A newfound confidence sweeps through me. I might be temporarily trapped in a fabricated world of my own making, but at least I can control what happens.
We switch places, and I watch intently as he pulls a large, tarnished key from a ring at his belt. The key slides into the padlock with a grating sound. The heavy lock releases, and the door creaks open.
“You’re free now,” I begin to say, reaching out to the women.
But before I can utter another word, cold metal snaps around my wrist. Shock ripples through me as I glance down at the tightly clamped iron manacle. I try to jerk away, but he anticipates my movement. His meaty hand shoots out, grabbing my free arm, and with a violent yank, he forces my wrists together. Before I can wrench myself free, he secures the second manacle around my other wrist.
The man grips the metal with one hand, pulling me toward him. I open my mouth to yell when he presses the sharp tip of a knife to my throat. “Don’t make a fuss now, or yer blood’ll spill all over those strange clothes of yours,” he hisses, his breath hot and sour against my face. “Go on and join your friends, m’lady. I’m sure they’ll be happy for your company.”
I swallow hard, the movement pressing my skin against the dagger’s edge. Fear floods my veins, cold and overwhelming. Real or not, I have no desire to see my blood spilled. Slowly, I nod and step up into the wagon. The floorboards creak under my feet as the women shuffle aside to make room.
He slams the door shut behind me, the lock snapping back into place with a finality that echoes through the enclosed space. His mocking laughter fades as he returns to the front, and moments later, the wagon jolts into motion.
The air inside is thick with the scents of damp wood and unwashed bodies and lit only by slivers of fading light that filter in through the barred windows. I sink down onto a rough wooden bench. The splintered surface digs into my skin as the reality of my situation settles like a stone in my gut.
“I don’t have any control in here after all,” I whisper.
This isn’t some gummy-induced hallucination; it’s a full-blown nightmare.
But knowing I’m inside a nightmare doesn’t make it any less scary. It just makes me wish harder that I’d wake up.
As we bump along the uneven dirt road, I keep my eyes on the passing landscape instead of the women I’m sharing this cage with. If I look at them, I’ll start trying to psychoanalyze what they represent, when really they’re no different from NPCs—nonplaying characters—in video games. My subconscious put them here to serve whatever story it’s telling me, that’s all.
Hallucinations feel very real to the person experiencing them. I know this. I’ve studied this. Ex-combat vets, for instance, have flashbacks so vivid they feel like they’re right back in the middle of firefights or explosions, even if they’re just sitting in their living room.
But I never imagined I would be thrust into a vision as real as this. One where the details are so sharp and alive—the cool evening air brushing my cheeks, therhythmic clatter of horses’ hooves, the creaking of the wagon wheels mingling with the soft weeping and murmured prayers of the women huddled beside me, the heaviness of the unrelenting iron cuffs beginning to chafe and bruise my wrists.
The remarkable authenticity forms a pit in the bottom of my stomach, whispers of a devil’s advocate gnawing at my thoughts.
What if this is somehow all real?
“Don’t be ridiculous, Elara,” I scoff. “You didn’t magickally fall into an evil Ren fair.”
“No talking!” the driver barks from the front, his gruff voice slicing through the tense silence. The others startle and instinctively shrink back, making themselves smaller as if afraid of drawing his attention.
Fire burns in me again, and I force myself to take a deep breath. This is just a hallucination—a disturbingly realistic one—but a figment of my overactive, THC-addled imagination nonetheless. All I have to do is wait it out.
My reassuring self-talk is cut short at the sight of the massive gate ahead of us. It gleams gold even in the waning light, its ornate metalwork catching the last rays of the sun. Stars enclosed within circles adorn the towering structure. Above the archway, a grand sign reads “Kingdom of Pentacles” in elegant script.
Pentacles? That’s one of the four suits of tarot.
Well, now Iknowthis isn’t real. Obviously, my subconscious is pulling in tarot elements since that’s what I was looking at before I passed out.
As we approach, guards clad in polished armor open the gate and wave us through. Oil lamps light the way,casting warm pools of light along the cobblestones. Stone-front businesses line the streets like wraiths, their thatched roofs leaning toward each other as if in whispered conversation. Candlelight flickers through their windows, casting shifting shadows that watch us as we pass. Hay litters the street, muffling the sounds of wagon wheels and horse hooves.
We come to a stop beside a rickety wooden platform with chained manacles bolted to the weathered boards every few feet. My heart sinks as the grim reality sets in. We’re going to be sold.
A crowd begins to gather in front of the platform, murmurs rippling through the spectators as they try to get a better look. Women scrutinize us with shrewd eyes, assessing what tasks we might be suited for, while the men openly leer at our every curve and exposed inch of skin. Clearly they’re imagining a different sort of servicing.
My stomach drops when the bastard holding us prisoner strides to the back of the wagon and opens the barred door with a smirk as slippery as a serpent. “Out ye come, little tarts. It’s auction time.”
Chapter Two
Ronan
I am so close to the end of my vendetta, I can almost taste it. After more than a year of relentless searching, I have finally learned the name of the woman who destroyed everything I held dear. And she is here, in the Kingdom of Pentacles.
Adrenaline thrums in my veins, keeping at bay the exhaustion riding me as hard as I rode from my home within the Kingdom of Swords. Once I secured that last piece of information, not even the gods themselves could slow me down.
