off from the source of my power by the constraining effects of these chains. It felt as if my core were held in the grip of some dark beast, my usual clarity and surety of mind washed away. I was wearing simple linens, none of my usual dress on. My signet ring and dimension ring were gone, whisked away to who-knew-where.

I felt adrenaline flowing through my veins as I slowly turned, observing the room once more. For the first time, I noticed that there were thick steel bars–each as wide across as my arm–barring the far entrance of the room.

I was in a prison cell.

Aurora? I asked out of habit, my mouth dry and my thoughts moving like sap. Can you hear me?

No response. My bond was muted and compressed by the mana-suppressing shackles around my wrists, leaving me adrift and uncertain. My anxiety crested as I tried to calm myself. I was chained and in a cell, but why? What was the last thing I remembered?

I'd healed Arthur, that much I could recall. And afterward, I'd pulled myself out of the djinni sanctuary, stumbling through the Beast Glades on trembling limbs. I'd collapsed against the trunk of a tree some miles away, and the last thing I'd seen–

My head turned sharply as I heard a slight creak of metal. I blinked owlishly at a nervous guard as they peeked through a sliding window in my cell. "He's awake!" the man called, noticing how I was staring at him. "Send word to our mistress!"

The man quickly shut the little viewing window, leaving me back in the cold of my cell. And just as fast as my adrenaline and anxiety had been rising, it began to simmer away.

I'd feared that perhaps I'd been captured by Dicathians; that I hadn't been fast enough in my escape from the underground network of tunnels. But the lingering image of Seris as the moonlight anointed her like some lunar goddess assured me of where I currently was.

I knew who had locked me in this cell, and why.

I took a deep, calming breath, moving to sit in a cross-legged position on my admittedly comfortable bed. I couldn't shift my arms too much, but that wasn't a problem. I began to meditate, coaxing my lifeforce as I waited.

I couldn't affect my mana with these shackles. But the aether of my body was entirely unmolested by the cold iron around my wrists. My lifeforce–still aching and twinging from all the strain I'd put it through not long ago, flowed in cycles around my body in tune with my heartbeat.