The Warden believed everything he’d put me through would end up crushing me, but all he’d done was create something stronger than he’d ever imagined. He’d made a superweapon that was practically invulnerable to pain, one that wouldn’t rest until he was put down.
What. A. Dumbass.
Though the Warden kept the spell going, laughter began to bubble out of my throat, beginning as small giggles before becoming full-on, insane laughs. Was thisreallythe best he could do?
Through my half-shut eyelids, I saw the guards in the room giving shifty expressions, appearing uncomfortable at my delirious laughter. “Uh… sir,” one of them stated. “She doesn’t appear to be reacting like the other patients.”
“Her reaction means nothing,” the Warden snarled. “Her power is mine.”
Despite me struggling against it, I watched as the tendrils of magic that connected with my head funneled into the inferichite, before transferring into the Warden. The tendrils snaked around his fingers and up his arm, winding downward until they connected with his chest.
Panic flooded through my body as I felt my magic being drained away. The embers of my Fire magic flickered and died as my Water magic went from a powerful wave inside of me, to mere droplets dissipating into the air. My healing magic flared, igniting like a firework before slowly fizzling out. I attempted to summon my powers, get something to respond, but nothing caught a spark, because it was all going to the Warden. His body began to glow with a hideous dark energy as the inferichite channeled my powers into him. The room shook, and the lights flickered overhead. The table beneath me rattled, and my laughter changed into gasping breaths as I did my best to hold my magic back, and failed. I felt a last wisp of magic leave my body and enter the Warden’s as the ceremony was complete. My body sagged onto the table, completely spent.
He did it. The Warden overpowered me. He took a deep breath, as if inhaling all the magic from me that he’d just taken, enjoying the resonating effect it gave him.
“It’s so… unique. All this power,” the Warden muttered. “How do you go about your life and not notice it racing through your bones, demanding to be released?”
I went to reply, but all that came out was a whimper. I didn’t even have a voice. I was so weak. The only thing that seemed welcoming now was impending darkness.
The Warden’s voice was a thick quiver as he spoke quietly to himself. “It took me over a hundred years… but now,finally, I have what I’ve been searching for.”
There was nothing left inside of me but the wasted feeling lingering in my blood, and the infinite power emanating from the Warden as he turned upon me. “Which means there’s no more use for you.”
My chest rose and fell. I felt my eyelids fluttering closed as I fought to stay conscious.
A guard stepped forward. “What do you mean to do with her, Warden?”
“Throw her in a cell and let her rot. She needs to spend her dying hours pondering how she’s lost the game she chose to play with me.”
He wanted to gloat that he’d won. Killing me wasn’t enough. He had to be completely satisfied by making me suffer.
As if I was nothing more than garbage he’d used and discarded, the Warden turned his back on me. He held his head high as he practically drifted out of the room, all the elegance of a deity encompassing his form.
He was a demigod now, too. And it was all thanks to the magic he’d taken from me. Now that he’d proven he could do it, he’d move on to the others.
The distant thought of my friends… ofCharlie… forced me to stay awake long enough to become aware that the guards had uncuffed me from the table and were hauling me in a different direction. In my ears rattled the screams of women, and we passed row after row.
A creaking sound filled my ears. They were opening a door. The sensation of falling through the air passed over me, and I realized the guards had tossed me inside a cell. My legs failed to support me, and I fell forward. I put my hands out as I collapsed onto the floor and smacked my head against the concrete. A cut formed over my eye, oozing blood into my failing vision.
I pushed my hands against the floor, but my arms shook, and I fell forward again. I no longer resisted the darkness as it swept over me, shrouding me into an empty void of no escape.
* * *
I was astonished when I woke up, because I didn’t believe that I would. I was certain when I blacked out that my life was over, and I was going back to the Ancestral Lands, because I didn’t think I’d be able to recover from the inferichite taking my magic.
Awaken I did. My eyelids were heavy, almost as heavy as the weight that was bearing down on my body from all sides, though there was nothing there to hold me. The exhaustion I felt, mingled with the dull throbbing of my middle, told me to stay down… to give up the fight.
I didn’t give up. That wasn’t me. Groaning, I used what strength I had to push myself up and drag my body backward so my back was propped up against the wall. There was nothing in this tiny cell, not even a bunk. Just three concrete walls and a barred door preventing my escape. I couldn’t see anything except the cell across from me, which was barely lit by a small lightbulb in the hallway. That cell was devoid of life and completely empty. I must’ve been tossed in a hall that was isolated and didn’t have any people in it.
Yet I still heard the screams. This row had to be connected to the female cell block, because girls all over Cellblock 9 were shouting, both insults and pleas for mercy. They mixed together, a variety of threats and begging, with echoing cries of sorrow mixed in.
I had to be in the female section of Cellblock 9. I didn’t want to know what they were doing to those women here.
My stomach growled loudly, and I realized my mouth was pitifully dry. I was weak, not only from dehydration, but lack of sustenance.
“Somebody please get me out of this,” I whispered, and I wiped at my forehead, where the cut on my head had accumulated a mass of dried blood.
From the corner of my cell, something materialized. What I thought must be a ghost turned into something more solid, a spirit glowing with colors and light. Red and blue lines mixed together as Coyote Spirit appeared in the corner of the cell, blinking at me as he cocked his furry head.
