C H A P T E R O N E
"It's an eight hour trek to the Vessel from Shad'Tuns," Enoch's second in command, Garfield, said as he scratched his pale head; it was shaven except for the large strip down the middle. He placed his hands in the pockets of his large black cloak that hid compartments which he kept all of his knives that he's made. He looked over at Nola with his green eyes.
"Uh huh," Nola rolled her eyes as they continued walking.
"So if we have to be back tomorrow by dawn, then why didn't heda let us ride horseback?"
She sighed loudly. "Uriah."
"No, no, no. I want to hear it from you, warrior princess." Garfield spoke before Uriah could. "I mean with the sun out and all I'm gonna turn out like Uriah by the time we reach the Vessel."
Nola scoffed. "You'll burn before the sun kisses you."
"At least our souls are entwined." He kidded, mocking the common phrase of their people.
"You don't believe in prophecies, do you Garfield?" Uriah asked.
Garfield gasped. "Aha, he speaks."
"I just don't want to be known as the guy, who whenever he speaks something completely idiotic and immature gets blurted out."
Garfield shrugged. "But who did heda choose as his second? Hmm?"
"Enoch didn't choose Uriah because he touched a Vessel weapon," Nola put her arm over Garfield's chest and he stopped walking. He looked down at his superior; her hair was out of her face, braids down the side of her head, shaping her face. Her scars on her cheek had fully healed from the last time they made a trek for heda. "which is exactly what I saw you do last time we made a Vessel trek, Gar. Who do you think my brother will believe; you or me?"
The cell was dark, and empty; full of the smell of burnt metal and chalk. Drawings scattered the walls and floors of the cell that he was kept in. There was a knock on the door. "Inmate 48: North, Westley."
The cell door opened and the soldier found the inmate seated on the floor, legs crossed, with his palms on his knees and eyes closed shut as if he'd never see the light ever again. The soldier knelt down before him and unlocked the shackles that were around his wrists and ankles.
He whistled, calling a fellow officer walking up behind him carrying a bucket, his shadow over casting his knelt body. "Go on with it then."
He nodded and tilted the bucket, dumping ice cold water onto the inmate.
"Inmate," the knelt soldier spoke. He didn't move an inch. "Westley."
They waited a few moments before his lids opened, all they saw were darkness besides the whites of his eyes. They lifted him up by his arms; he didn't ask what was going on, where he was going, or if he was going to die.
Westley watched as he wasn't the only one being removed from his cell. He looked down at the three hundred foot drop that he considered taking; it was a simple decision, to just jump. He was taken into an elevator, the doors were coming to a close when a soldier yelled, "Wait!", and he slid his hand through the sliding doors, entering with a female inmate. She was fully awake, unlike Westley who had previously been heavily sedated.
"Wes," she nonchalantly said as the elevator descended the shaft.
One of his officers lifted his head and he blinked as his eye slight was vaguely coming and going, he saw through the blurs and made out her dark blonde hair, thick brown eyebrows that fitted her angular, heart-shaped face.
