Kingdom Chronicles: Awakening

Chapter 2.1 - Escaped

Mara sat down on the rough cobblestone, clammed one of the chains around her right wrist and locked it back, and then waited. For the first time in the two years she'd been there, she was actually glad that Elias was late to bring her food. His tardiness gave the woman the time she needed to slip Mara the key to her chains, and his drugged sleep gave Mara time to plan her escape.

She brought her left hand to her side and felt around for the dagger hilt on the ground beneath her. A hot sensation cut across Mara's two middle fingers, and she cursed. She stuck her grimy fingers in her mouth and tasted a mixture of grit and metal. She pulled them out and held them up an inch from her eye to examine them. It was just a bothersome surface cut. At least she now knew where her dagger was.

Mara reached back down, and this time, she slowly lowered her hand until she felt the cool wooden hilt against her palm. She wrapped her fingers around it and carefully lifted it up and then back down in the waist of her trousers.

She kept her feet, still unshackled, tucked underneath her backside, and her left arm that was also free she stuck behind her back. Her boney structure made more prominent from the lack of nourishment made Mara acutely aware of how painful the position was, but she willed herself not to move. She didn't the advantaged of being unchained.

The cell door swung open, and Elias's frame filled past the doorway. He flashed his crooked, rotting teeth at her and slid the food into the cell, the plate following the worn tracks across the floor and stopping exactly where the tracks ended.

Just out of reach.

"Enjoy yer meal," Elia said in his gravelly voice.

"Maybe I could if you weren't such a coward," said Mara.

Elias glared down at her over his flat nose and contorted his face into what looked like a dog who forgot how to growl. Mara didn't try to hide her laugh, hoping to anger him even more.

"Ya treadin' on dangerous ground," Elias spat.

"I'm chained to the wall," Mara said. She held up her right hand to show him her bonds. "So, what are you so afraid of? Oh, I know." One side of Mara's mouth turned up in a grin. "It's because you know that I could still kill you even with all these chains."

Elias lunged toward Mara and punched her across the jaw. Something cracked, but it still felt in tack. "That'll teach you not to speak—" Elias tensed, and his eyes dropped down to his side. He placed his hand on his right rib and brought his hand back up to his face. It was covered in blood.

He brought his fist up for another blow and opened his mouth to call for backup, but Mara had already used his brief moment of distraction to slip behind him, wrap her unchained left arm around him, and brought her dagger up to his neck.

"Don't say a word," she whispered. "Give me the keys to get out of this forsaken place, and I will consider letting you live."

"You snake—"

Mara pressed the tip of the blade deeper into his flesh. "I said don't speak. And no tricks."

Elias slowly moved his clean hand down to his hip where his sword rested. Mara pressed the dagger in farther, and the flesh around the blade turned pink.

"Do you want the keys or not?" Elias growled.

Mara held out her right hand, but she did not release the pressure on the dagger. A small drop of blood formed at the tip of the blade and trailed down his neck. She heard the jingle of keys, and then she felt the weight of the cold metal hit her hand.

She pulled out the key to her shackles from her trousers' pocket and slipped the new key in its place. She held out the key in front of Elias's face, and he stared at it for a moment before taking it.