One
I woke to the cold restraint of metal cuffs, the gentle chink of chains, and the sway of a slow-moving vehicle.
The scents that rode the air were thick and sharp and spoke of blood, unwashed bodies, fear, and anger. Underneath all that ran the heavy musk of at least two dozen men, but there were women here too—four or five of them, sitting to my left. The fear was strongest from their direction.
Fear and pain.
I flared my nostrils, unobtrusively drawing in the wider aromas while keeping my eyes firmly closed and my head down. There was little other information to be found in the stale stirring of air. Wherever this prison might be, it was locked down as tightly as the cuffs on my wrists and ankles.
There was no conversation to be heard. Not inside. Not outside. Nothing other than the occasional stifled sob from the woman seated beside me.
Why were they all here?
Why was I here?
I had no memory of this place. No memory of the events that led to being incarcerated.
No memory, even, of who I was.
What I did remember was a fire so fierce it could destroy entire cities in the sweep of leathery wings. A shout of warning—an order to retreat. And then light. Bright, fierce, white light that froze in an instant. Falling, a cry on my lips and agony ringing in my ears and mind. Crashing, not into land but into water.
Drowning. And then not.
Then nothing until these cuffs and chains.
It wasn’t amnesia, of that I was sure. Rather, there seemed to be a barrier of ice between more recent memories and me. I rather suspected that until all those barriers had dissipated, I’d have to put up with informational gaps.
Aside from that absence of memory, there was a strange void in my soul, a dull ache above my left eye, and vague twinges in back muscles that had taken the brunt of a fall that should have killed me. My clothes and boots were damp—no doubt a result of my plunge—and the weight of my guns and knife was absent. The latter was likely the result of my being captured, but I couldn't be certain. Like my name, it was knowledge that remained locked behind the ice.
In fact, there was only one thing I was absolutely certain of right now—unlike the majority of people in this pod, I hadn’t been beaten or otherwise abused.
I took another deep breath and this time tasted little more than the ash and anger emanating from the man sitting to my right. His tension rode the air, and the arm that pressed against mine was taut with the fury I could sense but not yet see. He might be chained but—unlike most in this place—he was not defeated.
And it was rather odd that I was so quickly getting the measure of a man I hadn't yet viewed.
I carefully opened my eyes. We were in a long, silver cylinder that was pointed at one end and flat at the other. There were no windows, no guards, and no visible means in and out of this place. It had old fears stirring, but I ruthlessly pushed them aside; now was not the time for a childhood phobia to rear its head. Besides, there logically had to be a way out. Magic was capable of many things, but I doubted they'd yet created a spell able to transport people through metal walls.
The men sitting opposite were chained in pairs and looked to be as mentally broken as they were physically. But beneath all the blood and the bruises were weather-beaten faces that spoke of long hours in the sun and calloused, dirt-stained hands that suggested they were farmers rather than warriors. Earth witches might be responsible for keeping Arleeon's farmlands fertile and productive, but those capable of harnessing the full power of either the earth or the air were a rare commodity and, as such, treated almost as royally as those who'd once ruled. Of course, witches never personally tended the fields or grew the crops; that was a task reserved for the needy or for those accused of minor crimes—it was both a form of repatriation and a means of providing work, food, and shelter for Arleeon's less fortunate.
And given the importance of such farms, they were also very well guarded, even though Arleeon had not seen a hostile incursion by anyone other than the Mareritt for centuries. There had to have been a major rebellion for farmers to be this badly beaten.
Of course, there was no guarantee I was actually in Arleeon, even if those in this prison vessel had similar coloring to myself. Given the vague memories of falling, it was always possible we’d somehow been blown far off course and crash-landed on another continent.
But even as that thought rose, an instinctive part within whispered no.
I frowned and shifted my gaze to the left. The women were in a similar state of disrepair, though their demeanor and the haunted look in their eyes suggested the attack on them had been of a far more personal nature.
Something sparked inside of me, something that was born of anger and yet held a fiery heat that hungered for retribution. I could understand the use of force to quell a rebellion, but there was no excuse for rape. But it wasn't like I was in a position to either help these women or track down those behind the assaults. Not until I was free, anyway.
I shifted fractionally to get a better look at the man sitting on my other side; the chain that linked his cuff to mine rattled, and a red light flashed in warning. A movement detector was active within the pod.
“Act broken and do not move,” the stranger beside me said, his words so soft they were barely audible. “It will, in the end, save you some discomfort.”
His voice spoke of deep, dark mountains and soaring ice-covered peaks. Of plunging valleys and aqua blue lakes. Of home, even if I couldn't exactly remember where that was right now.
“Perhaps it would be wise if you followed your own advice, given your anger burns the air.” I paused, my gaze sweeping his long length. He wore the same rough woolen pants and sturdy boots as the rest of those in this pod, but I was certain he was no farmer. The callouses on his big hands spoke of a familiarity with weaponry rather than tending and tilling fields. “And if they watch, do they not also listen?”
“They care not about words in this pod, only actions.”
“Then they're fools.” Words could raise an army, cause it to achieve success against almost impossible odds, make it fly hard and fast toward certain defeat. I'd seen it—experienced it.
Just for an instant, a memory rose. A dark-haired woman standing on a high dais, her blue eyes shining as her words carried easily over the kin and drakkons filling the pass. The roar of approval that had followed her speech, and the deep, deep pride that had welled through me even as my voice joined the others. My commander, my sister...
“Perhaps,” the stranger was saying, “but they are fools who currently hold our lives in their hands.”
But not for long, if the barely repressed anger rolling in unseen waves from him was anything to go by. There might be no immediate escape from this pod, but once beyond the metal of these walls, all bets were off, chains or no.
I leaned my head back and surreptitiously studied his profile through narrowed eyes. His skin, like mine, was brown, but his nose was strong and almost too sharp, and his chin determined. His close-cropped hair was black, as were his long lashes. Though I couldn't see his eyes from my position, I knew they would be blue—the same aqua blue of the snow lakes that formed after the spring melt high in the Harndale Mountains. Which wasn't where I was born but was very similar in topography.
I frowned and tried to chase the snippet back through the ice, tried to force memory forward so I could recall my past, with little success. Which was frustrating, but there was nothing I could do except wait for the barrier to melt.