Sevensworn

XIX. Lady of Black Feathers

The sleep Ronan had fallen into was deeper than anything he had ever experienced. He didn't dream, didn't move, hardly breathed. He woke up once to the sound of thunder and once to a voice accompanied by a blinding light, but each time he fell back into the darkness that beckoned so lovingly.

His body welcomed unconsciousness. He had never been more tired in his life, had never come closer to giving up than he had that night. It was unsurprising that he slept so deeply; no, the surprise came later in the form of a muffled voice, a woman's, and the feeling of something soft beneath him.

Ronan's eyes opened. It was a slow process⁠—his vision blurred mercilessly, and when his gaze finally focused on what was above him, his serenity was replaced by a surge of panic.

He was not looking at roots, but at a simple wooden ceiling. The soft thing beneath him was a bed, the weight atop him a heap of blankets half kicked off, and the pressure on his wrists two loops of rope that bound his arms to the headboard.

Trying desperately to sit, he pushed hard with his feet and pulled at the ropes on his arms, ignoring the pain that accompanied it and dragging himself up so that his back was against the headboard and his arms were stretched to either side. The wood creaked violently as he moved, but he figured getting familiar with his surroundings was likely more important than worrying about the noise.

The room was small. A bowl of water and a cloth sat beside him on a small nightstand, and on a chair in the corner were his things⁠—nothing had survived but his belt and Amon'Llyra, small and unimpressive without her godly wielder. A clean set of clothes lay beside the rest, and Ronan did his best to steady himself.

He had no way of knowing how long he had been there. His memory was foggy and the curtains were pulled over the solitary window that sat across the room. With shaking hands, he pulled violently against his bonds, straining to break the rope despite the pain it caused him to move. The wood of the headboard groaned in protest and he narrowed his eyes, pulling harder. By the time he gave up and collapsed back against the bed, all he had succeeded in doing was agitating the skin beneath the ropes. His breath quickened.

There was nothing near him that would allow him to escape. Had he been able to reach the glass bowl of water he could have broken it and used a shard to cut through the ropes, but that would require a range of movement that he certainly didn't have. The sound, too, would have been⁠—

He heard a door swing open in the other room. Before he could lie back and pretend to be asleep, the door to his own room opened to reveal a young girl in a cloak. She must have been only slightly over half his age, twelve or thirteen, and when she looked up and saw he was awake, her eyes widened.

"Oh!" She dropped the basket of herbs she'd been carrying and took a startled step back into the doorframe. "You⁠—you are awake!" She spoke Adacian with an accent⁠—Kadena spoke its own language, similar enough to his own for him to recognize most words, but he was immediately overcome with relief at the assurance that they would be able to communicate.

"You⁠—" his voice was hoarse. The girl rushed forward, unafraid, and put a hand to his forehead. Ronan froze, shocked at her brazen movements, studying her face as she frowned.

"Your fever has broken," she said after a moment. "Good! The lady will be pleased."

Ronan stared at her. "Who are you?" A moment later, "What am I doing here?"

Something dawned on him, then, something he was ashamed to have not remembered the moment he awoke⁠—he lurched forward, straining against the ropes that bound him. "The woman! The woman that was with me! Where is she?"