Power's Pride {Watty Awards 2013 Entry}

Prologue

Prologue

Reba was cold, hungry, and seething with rage. Her three week imprisonment had provided her ample time to consider how she had found herself in this predicament, and it seemed that every passing thought only made her ever more angry. As the smell of sea water, mold, rotting wood, and her own waste joined forces to assault her nose, she valiantly fought back the urge to vomit. Only her pride was holding her together now. Pride was one thing they could never take from her.

Even though she had witnessed the entire downward spiral of the Hunters in her own lifetime, she still found herself reeling in shock every time she was reminded of the truth. In the span of only one generation, the Witch Hunters had gone from the greatest defenders and enforcers of Witch Law to the vilest enemies of those who lived by it. She knew how it had happened, but it was always so difficult to believe. King Rufus was deeply resentful of his lack of magical ability and even more resentful of the “proof” that lack seemed to provide to the rumors that he was not the previous king’s true son. Those who feared the power of the witches seized on the opportunity to make the human king’s resentment grow into hatred. Rufus had methodically vilified witches to turn the public opinion against them, and now, 20 years later, an entire generation of people believed witches were, at best, traitors and, at worst, monsters.

She supposed it should have been no surprise that she was caught. After sneaking 18 witches out of the dungeons of the Hunters’ Guild without seeing even one guard, she had become complacent and sloppy in her confidence that they would never catch her. Now, here she was, stuck in a dank dungeon cell on an island the Hunters had stopped using for prisoners so long ago she had knew of it from legends instead of histories. Reba didn’t feel like a hero from a legend, though, and she was not liking this chapter of her own history.

 This was Devil Bane’s Island. Legends stated the prison here was built as a spiral with four rings going ever deeper into the core of the island. It was said the worst criminals were sent into the innermost spiral to spend the rest of their lives surrounded only by darkness and the lamentations of their peers. Thankfully, she could still hear the ocean despite the lack of windows, and that meant she was only in the outer ring - a small kindness for which she was truly grateful to the Powers That Be. 

If she could find a way out of her cell, it would take her no more than three minutes to run to the entrance of the prison and escape towards the nearest cliffside. If she could get out. If she could get past the entrance where the Hunters were, almost certainly, stationed. If her ship had found her location. If she could swim to her ship after being nearly starved for three weeks. If her ship could get away from Devil’s Bane Island without the help of a guide and without crashing against one of the sandbars that surrounded most of the island. Reba sighed despondently as she acknowledged there were quite a few conditions with questionable outcomes between her and safety.