Meredith had always known about magic. Her family was magic, one of the most powerful mage lines out there. Having lost her parents to all the fighting though, she stayed far away from it, focusing on school and lading a primarily normal life.
Unti...
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The skin on her wrists chaffed the more she moved, but Mer still adjusted herself for the hundredth time that evening. It was like a nervous tick–checking once every twenty minutes or so to see if her chains would get any looser. They sure weren't coming out of the post despite the wood looking like it was from medieval times. Initially, she'd tried to free herself, but that had only given her bruises as bracelets and worn her out so badly that she couldn't hold herself up.
Chaining her sitting down would have been too much for them.
A draft blew by and she shivered as a breath of fall air snuck between the crevices of her scant clothing and skin. She'd never been one for camping, and even if, she'd never have done it in the scraps of fabric that covered her groin and chest. It was ceremonial offering garb, as the stupid robed mages had called it before they'd stripped her down. Mer had bitten one of their hands and tried to neuter the other, but he'd managed to salvage one of his testicles from her knee strike.
They'd held her down after that to keep her from maiming any more of them, and she'd screamed profanities the whole time. That anger had faded an hour ago. It was hard to hold onto while hanging from a post in the middle of the forested wilderness awaiting the beast that was coming for her.
It wasn't fair.
She'd stayed out of magic, left behind the world that had taken her parents from her for something peaceful. Well, perhaps calculus and cramming sixteen credit hours into her brain a semester wasn't peaceful, but it was better than waiting for some creature of the night to haul her off to its lair and suck her dry.
While she'd kept out of the world of magic, she knew about it. There had been so many books in her father's library, and she'd often lost herself in them. They were remnants of the family she'd lost before she could remember their smiles or warm embraces. All she'd known was her aunt and uncle's house, but they'd loved her like any parent would have.
Luna, her aunt, was a grand mage, one of the most powerful they had, and the order had needed to subdue her to take Mer away. Mer didn't like to focus on the image of her aunt face down on the rugs, her moonlight hair disheveled and splayed out as they shackled her and put a knee on her back to keep her still. Luna had sworn up a storm too; Mer had gotten her colorful language from somebody. But Luna had also cried, fell into bitter tears and wept as her uncle cradled her and watched them haul her off. Tears had yet to pay Mer a visit.
Maybe she was in shock? It was something. Hell, the fear hadn't even sank in yet. It was more like rage followed by despair and exhaustion over the hours that she watched the sun roll lower until it now peeked over the trees.
It was the first time Mer wished she knew any magic. Not like it would help her escape her manacles, but it might give her a fighting chance against this creature. She was payment for a transgression against its house, so it wasn't coming down the side of the mountain to offer her dinner and some real clothes. It was going to drain her of her life and leave her corpse in the dirt.
