Spellbinders Secret

Win a Battle Lose the War

My back aches as I roll over. My eyes flutter, only revealing the usual darkness of this horrid place. For a moment there, I'd thought, for one sweet, blissful moment that I was dead, and it was all over. The pain and misery was gone. But reality's a pain in the butt.

Lying back, I stare at the black ceiling, trying to ignore the stinging pain in my back. It spreads from my shoulders down. I try to move, but it hurts to much. I try to sleep, but all I see are my old nightmares. I try to forget, but memories are worse than reality. They sit inside your head, torturing you for eternity. They make you remember a time when those things that happened to you were a reality.

The door opens again, but I don't move. Let me rephrase that: I can't move.

"Oh, Ella. It pains me to see you this way," Arran says. I can't help but snort. I seriously doubt he feels anything anymore. He tried to kill his brother, he tortured me, and he's ordered the deaths of hundreds of people. Something tells me that he very rarely feels anything at all, let alone pain. "What, don't you believe me?"

"I believe about as much as I'd be expected to believe from the King of Liars and Murderers," I retort. My voice sounds raspy, like a rust sword that hasn't been used in a long time. I don't even want to know how long I was asleep for, but I know that it was definitely longer than a day.

To my surprise, Arran laughs.

"Then you do believe me? You did think that I'd keep my promises, after all."

"We all learn from our mistakes."

"Yes, and the difference between you and I, is that your mistakes haunt you. Mine, however, do not," he sneers. I ignore him. If all he came here for was to tease me, then I won't give him the satisfaction of letting him know it worked. "Nothing else to say?" He waits, as if he's expecting an answer. Again, I ignore him, carefully studying the dark roof as though it's the most interesting thing in the world. "Nothing at all?" Silence. "Good. Grab her," he commands. I hear movement as one, two, three sets of footsteps enter the room and march towards me. A cold, skeletal hand wraps around my left arm, while another does the same to my right. Wraiths.

They lift me to my feet and haul me across the room. I bite my tongue to stop myself from screaming in pain, but I can't help cringing every time my body is jolted up and down. The Wraiths carry me out of the room, following Arran. This is the first time I've ever been outside the small space, and I can't say that I'm impressed. The hallways are made entirely of onyx, while blue flames burn on torches in evenly spaced brackets along the dark walls.

"Where are you taking me?"

Arran keeps walking, but I hear him snigger.

"I don't know... the place seems to have slipped my mind." For some reason, he sounds amused. What could he have possibly meant by that? Slipped my mind? What does that mean?

A feeling of cold dread sits in the bottom of my stomach. I have a feeling- and my brief moments of intuition are almost always right- that I won't like whatever it is that he has in store for me one little bit.

I try to keep track of the lefts and rights as we descend further into the darkness of the fort, but it's futile. There are so many twists and turns that I'm surprised Arran knows where he's going.... which suggests to me that he spends a lot of time here. The air gets colder, and smells musty. I hear water dripping slowly in the distance, the simple noise echoing in the emptiness and bouncing of the stone walls. Eventually, we arrive at a door. It's simple and wooden, with an iron knocker, which Arran promptly uses. On the other side, footsteps shuffle towards the door, before letting it creak open. A man with a dark hood and the usual uniform of the Cursed peeks out of the ajar door.

"Your majesty," he greets Arran. I roll my eyes. He no longer deserves that title.

The Wraiths haul me inside before roughly shoving me onto a table where my arms and legs are strapped in. The hooded man talks to Arran.

"She's certainly grown up. I can remember when she was just a little thing, so many innocent memories," The man chuckles wickedly. Cold fear freezes my blood in it's tracks. Cold fear that is quickly replaced by blinding, white hot rage. This man- this hooded man- took my memories.

But what am I doing here then? The rational part of my brain asks. I flinch.

They want to take them away from again.

No. No way. Not happening. I won't let them. I've spent my whole life trying to figure out who I am, they can't take that away form again!

"NO!" I scream. "You can't. I WON'T LET YOU!"

Arran turns around and smiles sympathetically.

"It's ok. Soon you won't remember any of this. All the pain, the misery, the rebelliousness will be wiped away. All you'll know is that you're fighting a just cause, and that you're madly in love with yours truly," He says dreamily.

"You're sick, and foolish if you think I'm going to let you get away with this," I hiss, my voice sounding venomous, like a snake. A snake that's one second away from biting his head off and chucking it to the floor. I don't care if that sounds inhumane, he deserves it. Arran looks at me sadly and shakes his head, as though he's genuinely disappointed. Who knows? Maybe he is. I wouldn't care either way.

"Are we ready?" the Hooded man asks. Arran nods and simply turns away from me. I hear the door open and close. The hooded man leers at me, a sadistic smile on his face. "What should we start with?" he asks himself. "You're earliest memories? The memories of those you love? Or... the memories of who you are?" He wonders aloud, as though he'd deciding what to order for lunch. Suddenly, his face clears, as though he's had a 'light bulb' moment. "Oh, I know! I think I'll erase all your memories of Prince Callum, the first love of your life, and probably the last."

"No," I whisper, to terrified to form anything else. "Please, please no!" But his hand reaches forward, ignoring my pleads. It lightly touches my forehead, and before everything goes black, I hear a high pitched scream that I realise is coming from me.