Tethered

Chapter 7: Trial✔️

Eyes open.

All I see is pitch black.

Where am I?

It feels like that tunnel all over again as my breathing starts to escape me, loud and heaving.

My magyk is still gone and my feet are now bound again. I still have no answers.

Large breath in

Small breath out

I try to focus, but I feel as if this darkness is closing around me fast and soon I am out again.

⚜️⚜️⚜️

I feel a gush of water across my face. Am I drowning? What is going on?

My eyes are open to the soft glow of a floating ball of light. I'm in a cell of sorts. It has a dirt ground and twisted wooden walls, like the inside of a tree.

I look up to see Petra, a bucket in hand.

"It's about time you woke up." She flips her hair over a shoulder and bends down towards me.

I quickly move back, covering my ears and pushing myself tight against the bark of the wall.

"What are you going to do with me?" A breathless question.

I've irritated her now. She thought this would be easier. "That is not for me to decide." And she grabs my arms and hoists me up with a bruising grip.

When she starts to drag me behind her, I stumble and flail around until she looks back with a glare. She doesn't seem at all like the woman from yesterday, her mood has significantly changed for the worse.

"I-- I can't walk." She cuts my feet apart with a small knife before continuing on, never loosening her grip as we wind around and around these walls of twisted tree bark. The light slowly multiplies to several that follow and float around us as we make our way to my ultimate destination.

I try to stay in control, but I know she notices my ragged breathing.

We pass by many doorways until we make it to a set of stairs of the same twisted bark. They wind and wind until they eventually go strait up and we are in a room full of those floating lanterns.

There are many people here, but the man at the back seems to draw my attention.

"Morigan." Petra kneels before this man.

Is he a king? He wears no crown that I can tell. His hair is long and dark like Petra's. His eyes, that same amber hue, are surrounded in crows feet. His face is a bit worn and leathery, but you can tell that this man holds the power around here.

I can feel the glaring eyes of these rounded ear people, they do not like me one bit.

"Daughter."

She stands and continues to drag me until I am stood directly in front of this intimidating man.

He has his chin resting upon his hand, his eyes roving over me, looking at my ears that try to fold in on themselves at his glance.

"She is quite small. Not many lady Imps make their way into the Everforest. Tell me child, what were you doing near The Loch of Lost Souls?"

The Loch? Does he mean the lake? I do not answer, these seem to be a people to fear with their leather armor and weaponry, a type of wildlings that I do not think I should anger.