Heir of Nothing

One

Zara woke up screaming. Her eyes had seconds to adjust to the unfamiliar surroundings before a hand clamped over her mouth. It tasted like leather and blood, although she wasn't certain that the blood wasn't her own.

The air in her body protested its new prison by stinging her lungs as it rushed back down.

She had to get out of here. Wherever here was. Her hand came up, clawing for her attacker's face. She didn't have the chance to make contact with her target before a searing pain erupted from her abdomen. Had her mouth not been covered she would have screamed again.

As the pain spread, a black haze crept into the corner of her eyes. It quickly overtook them completely and Zara was once again left with nothing.

                                       ***

The world came back into focus slowly. It was a room, likely the highest in whatever building it was in given the arched ceilings. From what her peripheral vision could see, it was not a nice room. The wood that framed the entire place was coated with stains and dust.

Her mind flashed back to the hand clamped over her mouth. Was the person still in the room? She craned her neck to the side only to be met with painful resistance.

Despite her best efforts to swallow it back down, she groaned out in pain. Footsteps, she was not alone. "Are you going to be quiet or do you need my help with that again?"

The tension that she built up in her body released. She knew that gravely voice, "Bastian?" She had not realized how dry her throat was until she tried talking, or her lips that split with the small movement. "Water."

It was a request, a demand, and a plea all in one. It didn't need to be any of them, she had water to her lips seconds later. Bastian's hand lifting her head slightly to help the water go down. It was empty too soon. "Take it slow, you're body is still rebounding."

He gently laid her head back. A slight scraping sound hit her ears as he dragged a chair over. She was aching and exhausted, but she had strength. Not much, but enough to tilt her head towards him.

However sore she felt, he looked it. His normally kind eyes were swollen shut, the left much worse than the right, with bruises and cuts decorating the rest of his face. Despite it all he still looked so innocent. How misleading looks could be.

"Bastian, where are we?" Had they already gone to battle? They must have given the state they were both in, but where was everyone else? Where were her parents?

"We're at the inn." The inn? But that was in the city, the castle was a ways away.

"We didn't win." Bastian didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. The more aware she got of her surroundings the more she remembered the battle. They were obliterated. How was she still alive?

A single tear trailed down Bastian's cheek. She wanted to reach out and brush it away but the memory of the pain she felt last time she moved prevented her from doing it. "Zara, they don't want to give up."

"Who, who doesn't want to give up?" If the fire and screams of terror that flashed in her mind were real she did not want to give up either.

"The survivors." The survivors, how many was that. "They won't stand down, all of them well enough to stand that is. They're waiting for you."