JUNE ZEILRAN knows one thing: he is destined to live a quiet life in the servant's quarters as a half-blood in a territory of fairies. When the Imperial High Queen offers him a job he cannot refuse, he is thrown into a world of secrets and murder t...
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2411 Crescin 3, Reshpe
June's dreams were nothing but veils of red and choruses of screaming.
As his consciousness slowly ebbed into existence, he wrenched his eyes open. A cubical room greeted him, complete with four, stone walls, a low ceiling, and a floor overlaid with gray tiles. No other fixture joined him, as far as his periphery could tell. A door, no doubt locked from the outside, stood a few paces away.
Light was scant, bleeding from a distant lamp hanging on a hook nailed into one of the walls. Cold kissed his skin, sending tingling sensations up his arms but not enough to make him shiver.
Where was this? What happened in Pallas Weska's estate?
He gritted his teeth, mind already running past his recent memories and coming up blank. The estate, he could recall. What happened after that?
He swiveled his neck to one side and a sharp pain stabbed through his muscles. Ah, that explained it. Looked like he was knocked out. The next question would be...by whom?
His eyes narrowed at the bareness of the space around him. His hands and legs appeared to be tied with a wooden chair, the kind he would see often in dining tables inside homely estates. Was he still in Carcalet? If so, why?
He inspected his bonds, noting how his boots were removed but most of his clothes apart from his long, dark cloak stayed on. Foreign strands of magic glowed against his pale skin, twisting and wrapping against his wrists and ankles, wrenching his arm behind him and pressing his legs together. He tried opening his mouth but found he couldn't move his lips, not even a meager fraction.
Someone's maintaining this spell, that's for sure. They could have used other restraining methods but they resorted to magic. Why was that? June shook his head. Focus on tracking the trail emitted by this spell. He blew a breath, the air making the glowing magic wrapped around his head spark. It didn't hurt, though. Then, he closed his eyes, summoned his magic, and dropped his soul to the trail dimension, just like how Nevrin taught him years ago.
When his eyelids gave way to his vision, colors speared in and out of the immediate world in front of him. Typical trail dimension. He dragged his eyes down to the magic gripping his limbs, following the bright red trail curling alongside it. The fiery trail bled out of his place and jutted from somewhere out of the room. Judging from the vibrance, the spellcaster was near.
In fact, they're too near.
June cut his connection to the trail dimension. First things first—figure out an escape plan. To do that? Get these pesky magic bonds off.
He looked down once more. The High Queen's Bane was nowhere to be found on his belt. His heart paused for a second, his breath hitching. Where did it go? His head snapped up, eyes scanning the walls, the floor, the space behind him, for the familiar dagger. It's...gone.
