Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

48 - Chapter XLVIII: The Eve of Inquisition

Four months later.

She was not ready for this. Winter passing too quickly. Spring bringing with it one of their lycan safe-boxes lined with silk and a Russian alias that meant even less to her than 'Reinette.' A journey of at least two days and nights, the scent of the sea and the rattle of horse-drawn carriages and trains, before she woke in a stone room, its contents almost identical to the one in Paris. But this was no Exile's Quarter. There was no sound anywhere. Only the feeling of solitude as Rena left her to her own devices. She waited there for several days...until one evening, they came for her.

First the blindfold...and then the inquisition. A nameless lycan whose vocal chords had been distorted. Someone she would likely never know. His voice at the heart of an examination that went on for hours. An entire day of answering questions with her eyes covered. What was a lycan to her? How did she feel about the lycan cause? Did she believe in the equality of the two races? Her answers not so much truthful as exact copies of what Weylan had told her to say. Her voice coming across as insincere even to herself. The lies she was telling; her mind filled with the proud voice of her mentor as she spewed their lycan dogma.

Before the nameless one was satisfied, the first week of her fortnight was over. The next evening filled with nausea and pain. Hours of having blood dripped on her tongue. Her captors testing her for her gift; forcing her to speak prophecy after prophecy. Like a ringmaster's dog, trained for the sake of its audience.

First a single drop. Four hours between every drop, giving her a chance to recover. Then two drops. Eight hours between every two, enough time for her to rest. Feed. Ready herself for the next touch of poison. He had told her it was for the sake of his council, that they must see before they could believe. But it did not change the loathing she felt. The hours of sickness.

o...o...o

By the final night of her inquisition, she could not walk without aid. Her back so used to curling in nausea that to walk upright was to strain herself. Her bones calling for pity as she felt the hand of Rena on her shoulder, guiding her forward like a blind woman being led to the executioner. Her hands tied behind her back and a coarse sackcloth pulled over her head. Both ears plugged with cotton and her eyes covered with linen. She was not to see nor hear a single member of this council.

But in the absence of sight and sound, there was touch...the sensation of Rena's hand leaving her in the open. The small traces of movement felt in the soles of her boots as creatures began to circle. Stepping around her. Peering into her face, breathing the air that she breathed. They were around her...and though she might loathe him right now, Blood let him be among them. Even if he was, she was not to call out his name. She was to be silent before those who would judge her. She was to keep her calm...

...for there was nothing to fear.

The last words spoken to her by Lucian in the nights before they left the London Den. Just over a week ago in the catacombs. His hand poised over a bishop and his attention turned on the ceiling. Hearing something that she could not. At first she had presumed it to be a trick; another means of winning this game of exile and acceptance that they had been playing for months. The multitude of things left on the table for her in the course of four months: a bowl of devil's ice; a pair of gloves, warmer than the ones she had lost; an ink-pen within a day of the old drying out-and then the chess-board.

The pieces laid and the first move already made. Black pawn to the King's third square. For days, she ignored it; and then after a week, she moved a pawn. White to the Queen's third square. The next evening, one of his pawns had shifted forward again...and then another...and another after that. The game taking weeks of her time, but the outcome always the same.