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At that moment, it was fight or flight.
My fear kicked in and I struggled against the guards, becoming the rabid animal they all believed me to be. I snarled, snapping my teeth at them, trying anything to free myself of their hold. But the mortal confines of my body were not enough to win my freedom, not when my arms were tied and my Curse was collared.
Something hard cracked against the back of my head.
Splintering pain was the last thing I remembered before the world before me cleaved apart and caved into darkness.
Sage
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I awoke, stirred from my unconscious state by the feel of something wet consistently striking my cheek. Whatever was dripping wasn’t just dripping on my cheek, but also spontaneously around me. The sound reminded me of when I worked at the bathhouse. After the men left and the bathhouse was quiet, that was when you could hear the condensation falling from the ceiling and landing on the marble-tiled floor. That was the same sound I was hearing now.
Besides the constant dripping, people spoke in hushed tones, their voices echoing. There were so many, many voices. Somewhere in the distance, I could make out the faint sound of someone sobbing.
Eyes still closed, I inhaled a deep breath, the vulgar smell of piss and shit and vomit assaulting my nostrils. The smell was tinged with something else . . . something I couldn’t quite make out.
Slowly, feeling drifted back into my sore, aching, body—bruised and wounded. I was positioned on my front, my face turned to the side. The flagstone beneath me was hard, cold, and wet.
Groaning, I rolled over, my fingers darting to the awful ache at the back of my head.
“You’re alive,” whisper-squeaked a young boy on the edge of puberty.
I parted my lids slightly, focusing on the boy squatted in front of me. His front tooth was missing, the one beside it broken in half. His chestnut hair was matted, his clothes torn and dirty, covered in blood—some of it still wet. He looked about thirteen.
I propped myself up on a shaky arm. “Where are we?”
“We are in the Well,” replied the boy, his hands resting on his knees.
“The Well?” I asked, my gaze shifting, taking all of it in. It looked more like a massive dungeon rather than a tiny well. I noticed there was a slight curvature to the walls, and I wondered if I walked to the other end of it, the part that was nestled in shadow, if those walls would be similar as well. I imagined the gradual curve made one humongous circle—similar to a well.
Hence its name.
“That’s what the guards call it,” he whispered, an iron collar, smaller than mine, locked around his throat. It bothered me, seeing it there. No one deserved to have an iron collar placed around their neck, especially a child. “We are below Clearwell Castle.”
Like a lit wick, a memory flickered to life, of being in the king’s throne room, with my hands tethered behind my back, the brutal crowd screaming for my death. Of the one person who said she believed me . . . the healer. They had dragged her off.
Was it possible she was here too?
“Were you here when they brought me in?” I asked the boy, working my way into a sitting position.
He nodded.
“Did they bring an older woman with me? She has gray hair. No teeth.”
He shook his head. “They brought you in by yourself.”
“What about before or after they brought me here? Did you see an elderly woman fitting that description?”
He shrugged his bony shoulders. “They bring a lot of people here. It’s hard to remember them all.”
Swallowing, I asked, “How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. The days are the same as the nights.” He paused, thinking it over. “A long time. Two years for sure. Maybe three?”
I glanced at his collar before I returned my eyes to his. “Are you Cursed?”
“Yes, I have the Earth Curse,” he said, pushing his bottom lip up into the space where his broken tooth was. His cheeks looked hollow, his frame gaunt. I wondered how long it had been since he’d had a proper meal. “Everyone here is Cursed, or accused of being Cursed.”
