Hunted(23)

I am chained underground with broken ribs and no light, she told herself, closing her eyes and letting the fear wash through her. Her father had always told her that no matter the predicament, a hunter should never lie to himself. Only by understanding the problem can one see past it. Her father—Yeva clamped her lips together, eyes prickling behind closed lids. She could not afford to think of him now.

The last thing she remembered was the roar of triumph before the Beast had flung itself at her. She swallowed, neck prickling. It should have torn out my throat. By comparison, captivity and broken ribs seemed trivial.

Had someone saved her before the Beast could finish killing her? But why save her only to chain her in a cave?

Before she could think of an explanation there came a grating rasp of metal and stone. She inhaled sharply, feeling the stab of the breath in her broken ribs, and lifted her head but could see nothing in that direction. Something clattered to the floor and then scraped across it, as if it was being shoved toward her. Yeva strained and blinked in the blackness. Before her eyes could discern anything except the faint outline of a rectangle, the grating shriek of hinges came again, followed by the sound of something slamming closed.

Forcing herself to take shallow breaths, Yeva tried to calm herself. Not a cave, then, if there was a door—although the sensation of being underground remained. She tried to think if she had seen a figure in the doorway, but the darkness had been too complete.

She tried to sit up again, gritting her teeth against the pain, and managed to lift herself up on an elbow. Reaching out with one leg, she hooked her heel over the edge of the object that had been placed in her cell, and dragged it toward her. She was barefoot—someone had removed her boots. And her cloak and pack too, she realized.

And her weapons.

She got the object close enough to reach it with her fingertips, and then drew it the rest of the way to her. It was a tray, she discovered, exploring its contents with her fingers in the dark. She recognized the texture of dried meat, as well as uncooked tubers and a skin of water. They were from her own supplies.

There were also two strips of something rough and semistiff under her fingers. She picked one up, holding it to her nose and then brushing it with her lips, which were far more sensitive to touch than her fingers. Tree bark.

Her heart surged with confusion as she touched the strip to her tongue. Willow bark. For pain. She broke a bit off with her teeth and chewed, the bitterness so strong she had to fight the urge to spit it out again immediately. Chew, don’t swallow. She sucked at the bark, head aching with the foul taste of it—but the pain began to ease, both in her head and her side. She spat out the pulpy mass and reached for the water skin to wash away the taste.

Why would someone lock her here and then bring her food and medicine for pain? She ate the rations, some part of her mind asserting itself and reminding her that if she hoped to escape, she’d need her strength. With difficulty she followed the manacle chaining her left hand back to the wall and tried to prop herself up against it—but the pain in her ribs was still too great, despite the dulling effects of the willow bark.

The food and the medication had arrived only seconds after she’d awakened. Could someone have heard her gasp?

“Hello?” she called to the darkness, her voice rasping like the scrape of a knife cleaning leather. The sound of it was small, dull and without echo. The room she was in couldn’t be large. She swallowed and tried again, her voice a little stronger. “Hello? Thank you to whoever gave me the bark.”

Perhaps it was a servant of whoever held her, feeling sorry for her. “Please, I need light. I’m injured, but I can’t tell how badly without being able to see.”

There was no answer. She let her head fall back against the wall to which she was chained. The blackness spun around her, though she could not tell if it was from fear or pain or an overdose of the willow bark. She closed her eyes, and fell into a doze.

Her sleep was fitful at best, haunted by monstrous images and flashes of light. She dreamed she was blind, able only to see red streaks as though trying to see behind closed eyelids.

The streaks became a pair of eyes, the serpent’s eyes from her dream in the forest, but also the Beast’s—they stalked her and she found she was paralyzed as well as blind. The Beast moved closer, and when she tried to scream her voice had fled, and she jerked upright and felt the sting of fangs in her lungs and cried out, eyes flying open.

Yeva stared, gasping, at the ceiling as the dream fell away. Her side ached where her sudden movement had jarred her injured ribs. She blinked at the gray stone ceiling for long moments before her mind caught up with her.

The gray stone ceiling? She could see.

She rolled over onto her side with difficulty, her chain scraping the stone below her. A few feet away, sitting on the floor by the door, was a tiny oil lamp.

Someone had brought her light.

Yeva reached out and dragged the light closer, unable to take her eyes from it despite the way they burned and watered after so long in darkness. “Thank you,” she whispered to her invisible ally. “Thank you.”

She eased herself down again onto her back, unlacing her tunic so that she could raise her undershirt. Angry red and blue bruises spread across her side, tinged with the yellow of a stormy sky. She explored their edges with her fingertips and shuddered against a stab of pain. Broken, as she had feared. She slowly eased her shirt back into place and looked around.