Black Reign

Ellette

Dawn arrives with a silence that lays on my skin like a blanket. Each distant rustle of the dry wind feels like an outright mutiny to the revered hush finally settling upon us after hours upon endless hours of the treacherous dark's beasts.

My fingers comb restlessly though the ends of my long, inky hair as they had done so incessantly through the black reign of the night. The youths I'd gathered with, our new Scavengers, had done well to keep quiet during the chaos. Gramr had persistently beaten down upon the steel mesh, no doubt scenting us, our food. They had not given up until what I assume to be a half hour ago, when the sky first began to light up. The beginning of dawn, our divine saviour.

My teeth worry at my bottom lip, toes curling and uncurling in my lilac slippers as I wait for the perfect time to leave the cage. When there is enough light that I know for sure no beast would dare remain lest they be scorched by the sun's blaze.

As soon as I believe I am to wear my entire lip away with my apprehension, I see rays—stronger, brighter now—to which no beast could withstand. A grin slices my face and I glance over my shoulder to the daring youths who lay dozing against the narrow cage's back wall. My toes curl once more in excitement and a mild solution of anticipation laced with dread fills my gut. The former takes control.

I run to the vast, towering set of double wood doors, worn down with age, and fumble at the frail steel lock. It takes few tries for me to slide the key into the lock Nila, the blacksmith: Alois, and I were able to fashion in a last-minute plan to not end up sealed inside by the cage's colossal barrier: a steel-plated log thicker than the greatest of trees I'd seen as a child. Before my land became the parched wasteland it is, where grass is as scarce as cracks are abundant. In a quick movement, I have the doors flying open, sunlight bathes my face.

Only an hour ago was the blackness so absolute that stars were covered by sinister clouds. Now, the radiant beauty of this seemingly-perfect dawn is laid before me. The sky glows like the summer peaches depicted in paintings hung in the palace library, hues of colour sheathing the sky in a wide expanse of warm shades.

I am close to losing myself in the view, in the wonderful feel of the sun's rays bathing my face in an ethereal embrace, that I do not realise how truly at peace I am until I hear a small cry. The cage to the right begins to open and out comes a few of the soldiers that remain here—the others travelling the continent bearing the heavy news of losses. Both on our side and the South's. They give me a shallow bow. I return it with a soft smile and nod in the sky's direction. The soldiers and whoever else looks my way follow until their eyes settle on the sky. The raw astonishment on their faces makes me grin.

Not only had we survived a night by ourselves with no other protection than the steel mesh above us—that we reinforced, that we put together—without any Skincarvers to wage and win our battle for us, but through our own might and will; and we had survived to emerge to a beautiful dawn. A beautiful hope.

Murmurs begin to sound from behind the last cage's doors. Nila's group are within. I hear the faint rattle of a key accompanied by a gently creak, a moan of something that sounds like it's about to crack. To fall. As soon as I hear Nila's key slide into the lock I see it.

The cage's massive barrier—hanging from a long iron chain—begins to descend. The groan of rusted metal, the clank of steel plates as they bash against each other with ever-quickening velocity screams through my ears as the log begins to fall, fall, fall—

Realisation sings through my bones. They will be trapped soon enough.

My heart jumps to my throat, any semblance of peace that had begun to instil itself within my bones fleeing as an overpowering panic crashes through my mind. Before I can register what exactly it is I am doing, I am already at the reel in the stalls above the fighting grounds, my fingers wrapped around the handle's small knob.