Inheritance

Part 2. Chapter 26: A Love of Chains

Late into the night, Maruka was on the battlements with his back pushed up against a parapet--fending off doppelgangers with the rest of the recruits. Continuously, he would look down below and loose arrows upon the doppelgangers who would spring from the dented earth below.

He was beginning to feel weariness settle upon his muscles as he fired a dampened arrow at a doppelganger who was dashing toward the fortress for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

Maruka wiped his forehead as he threw a quick, last glance at the battlefield before ducking behind the parapet again—an enemy arrow narrowly missing his head as he did so.

"You look tired, sir." Said a female human to his right. "Why don't you go to bed?"

Maruka shook his head as he peered over the parapet and launched an arrow upon another doppelganger—saving a gamayun down below. "They need me..."

The human woman continued telling him that he needed sleep if he were to be more effective, but he stopped listening because of what he saw on the battlefield.

A lone, green tree stuck out like a sore thumb upon the barren earth down below. Little droplets of light cascaded down from the emerald leaves; the entire tree looked like it belonged to a different world where everything was far lovelier.

Maruka's fingers froze on the bow.

He could feel his heart thudding in his chest as his black eyes remained fixed on the out-of-place tree.

"Maruka!" The human woman shook his shoulder as she loosed an arrow and saved the life of a waif down below.

Maruka snapped back to reality—shaking his head.

The woman looked at him kindly and told him sincerely, "you need to rest..."

Maruka's fingers shook as he wiped more sweat from his brow.

"Perhaps you're right. I'll wake someone else to take over for me—I fear I a-a-am beginning to see things."

He crawled away from the parapet—suddenly too scared and dizzy to stand—and headed for the door behind them.

His muscles nearly failed him as he crawled--as if he were beset by an invisible assailant. He reached the door, threw it open, and then hurriedly shut it behind him.

He took a deep breath and murmured to himself as he headed to bed, "I must be seeing things. She can't possibly find me here."

The iron fortress was deathly quiet at this time in the night, and it seemed to Maruka as if there could be monsters around every corner.

Maruka moved woodenly with his heart pounding.

There were footsteps in his ears as he walked down many corridors—he couldn't tell whether they were real or in his head.

They kept getting louder and louder in his ears until Maruka rounded the corner of a corridor quickly.

He screamed and unsheathed his blade with trembling fingers when he bumped into someone around the corner.

"Maruka sir, it's me!" Cried the man he had bumped into.

Maruka took deep breaths as his black eyes did a double-take to make sure he truly was looking at a familiar human recruit. In a moment, Maruka sheathed his blade and cleared his throat. He put a hand on the human's shoulder. "Sean, I need you to go out there and take over. I'm overtired. W-w-w-wake me if you need me."

Maruka continued on to his quarters--did a thorough search of his room to make sure there were no monsters--and then he blew out all the candles and went to sleep.

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An hour before sunrise, Maruka began to have fitful nightmares about the raging, untamed sea and the things that lurked both within it. He tossed and turned until he could have sworn he felt rough fingers dragging across his chest. He awoke with a yell and grabbed the sword he had left as his bedside.

He looked around frantically but saw no one.

Sweat clung to him and he rolled out of bed to cool off. He took deep breaths and leaned against the wall, but still couldn't stop sweating.

He closed his eyes and slowly, his heart-rate began to even-out.

He took one, final, deep breath, and he felt normal again for a moment. He thought he might be able to go back to sleep for an hour or so until--

He felt rough fingers dragging across his back and he spun around with a gasp.

He pasted himself against the cold, iron wall at what he saw. "No! No... I escaped you!"

The woman who had dragged her wooden fingers across his back smirked at him and snapped them.

A golden, shining collar made of magic appeared around Maruka's neck; a thin, yellow cord ran from the collar to a golden ring around the woman's finger.

The woman made of wood twisted the ring on her finger twice and the collar tightened around Maruka's neck.

The man fell to his knees and gasped for breath—his fingers clawing desperately at the collar around his neck.

The magical cord between them shortened as the woman stepped closer. She placed her fingers on his shoulders and asked him with a grin on her face, "did you really think getting yourself into trouble with the dwarven king and getting sent here could keep me away from you? You can't tell me you weren't happy being my slave—you wanted for nothing under my care! Shall we get you somewhere safe? Somewhere where you will be warm and fed?"

Maruka barely managed to choke out through the collar strangling him and through the tears forming in his eyes, "just kill me. P-p-p-please just kill me. I won't be your slave a moment longer—I'd rather die!"

The dryad silently snapped her fingers and let him breathe with an obsessed look on her face.

He fell on all-fours before her and coughed.

The dryad knelt and looked him in the black eyes. "Before me, you were a mindless seal wasting away in the ocean, selkie! I gave you a purpose—a grand purpose when I stole your skin! Remember how grateful you were? And now you think you would rather die?"

"I was foolish... I didn't know you were... abusing me—taking advantage of my naivety, until I felt sick to my stomach and I didn't know why!" Maruka cried. "K-k-k-kill me, unless you intend to treat me as a human instead of a slave!"

The dryad wrapped his shuddering form in her wooden arms. "But you are not a human! You are a selkie! You are confused you poor thing! There is no greater pleasure than being a slave--you know how much I miss it... We have a mission to accomplish, remember? The last Arrozan is here, isn't he? And so is his slave, Pollyanna? You must tell me all you know of them! Perhaps we can use them to our advantage."

Maruka fell apart in her arms. He knew there was no escape.

He bitterly blinked tears out of his eyes and replied, "how did you get in here?"

"It was quite easy. The only ones who can get in and out are Astral Elves, so I kidnapped one and forced them to carve a way through the shield for me." The dryad whispered in his ear.

Maruka sobbed and murmured, "what did you do with their body?"

"I returned it to the earth, of course." The dryad answered as she kissed his neck gently. "You'll help me, right?"

Maruka could muster no words.

He was hers again, and there was nothing he could do to change that sad fact.