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I don’t know her name, but I am itching to learn it.
I don’t know who she is, but I am desperate to know.
What has gotten into you? No wonder Slyth could sense your ambivalence a mile off!
I clear my throat as I enter the dining hall. It is quite full, and I remember now that we are having guests from Kario and the Capital.
This engagement is a big deal.
You’re about to meet her. You’re about to meet Vippera.
I resolve then to put the human woman out of my mind and accept my fate.
5
AURORA
Blood wells up and congeals on the outsides of my arms. Bruises have formed on my thighs. And I am sure that I am developing a black eye. There is no doubt that my lower lip is damaged, too.
“How exactly did this happen?” I ask the air. “How did we get here?”
I am numb to the situation I am in.
After I prayed in the wagon as we drove away from the only home I’ve ever known, something in me broke a little bit.
How did I get here?The thought plagues me as the wagons we are in roll up a hill and enter the castle grounds.
This is the most I have ever seen of Lodra before, having remained safely in the village my entire life. And what I can see of Lodra is that it is as beautiful as the human village I was confined to for all my life.
The wagons do not stop but continue driving around the fairly plain, though beautiful, structure which must be the castle itself, until we reach what seems to be the back grounds of the castle.
The sun is setting by the time we are dragged from the wagons.
I am roughly jerked around by some Jalma naga soldiers, and I am pulled by my hair towards a slightly misshapen building several yards away from the castle.
The building is separated from the plain beauty of the castle by a high wall, and as I stumble along behind the naga soldier, I am struck by the enormity of the castle grounds.
The castle grounds stretch on for what seems like forever. I know that the forests on the edge of the castle grounds are what separates the royal land from the rest of Lodra. All I can see of the forests is a dark line in the distance.
It would take me days to walk to the edge of the castle grounds. What are they doing with all this open land?
The thought flits through my mind, and vanishes as quickly as it arrives, as a laceration opens on my arm. Blood starts flowing from where my captor dug a spear into my arm to prod me forward.
Maybe I am in too much shock to feel any pain, but the wound on my arm does not sting or burn like my other wounds did.
Instead, it feels almost dull. I feel disconnected from it, as though I have left my body and am watching it happen to me from above.
“You’ve officially lost it,”I tell myself as I realize where we are.
This must be the castle dungeon.
I try to look around, try to get my bearings as I am shoved into the dark building. But there is no time, because I am quickly shoved down a flight of stairs and then another and another until I think that we must be about ten or fifteen feet below the ground.
The air is wet and sticky and difficult to inhale, and I take several halting breaths that all seem to become stuck in my throat as we come to what must be the ground floor of the dungeons.
All I can feel is the naga’s spear in the small of my back, and the sticky air that clings to my skin and tugs on the edges of my wounds.
All I can hear is the steady drip of water somewhere in this gods forsaken place, as well as the steady sob coming from somewhere close by.
