Page 103 of Reaper's Quest

Something smacked me in the face. Once. Twice.

I flinched and awoke with a moan on a frigid stone floor. Two wads of crumpled paper lay at my side, having bounced off my cheek and nose before landing on the ground.

Someone had purposely awoken me. Only I saw no one with my limited vision in the dim light.

Still laid out flat, an aching chill consuming my body, I turned my head and soaked in the surrounding gloom.

The bars running the length of the wall in front of me suggested I’d been dumped in a dungeon.

Had the queen changed the time allotted for my citadel departure as soon as I stepped foot outside of the palace grounds?

I hated assumptions, but I saw no other option. Royals could be fickle and cruel.

Unless…me being here had nothing to do with the queen at all.

Blinking slowly, I recalled the figure I’d seen hiding in the shadows the day the afflicted had attacked Raven. Who had that person been, and had they now targeted me?

I pushed up onto my elbows, held back the hiss my body demanded, and swallowed hard against the desert in my mouth. My tongue felt rough as sandpaper, and my skull throbbed from the blow I’d suffered.

Lifting a leaden hand, I rubbed the base of my neck. My muscles had solidified into a tight, tender, and sore ball in the spot where my abductors had jabbed me with something. Something that had resulted in my struggle becoming nonexistent.

This is nothing more than a setback, I told myself, rising to a full sit.

I needed to assess my surroundings and situation. Make a plan to get out and back to my fellow reapers.

“Good. You’re awake.” A male’s voice came from the shadows on the other side of the bars. Features indistinguishable, he appeared as nothing more than a dark outline. “Now we can begin.”

You threw trash at my head. Of course I’m awake.

My head thundered with the pounding of a herd of horses galloping through my cranium. A discomfort I masked for the sake of my cell-side visitor. My captor didn’t deserve the thrill or satisfaction of witnessing my pain…or my bewilderment.

Rolling my head, I released the tension in my neck and rose to my bare feet. Forced my body to ignore the frosty bite seeping into my system.

With a glance over my shoulders in both directions, I noted three windowless walls at my back and a few small holes cut in the stone floor. Drainage holes, likely for washing down the dungeon after…

I didn’t want to think about that.

“Begin what, exactly?” I rubbed the back of my hand across my forehead and scrutinized every decipherable aspect of my surroundings.

Several feet beyond the wall of bars stood the chamber’s gray brick barrier, and mounted to the brick, two torches emanating green-tinted light. In the center of that barrier, an archway led to a deeply shadowed void. No windows to the outside world. Nothing to provide a clue as to the location of my dingy prison within the citadel.

For my “comforts,” the confined cell offered a wide bench chained to the wall that served as both a sitting and sleeping space, a chamber pot for my personal needs, and a shallow, water-filled metal bowl set on the floor and chained to the bars.

Was I to be fed like a dog?

“I might share, but first”?my jailor lifted his arm, motioning to the shallow bowl?“may I interest you in a refreshment?”

I glanced at my feet and the large shackles closed around my ankles, locked to a spike in the center of the cell. The situation looked rather…challenging. At least the chain upon my person appeared to grant me enough mobility to reach the few necessities offered.

The desire to quench the dry scratch of my mouth and throat burned fiercely. And yes, the water could be drugged, but was taking the chance and satisfying my thirst worth thegamble? It was. After all, I’d already been drugged, and my captor…or captors…could have easily kept me in such a state.

I shuffled to the bowl, scooped a handful of the liquid, and swallowed. The water tasted warm, less than refreshing, but it sufficed.

I scooped several more gulps, then asked, “Who are you, and what do you have planned that requires I be awake?”

Within the darkness, the male shifted closer to the bars, and I spied the hint of a flecked green aura clinging to his outline. Like the day on the train platform, my departure for the citadel, an unexplainable colorization surrounding others plagued me once again.

How long had I been laid out, unconscious in the cell? When was the last time I’d taken my pills?