11 Chapter 10

A putrid smell permeated Nevetharine's nose. She shrivelled it up and rubbed at her skin. She felt as if the smell of decomposing flesh threatened to seep into her veins. She felt breathless and sick.

She didn't mind the darkness, or the stone walls and floors, since it was the same as her chambers and in fact the whole fortress. She would even welcome the rats if they weren't flesh-eating monsters like the demonic hounds across her cell.

The demon hounds had bony, sinuous bodies with whip-like tails. Their jaws seemed to split their heads in two and they had four sets of canines instead of two. Their eyes flickered with hate. The dead bodies which they chewed away at were responsible for the rotten smell in this place.

Then there was the constant noise from them… Snarling, howling, and shrieking noises filled the days and nights. Nevetharine felt like she couldn't hear herself think. A part of her wanted to rip them apart, but she wasn't sure if that part was her, or the foreign person inside her head. Every now and then the Slave Master would come in and bellow to the hounds to "Shut up!"

Despite all this, she was fortunate. The Slave Masters battered the other girls who were here. Two of them had already died from their wounds and only one remained in the cell next to hers. They did not speak, since speaking in the dungeons was punishable by death. Although Nevetharine was always spared for some reason, she didn't want to risk the girl's life by asking for her name. Instead, she focussed on beaming a tender energy towards her, hoping that she would feel it.

For the first two days she was afraid of the hounds, too afraid to move, but now they only irritated her to no end. For the first time since getting back to town, she remembered that nobody batted an eye about her wrapped wounds, or about the satchel of potions she carried. Perhaps Magnus was too overwhelmed with rage to even notice. She shuddered at the memory of how close he came to her. She felt filthy whenever he did that, and he did it often. When she saw him, all the millions of lives he took flashed before her eyes and all she could feel was hate. Nevetharine would never want to hate any person, but with Magnus, she couldn't help it.

She took the potions out of the satchel and studied the phials in the dim light. The fluid glowed in the dark. She wondered what each would do and recalled that Meredith asked her to drink the blue liquid for three nights before she went to sleep.

Meredith. She missed her.

She almost didn't want to drink it, so that she could hold on to a part of her… Sighing, she opened the phial with the blue fluid and took a third. It had no taste. Gradually she felt herself become tired and numb in a very pleasant way. Warmth spread through her body. She lay down on the hard floor, not least caring about how tender her body felt from all the beatings she had endured in the last couple of days, and she drifted off into a deep sleep.

***

The sky was dark with rolling thunder. Ashes flew around in the air. The smell of smoke filled Nevetharine's nose. She scanned the environment around her. A massive fire must have wiped out everything that once stood here. Then in the distance, she saw a towering crystalline structure. It was made from Triphacyte and white as ice, with long spears reaching up high into the heavens. A voice called her name, but she couldn't establish where exactly it came from. It echoed all around her. The crystalline structure felt like it coaxed her closer.

She started moving towards the Triphacyte Spears. The atmosphere felt unnatural and thick around her. She hugged herself and quickened her pace. Terrifying shrieking noises echoed from far away in the distance, but she focussed her attention on the voice calling her name. It got louder with every step towards the Spears. Something about the voice sounded familiar to her, but she couldn't place it.

As she came up to the structure, she was awe-struck by the sheer size of it. It was easily twice the size of Magnus' Fortress. Her eyes followed it into the heavens, but could not distinguish where it ended. As she looked down again, she suddenly noticed someone standing inside the Triphacyte.

It was a woman of her height, with hair as black as onyx. The most beautiful light armour adorned her. Golden armour with embedded sea green crystal hugged her skin snuggly. Very few people in the world probably had the skill needed to create such a masterpiece. The woman had a strong, muscular figure, yet she wasn't unladylike. Two giant brown wings dragged behind her feet.

Nevetharine cautiously stepped closer and she was captured by her eyes. They were every kind of green that you would see in a forest. Nevetharine saw only opposites in them. Wildness and tameness, wrath and kindness, anger and peace, it was as if two different people lived inside her.

The woman stood motionless before her. Then she called out her name and sadness filled her. Those vibrant, shimmering green eyes were replaced with a lifeless grey that made her look blind.

"Set…me…free." It was a whisper so loud that it sounded like it echoed off the mountains.

Her plea tucked at Nevetharine's heart. Much like what she saw in the woman's eyes, her emotions were mixed. She felt gloomy and angry. "Who are you?"

In a blur the woman's eyes changed from sad to fury and their green colour returned. She banged at the crystal wall so hard that the force sent Nevetharine flying a few feet back, landing on her back.

She got to her feet and glanced wide-eyed at the woman, who was still pounding against the wall and crying out in anger, "Let me out! Let me out!"

Her pounding became louder. It was coming closer to Nevetharine…

"Wake up, human!" Nevetharine jack-knifed up when the Slave Master's voice woke her from the dream. Stunned, she could only stare at the monster.

"Time to eat." It slid a bowl of something underneath the cell bars and left.

Nevetharine brought her knees up to her chest and glared at the bowl. It had bones and some broth in it. Those bones were too large to be from any animal…She didn't want to come near the bowl.

She became aware of the smells around her again. That coupled with the mental images of what might be in the broth, made her feel nauseous. She felt the warmth of tears burning a trail down her cheeks. A sinister part of her mind told her that it might be Meena.

Nevetharine eyed the phial of blue fluid that she drank from earlier. She must have been asleep only for a few minutes. She pondered if she should drink of it again. While her mind was telling her that it's a bad idea, a deeper part of her thought otherwise. Something about the nightmare kept tugging at her. An overwhelming curiosity overtook her.

What was so familiar about the woman she saw? She could have sworn she had seen her before. She had to know more about her. She recalled the rage with which she screamed inside the Triphacyte Spears, but now it seemed to Nevetharine that it was not rage at all. She was distressed, anxious. Trapped. She was like a caged wild animal. There was an urgency in her outburst. She needed to be somewhere important and she was being kept from it.

Why would Meredith give this potion to her? What did she hope to accomplish by giving her nightmares? There has to be more to this dream, Nevetharine thought. What if the dream was real and Meredith was trying to tell her that she needed to free the woman? If so, she certainly chose the most unsuitable candidate for the job. What could she, a frail, dying slave, do to save someone like that?

She couldn't even save herself.

Nevetharine was torn from her thoughts by someone whispering next to her cell door. She came closer and peeped around the corner.