The Blade Witch: Songs of Eldrin, Book 0.5

Chapter Eighteen - Deeds and Sacrifice

The jailer's footsteps were slow and methodical, completely out of rhythm with the clanging of his keys against the bars of the empty cells that he passed. Then there was the tune that he whistled, it was much too cheerful for the occasion.

That melody he sang was one fit for springtime weather, meant to be sung by children at play or grandmothers doing needlework in their rocking chairs. The ugly sensation emanating from the dull grey walls overpowered it completely.

This place suffocated everything pleasurable about the world. The sunlight trying to reach through the tiny cell window was too weak to illuminate the bleak darkness, the hard floor carried a chill that could soak through bone, and the salted air was chokingly humid. Everything was wrong.

Then again, nothing seems appropriate in the moments before a hanging. Estra thought to herself. She peered into the cell across from her, carefully eyeing the rise and fall of the jails only other inhabitant.

Dost was sound asleep, or at least he appeared to be. Part of her was glad that he'd been assigned to the same fate as her, and even more so that she'd get to watch him die before she met her own fate. The other half of her was sickened by the fact that she'd be forced to spend the last day of her life locked away with him as her only companion. She looked down at the thick manacles encircling her wrists. They were old and worn, but they were still diamidian. The dark material sucked the magic from her bones and everything around her, and that was the sole reason she hadn't finished burning this thrice-damned city and everything in it to the ground.

"Rise and glow Blade Witch," the jailer said, finally making his way to her cell. Estra looked up at the thickly muscled man, long over the fact that he was the same person whose home she'd once hidden at in the slums. The jailer fumbled through his ring of keys, doing his best to balance a pair of sparse food treys in the other. He spat a curse from his mustachioed lips as he struggled to get the key to turn in the rusted lock before the door finally came swinging open.

The man offered her the trey, allowing her a moment to stare at him blankly before he shrugged and set it down on the ground indifferently. He repeated the same routine for Dost, not bothering to wake the man before he turned to make his departure.

"Nothing to say?" Estra called after him.

The guard looked over his shoulder quizzically. Likely surprised to hear her speak for the first time in the days since the massacre.

"What is there to say lass?"

"Today's the last you'll ever see me," Estra said. "I've been waiting for you to take your chance to curse me. Call me all the horrid things I know you want to. To tell me how much of a monster I am."

"That's not the kind of man Elmont is," both Estra and the jailor looked over at Dost's cell. Neither the Blade Witch, nor the giant had spoken during their stay in the prison, yet somehow, he'd still managed to be the quieter of the two. He rolled over on his mat to face them, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "You burned more than a few of his friends, but you won't hear a word from him about it. He's thinking plenty right now, but he'll always keep it to himself and do what needs to be done. Even after all these weeks he's been watching over me, I still don't understand it myself, but that's just the way the man works. That's why he was chosen to be our guard."

"Just a man trying to do his job and go home to his family at the end of the day is all," the jailer said. His eyes flickered back and forth between Estra and Dost, seeing that "I'll be back in an hour when you need me. That should give the two of you more than enough time to talk." He nodded at Dost before making his exit.