Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 48

I rouse, struggle to open my eyes, fall back under, crushed by pain. Repeat. I have no idea how many times this has happened since Commander Linx returned me to the cage. I have been floundering in an ocean of darkness, only to regain consciousness and wish I had not.

At some point, I wake to find the commander rubbing cold cream on my toes, bandaging my foot and crushed finger. In the light of an open torch strapped to a bar of the cage, the strain and desperation on the commander's face drives into me exactly how far Strik's power is able to corrupt a man. He forced Commander Linx to an act of violence that went against his nature.

I wanted to ask the commander whether he'd seen the Prince, but he hushed me each time I tried to speak. And it was hard to think about anything but lessening the pain and satisfying my hunger spasms, as he spooned watery soup down my throat.

The soup and cream have helped enormously. The last two times I stirred, I stayed conscious for many minutes, watched my guards dozing against the wall opposite the cage door, and wondered about the world Strik comes from.

Rudeash is a kingdom where implanting suggestions is a part of their way of life, where shrouders are capable of concealing the Rudeashan cities from outsiders. This is why Tug saw no others like Strik when he crossed the tundra to Rudeash.

The distant sound of boot steps send my guards hurrying to their feet.

My heart pounds as I remember Strik's parting words. Calmi was wrong. Her grandfather did not lose interest because I am Uru Ana. But why this obsession with the Prince's affections? With a few words, Strik could convince the Prince he was in love with Calmi, couldn't he?

Torch light flickers down the long stretch of corridor, casting shadows on the grimy walls.

"We need the prisoner," a soldier says.

The guard with the shaved head, who allowed Lady Calmi to visit me, blocks their path. "Whose orders?"

"The Prince of Caruca has summoned all captured traitors to the throne room."

My muscles tense, and my jaw locks, teeth grinding. Strik is setting a trap. He must intend to show Jakut that I have been tortured. He believes the Prince is as calculating and cold as he is, so any sign of emotion or outrage from Jakut will be taken as proof that I have wheedled my way into the Prince's heart and must be gouged out and gotten rid of, permanently.

A key clangs in the cage door. I hope Sixe has been keeping an eye on me, and has found a way to warn Calmi. I hope Jakut will be prepared.

"Kneel and hold out your arms," the soldier says. I drag myself up, taking my weight on the hand that is intact. My feet are bare. The bandaged foot protrudes from under my folded legs. I avoid putting pressure on it, but the pain flares when it touches the ground, the lightest contact is like a pulverising boulder.

Manacles slid over my wrists and lock, pinching my skin. The soldier yanks a lead of chain attached to a circle of iron. He means to pull me to my feet, but I stumble and fall smack on the side of my face. The bruise to my cheek radiates heat.

"She cannot walk," the guard with the shaved head says.

"Then she'll have to crawl," the soldier sneers.

A few chuckles echo in the underground passage. I push up, stare at the soldier through straggles of tangled hair. He is around Pa's forty years. The skin near his ear is ruffled where he's been burnt. I swallow hard, steeling myself against their cruelty.

When Lord Strik turned the Carucan people against the Uru Ana thirty years ago, he only had to suggest we were the enemy. Calmi said it was the King's soldiers and the Carucans who chased my people from their homes, who arrested them, and burned them. Is it really so easy to wipe away compassion by convincing a man he stands before his enemy? And yet I know the answer. If it weren't, the bloody wars that have written the history of Caruca and Etea would have been impossible.