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KYLLEN
His throat constricted with a swallow. Only there was nothing to swallow—there was hardly any moisture left in his body. His throat felt like dry sand in a desert. Any movement hurt.
“You’ll die here. Nameless,”Ghata had said. And it looked like he was well on his way to fulfill her prophecy.
The mortal drought had set in, shriveling his insides and drying his skin that by now resembled a tree bark. Soon, his brain would shut down, and his body would slowly turn to dust.
Great Serpent, this was not how he’d thought he’d die. As a child, like every gorgonian boy, he’d wished to wrap his name in glory through an honorable death on a battlefield.
Of course, his parents always hoped he’d live long enough to take his father’s place one day and die of an old age as the High Lord of Ellohi in the Kingdom of Lorsan in Nerifir.
And here he was, drying to death in the remote, unknown world of humans.
The alternative was even worse than death—centuries of servitude to the disgraced goddess of werewolves. Her own people had chased Goddess Ghata out of Nerifir. She had no decency, and her lack of honor made any chance of a fair deal impossible. She was a goddess, not a fae. Promises didn’t bind her. Making a deal with Ghata would be like placing lifelong shackles on himself, without any guarantee of her ever holding up her end of the bargain. His life and his honor would be forever in her hands.
He preferred death.
His back started to cramp from sitting in the same position for too long. He lay on the wooden floor carefully, trying to avoid cracking his dry skin any more than it already was. It hurt when that happened. The cracks no longer healed.
The iron chains rattled and clanked as he shifted his legs. The space wasn’t long enough for him to stretch them out completely. Neither was the crate tall enough for him to stand up. The construction of it must be a part of the devious plan to torture, no doubt.
In this position, the small opening in the top part of the crate came into view. Crossed with thick, rusty bars, it was his only window into the world. Except that the world had been reduced to the strapped fabric overhead, with a string of yellow lights.
During the day, the sunlight filtered through the fabric like it was now. At night, it was dark, safe for the lights.
He had no idea how much time had passed since the bracks had trapped him like a wild animal and brought him here. The thirst had blurred his mind a lot lately. He passed out often. This could’ve been going on for months, years, or maybe even centuries.
Not that it mattered anymore. At this rate, he wouldn’t last much longer.
Noises reached him more frequently than the sights. Feet shuffling. Ghata’s voice—sometimes sugary sweet, but often brutal and harsh. Her bracks’ voices, either confirming her orders or reporting on their execution. Sounds of packing. Then vibrations of being driven somewhere. Then, the same noises all over again, spinning in an endless, maddening cycle.
Sound of footsteps reached his hearing, then a shuffling noise brushed along the wall of the crate. Someone was sneaking around his prison. The footfalls were light, so light he wondered if it was one of the many hallucinations the brutal thirst had forced on him.
“Um…” someone cleared their throat softly.
Were they trying to get his attention?
Shoving back his hood to expose his ears, he strained his hearing.
“I brought you something,” the voice said, hesitantly.
The speaker was clearly a woman, and judging by her voice, a young one. He wondered if it was the same human whose soft sobbing he’d heard earlier. Was she also a prisoner? Or did Ghata send her here, to try and succeed where the goddess herself had failed?
It could be a trap.
“Um…” the woman hesitated. “Can you hear me?”
He’d spoken to her when she’d cried, hadn’t he? He couldn’t remember the exact words he’d said to her, but he’d meant for them to be comforting.
His dehydrated brain functioned slowly, but an idea was forming in his mind while the woman waited for his reply. She’d cried. Something or someone had made her unhappy. And if so, maybe he could use her misery to his advantage? Gods knew he could use an ally, even an unwitting one.
Maybe, just maybe, she could become his key to freedom?
It might be the thirst or desperation or both, but for the first time in what felt like forever, hope fluttered in his drying heart.
He was still pondering the best words for his reply when something long and slim obstructed his view in the opening above. The woman slid the object between the bars and…let go of it.
His reflexes being much slower than they used to, he didn’t roll away in time. The long object hit him straight in the eye.
“Hey!” He jerked back into a sitting position. His eye ached, and he rubbed it. “What, by Great Serpent, was that for?”
The woman squeaked.
“I’m so…so sorry,” she half-whispered. Then, the sound of her scurrying away came.
“Wait!”
But she was gone.
What, by all the gods of Nerifir, had just happened?
He’d expected new kinds of torture from Ghata and her people. But this… Well, this was just ridiculous.
He rubbed his eye a little more. The soreness dissipated quickly. Whatever she’d tossed at him wasn’t nearly hard or heavy enough to be lethal. She hadn’t appeared trying to kill him.
What did she do this for? And what was that thing she threw at him?
He searched the floor by touch, his hands closing around a smooth, long object.
A cucumber?
The woman had just tossed a cucumber into his crate, whacking him in the eye.
