The Azimar Archives Book One- The Book of Death

Nevina

Nevina lay on the floor, her cheek pressed against the cold stones. Her body was cut and broken, and her stomach ached with hunger and nausea, but she was thankful to still be alive. After being ravaged by the three men who had come to visit her, she had drifted in a dreamless sleep, where the pain of her wounds could not reach her. Perhaps it was the shock, or simply her body shutting down to begin healing, but Nevina was grateful for those few hours of death-like slumber.

On waking, she found herself once more alone, and tried to make sense of her injuries. The front of her dress had been torn to ribbons, her chest completely exposed. Her thighs, arms, and stomach were covered in cuts, some long and shallow, some deeper. The floor was slick with blood and seed, the smell of it filling her nose. She couldn't move without searing pain coursing over her body. They had left her lying on the stone floor, and she had hardly moved since, only rolling from her back to her side. Her body was too weak, and her heart was too broken to care. After some time, she gave up, lying limply on the floor, secretly praying for death.

I could be with my girls, she thought, mind drifting. I could be with Areanath. And the pain would stop.

When she awoke again, it was to the sound of the heavy door to her cell creaking open. Two women entered, servants by the look of them. One carried a tray laden with a steaming kettle, a bowl, and a stack of neatly folded linens. The other woman, the older of the two, carried a torch in one hand and an empty wash basin in the other.

Nevina sat up, propping herself up with both arms, and watched the two women. The older one hardly moved, only slamming the door shut and setting the torch into a sconce on the wall. The younger one slipped closer to where Nevina half sat on the floor before setting the tray onto the ground and holding the bowl out for Nevina to take.

Nevina hesitated, looking between the women before carefully taking the bowl. She caught the faint scent of winterberries and creeping wort. Common ingredients for potions of persuasion...

"Drink it." The older woman's voice was sharp and demanding. The younger woman said nothing, shifting her gaze away from Nevina and quickly backing away towards the door.

Nevina drank. She almost gagged on the thin brew. Though it had been mixed with a thin broth, there was no mistaking that it was a potion. But the liquid was warm, and her stomach ached with hunger. Whatever these women wanted to do to her, she had already been through worse.

When the bowl was empty, Nevina held it out for the younger woman to take. The cuffs chaining Nevina to the wall were undone, the small key disappearing into a fold of the older woman's dress. Nevina continued to hold her arms out to the women, hoping the arcane cuffs might be removed as well, but the older woman sneered at her.

"Not those. Once those are on, only the king can remove them."

Nevina let her arms drop back to her sides, the heavy potion already making her docile and weak minded.

She was led to the wash basin and helped into it. The women stripped her of the remaining rags of her clothing, then the older woman promptly dumped the contents of the kettle over Nevina's head. The water was hot, and Nevina cried out in pain as it ran down her body. The women said nothing, each taking a rag and scouring at her tender flesh.

The younger woman started with her face, rubbing gently at the smears of dirt and tear streaks Nevina was sure were there. In the firelight, Nevina could catch glimpses of the girl's eyes, and they seemed red and swollen from crying.

"Please," Nevina asked, "can you tell me if Areanath is dead?"

The girl opened her mouth to answer, but the other woman spoke first. "Don't speak to her, Ishta." The older woman had Nevina by one arm, and her fierce scrubbing suddenly grew more intense, until the tender scabs and cuts on her upper arm burst open again, and Nevina had to bite her lip from whimpering. The girl, Ishta, turned her attention back to gently scrubbing Nevina's neck and chest, refusing to look her in the eye.

Nevina remained quiet as the women continued their work. They scrubbed her from the top down, leaving nothing untouched. The older woman seemed to take a small amount of pleasure in savagely scouring the raw recesses between Nevina's thighs and buttocks, perhaps knowing what she had endured and wanting to inflict further pain. Nevina bit down on her lip until she tasted blood, but it still did not stop her from letting out a shaky whimper at the woman's cruel touch.

When she was cleaned to the elder woman's satisfaction, they wrapped Nevina's deeper cuts in clean strips of linen, and dabbed the shallower ones with a foul smelling ointment. Her wrists were bandaged where the chained cuffs had rubbed them, but not where the arcane cuffs dug into her flesh at each attempted use of magic. Her hair was braided and pinned against her head, and she was quickly dressed in a simple white shift. With a final painful tug, a veil was fastened around her brow, once more concealing her face.

As the youngest one gathered the discarded rags, wet and stained with blood, the other woman refastened the chained cuffs to Nevina's wrist. She took the torch from the sconce on the wall and opened the cell door for the younger girl to leave. She looked Nevina over, eyes narrow behind the glint of the torch. "The King has called for your execution tomorrow morning. He wanted to make you presentable." The woman huffed lightly, "I don't see the point, but then I am not King." She started through the door again, then paused and looked back. "I'll be sure to spit on your corpse, for Areanath's sake."

And then Nevina was once more alone in her cell. The sound of the lock fastening on the other side of the door echoed off the stone walls around her.