As it pawed at the earth, making the many metal rings and trinkets in the fall of hair over its arching neck ring and clamor, so much like its rider she found it eerie, her remaining instinct was to run. Feet already turning, hands snatching at the length of her skirts, she made it all of three steps before Er’it halted her with a heavy arm across her midsection. Breath knocked from her lungs, she wheezed. Still scrambling to be away from the shifting tide of sounds and beasts, of people and wagons.
“You dare defy me,” Er’it hissed against her ear, arms locked around Aida as he lifted her clear off her feet. Letting her kick and shriek into the chaos as everyone stared with wide eyes and confusion ran rampant through the dingy air.
“Majesty, perhaps—”
“Silence!” Er’it growled low in his throat, and it was that which stilled Aida’s struggles. “Fetch me rope, Ath’asho.”
Aida’s wide eyes fixed on Ath’asho, the murky depths of her fear shining in her gaze as he opened his mouth. Then with a stiff nod he turned away to do as his king bid him. The wail of denial building inside of her slammed around her chest. Clawing its way through soft tissue to be free of its mortal confines, to be free to shout into the Abyss.
Yet Aida remained silent. The scream didn’t pass her open lips, as neither did her breath. Suffocating by degrees until her limbs tingled with numbness, she hung limp in Er’it arms. Even as the rope wound tight over and under her wrists, tightening to the point of pain. Though her mouth fell open, and she shrieked and flailed within her head, not a muscle twitched as another length of coarse strands connected her neck to her bound wrists. All of it hobbled together with a far longer piece Er’it knotted around the stiff handle of the beast’s leather seat.
“You don’t wish to ride with me, princess? So be it.” With that Er’it dropped her to the earth, letting her crumple at his feet before he stalked towards the gray creature and mounted it once more.
“Up, Lady! Up,” Ath’asho said, tugging Aida to her feet though he kept a watchful gaze upon his king. “You must hurry now.”
Dragging in choking breaths tainted by grit and pain, Aida struggled to get her feet under her. She whined as blood rushed into her limbs with the sensation of being pricked by a thousand pins. With the caustic taste of magic coating her tongue she craned her neck to look at her master. There was no mistaking Er’it’s intent, not as he raised his arm high and all turned towards him. Readying to march onwards at his command. One he gave without delay, hand slicing downwards with a faint whistle. The very air complaining at his mistreatment.
Aida held back her shriek as the ropes jerked her forward. Teeth snapped together so hard she feared they might shatter, rough hemp threatening to peel away her flesh. Er’it nudging his mount until it picked a steady pace, abandoning the swirling eddies of dust for the open air as the gates groaned open to allow their exit. Soft slippers and the hem of her gown dragging through the dirt, Aida was forced to jog even at this slow walk. Legs too short, body far too small, she would have to run if he dared go any faster. The possibility alone was enough to send tears streaming down her cheeks once again. Aida wondered if ever they would end, if at some point in this new Abyss the well of her misery would run dry.
Grief drenched her first sight of what lay beyond the walls. There was no joy in seeing up close the huts that were even smaller at this distance than they’d appeared from her tower. Nor the people shouting Er’it’s full name, surrounding him with hurrahs and showering him with petals and leaves. Dressed in threadbare sack cloth, much mended and patched, faces gaunt and sallow, they still cheered the man as he rode down the narrow lane. Huts began standing shoulder to shoulder, so tight packed there was just enough space for a man to wedge himself between them. Many did so, struggling to get closer as they raised their smiling faces to Er’it.
Aida didn’t understand. These were Otaso’s people, yet they acted as if Er’it was their savior, the light at the end of a long darkness. She had never heard such an explosion of sound from her tower, and now in the thick of it she couldn’t cover her ears from the waves of excitement battering them. Not once in all her years had she seen Otaso decorated with bits of flowers and spring greenery caught in his hair. The first growths lavished upon Er’it seemed as alien as the man himself.
Nothing changed in these people’s demeanor when they spotted Aida rushing at the end of her tether. Some sneered and shouted things she couldn’t pick out amongst the din, others gave a shake of their head and nothing more. Had they known of her? She knew nothing of them, and the way Otaso had guarded her so close, she couldn’t understand how they might. Their distaste for her was absolute though, something she felt peeling away her skin. Attacking her from all sides, the chaos buffeted her.
