The Ashen Raven's Treason

Chapter 44

Stone as cold as a crypt cradles the back of my head. An arm—my arm—rests against my stomach, the other flat at my side. Before I've had the chance to register that I'm alive, that I'm breathing, every slice of pain through my body registers in one foul whoosh. I peel my tongue away from the roof of my mouth, but that hurts too.

Everything, down to opening my eyes to determine my location, brings peculiar, searing, hot flashes of agony. Through my blurred vision, I see bars. Cell bars extending towards the ceiling and bayonetting the stone. I have been in a cell like this before; the design is familiar. As is the musky stench of rotten hay and soiled bodies.

I'm underneath the palace. In the dungeons. How did I get here? How did...anyone get here? The thought of the Void Queen succeeding in sacking the city is enough for me to slip back into unconsciousness just to make the pain go away. I can't even cry. Mustering tears is too much effort. Before I give in to another bout with risky slumber, I try to move my leg. Thousands of needles dig into my skin, stabbing me from top to bottom, and I fall limp, my chin rolling to my shoulder.

I don't know how long I'm under before the door to the dungeons slams open. A resounding grunt follows it, echoing through the cells, and shifting feet along the stone floor move rapidly. Cell bars reverberate when something slams into them down the hall and I wince from the resonance clanging in my ears.

Why can't I sleep? Why is my body so determined to remain alive? My magic sits indolent; it knows that any effort to remain active will drain the lingering vigor I might have. If there is anything left. Currently, I find an empty reserve teetering on the edge of demise.

The sounds of struggle move closer and someone huffs an angered growl of protest before delivering what sounds like a blow to the cheek. More bars face the brunt of fighting bodies, pebbles and loose straw crumbling to nothing underneath their stomping boots. Whoever it is slams into the opposite cell of my own, the hinges screaming as the door is thrust open quickly and shut faster than they can recover.

They continue to fight, slamming into the now shut door and reaching out as far as they can. Someone put them here, guards possibly, but the officials are smart enough to back away. I hear their lingering steps, cautious whispers as to not reveal their identities to my halfway-conscious state. Then, silence. It stretches through the dungeons and wiggles through my ears until the door opens down the hall and shuts with a familiar slam. I hear nothing but chaos beyond.

I don't care who is now in the opposite cell. They make no move to call for me, nor ask if I'm actually alive. My eyes can't open to see who they are. It might be someone of the Void Queen's forces, maybe the bitch herself. Millicent Terravale wouldn't hand over her kingdom so easily, then again, I don't know how much time has passed and how long battle has raged.

The guards that brought in the new prisoner must belong to Rivian, right? They can't belong to the Void Queen if I'm underneath the palace. If so, the fate of this kingdom hangs in the air. Possibly teetering closer to self-destruction than I am.

Castiel.

His name is a whisper in the wind, in a musky breeze, and I catch onto the scent and grip tight. He's out there somewhere, in the city, and I can't protect him like this. I have to try to move. Before I can even think about it, registering the mind process to attempt something so tricky, my body gives up. I try to grasp for a hold within, but nothing comes.

Death wraps a dark sheet over my head and suffocates the air from my lungs. I hear nothing, see nothing, and give in before I can remember that someone needs me. Even if I can't remember their name, they need me. And I can do nothing other than lie here, helplessly, waiting for death to claim the remaining light I cling to.