Still Er’it rode on. Hand raised in what appeared to be victory, he waved to the passersby. At the first smile she saw grace his lips, true and unfettered by his hatred and disgust of her, she almost fell. So shocked that she tried to stop her tiring trot to gape, it was the rope wrenching her forward once again that sent her stumbling forward. Catching herself at the last moment as the ground swam up to meet her unprotected face, she scurried forward to return some slack to her ropes. A roar of laughter erupted around her, no doubt at her fumbling gait. Humiliation burned from the tips of her ears to her hot face and chest. Twisting her wrists in the tight confines of their coarse shackles, she clenched her fists. Something far too close to anger, an emotion long since taken from her with Otaso’s retribution, simmered through her veins. As hot and sticky as she felt under the sun that now breached the surrounding trees to pummel her with as much vicious intent as the people.
A man dressed in similar garb to Ath’asho peeled away from the column to join a cadre of warriors standing in blocky groups of ten within the square. His fist rose into the sky, a shout in the strange tongue given before he crossed his arm over his chest and bowed over the head of his horse. The warriors gave the same salute, the thumps of their fists and settling of armor so precise that it sounded as if one giant had made the action and not a score of individuals.
Blue, white, and gold, they appeared as the summer sky. Their pointed helms blinding as the sun’s rays drifted across them while Er’it marched past with Aida in tow. Parading her in front of them all as he jerked on her leash to keep her at a stiff run at his side. Forcing her past the sneering people and the dark thatched homes that crowded around them. Already her feet ached, legs trembling with the effort it took to keep pace with the beast Er’it rode. If she could be thankful for anything in that moment, it was that his mount’s clopping hooves kept her too occupied to become too frightened. Watching where her feet fell, dodging what few murky depressions of thick mire she could, there was little thought for the stares and the sheer number of them. No chance for her to fall into slack jawed wonder at the sky soaring overhead or the brilliant sun.
As the crowds thinned once more, the last of them drifting back towards the center of the village and all its chaos that Aida would have once given anything to see, Er’it slowed his creature. Allowing her to fade into a swift walk that still made the long muscles of her thighs twist upon themselves in anguished cramps. It wouldn’t be long before she fell though. Aida knew that as well as she knew the sun rose every morning. As the dry, packed road they traveled became little more than two runs in a sea of dusty earth and scrubby brush, she became more certain it would happen sooner rather than later.
One step in front of the other, she tried to ignore the sweltering sun beating down upon her as it began its slow arc across the vivid blue sky. The way her gown clung in itchy patches, sticking to her damp thighs as sweat dripped from her nose to the powder dry dirt below. Already her feet were sore, and they had scarce left Otaso’s castle behind. If she dared to look back, she knew she’d see the gloomy bulk of it squatting not too far against the horizon. She felt it watching her, judging her, just as its owner once had. Cursing her and wishing her dead as the thing in the dungeon had promised each time Otaso threw her into its bowels.
The very thought sent a chill rushing over her. Teeth chattering despite the heat, the salty sheen coating her turned icy. Unable to ignore the malicious presence burning against her back, Aida craned her neck to look over her shoulder. The massive train of people, beasts, and carts that followed them kicked up great clouds of yellow dust, air thick with lowing creatures, snorts, and the stamp of hundreds of feet. Even amid all of the chaos, her gaze found the hulking darkness of the castle with ease. Piercing through the multitude of distractions and fears to hold her in a frozen fist. While the distance was not great, they had gone further than she’d thought. Still, from this distance, she saw a dark cloud reaching across the land. Spindly fingers searching, clawing at the arid stretch in search of something. Someone.
A shaky gasp expanded her lungs inside the tight confines of her bodice. Unable to draw a true breath, the stiff and heavy silk constricting her lungs, panic swept in. A moment too much like her time in the vicious shadows of Otaso’s dungeons. The swirling drifts of blackness spread wider. Coming closer and closer. She tried to run, to put more distance between her and the malevolent thing that she knew was coming for her and her alone. Bone deep terror sending her slippered feet into a mad dash to get away before it could get any closer.
She fell before she could even turn to watch where she was going. Ground rushing up to her face, she shrieked and put her tethered hands out to catch her, only to have them jerked away as the ground rushed up to meet her. The rope dug in hard and fast, yanking her arms straight out and pulling her along the craggy earth as the line snapped taut. Lungs crushed under her own weight, she couldn’t even draw in a ragged mouthful of gritty air to scream as the beast plodded on, both the creature and its master oblivious to her plight. Aida twisted, her back bearing the brunt of the scraping rocks until a broken wheel rut tumbled her face down once more.
A shout went up somewhere behind her, equal parts surprise and anger. It caught her captor’s attention, but not to find Aida scrambling to get her feet under her as the monstrous beast continued to walk. Er’it wound the rope around his fist and wrist, hauling Aida forward with his incredible strength. She found the breath to shriek as the rocky earth tore through her dress. The gown meant for sitting rooms and tea by her window ripped open to allow the coarse ground to scrape at tender flesh. Abraded stomach and arm, her legs receiving the worst of it as all her kicking caused the fabric to bunch and twist.
Even at her scream he didn’t turn. Not until a horse thundered past her, its pounding hooves so close she felt the earth trembling beneath her. Ath’asho hurrying to Er’it’s side, one hand waving in mad arcs as his face turned a horrid shade of red under the golden brown. Then Er’it looked back, one dark brow raised as he halted his beast. When Aida could only continue to lie there in miserable defeat, the lips that had made her hum in utter bliss so few hours ago sneered. Feathered hooves picking out a careful path as the beast moved backwards, Er’it wound the rope in loose circles, taking up the slack until he stood over her.
“Get. Up.”
“Majesty, give her a moment—”
“Keep the line moving, General,” Er’it bit out as he took up the remaining rope, pulling Aida’s arm up above her head.
Aida whined low in her throat as she struggled to get her knees under her. With the entirety of her weight hanging from her shoulders, the grinding pops of the joints sent shivers of pain down her back. She was panting, sweat pouring from her brow to stain the dry, packed dirt by the time she managed to kneel. Collapsing back onto her heels she dared to raise her eyes to his, pleading with silent tears for him to grant some small mercy. There was none in the bright topaz of his gaze, as cold and unfeeling as the precious stones themselves. Er’it gave a swift tug on the rope, the beast he sat upon sidestepping from Aida’s wailing cry as her knees left the ground for a too long moment before she crashed back to the earth. Humiliating enough to fall flat on her face once more, but the never-ending trail of people and whispers continued on alongside her. Their stares burned along her welted back, the thin protection of her ruined gown all but gone.
“Please, sir,” Aida choked out, a broken sob that Er’it paid little mind to.
Muttering something that sounded like a curse, he yanked her tether once more. Aida screamed as she came to her feet, the pain wrenching through her in a savage burst. Balance lost as blinding light flitted across her vision, sending her tumbling sideways to crash into a wall of warmth and softness. Soft as down, smooth as velvet, it soothed the multitude of scrapes marring her cheek. There was no reality where it could be Er’it, not as the heavy bulk shifted so she could lean against it with more comfort. It smelled of nothing she was familiar with, and as her eyes pried open, she saw miles of dappled gray hide. The creature’s gray color was an illusion, a lustrous white coat patterned with streaks and speckles in a variety of darkling shades. Gasp stifled as she looked beyond the firm thigh bisecting the beast’s huge side, she saw gleaming eyes of onyx. The liquid pools watched her with intense interest. Intelligence resided in those deep wells of cool black, curiosity shining in their depths.
The beast twitched its head as Er’it’s knee squeezed its side, as if to tell its rider to be patient. Long neck arching, it put its muzzle close to Aida. The deep grays and creamy whites a delicate arrangement of tiny stars caught her focus, letting Aida ignore the terrifying horns as it sniffed at her. She held back her shriek of horrified dismay as its nimble lips picked at the lace of her bodice, testing the frayed edges of the torn silk. Letting its breath out in a gusty huff, the sweet scent of hay at odds with the wash of dusty things, it finished with its inspection.
