Thuelos sat back in the chair beside the bed and sighed. Lena had finally given in to exhaustion. He had helped her lay back in the bed and was now listening to her wheezing breaths. The broken nose made him wonder if she was pretending to sleep or if she was actually snoring, but he didn’t care. She had finally laid down at least to feign rest. He could only hope that she would let herself rest. It was the only way to heal. The physical injuries, at least.
A frown creased his forehead as he surveyed the wounds he could see. Her nose was swollen and most of her face bruised, jagged slashes along her cheeks, neck, and upper chest. Her hands were fairly mangled, but intact. He couldn’t bear to watch as Nhadiya cleaned Lena’s empty eye socket, being sure to keep the wound free of infections. He could only grimace as he imagined what else they had done, the damage that Nhadiya made him leave the room to care for. The elementium … collar, with the pendant of a single, perfect Argussian crystal, around her neck was still intact. Thuleos sometimes wondered about the jewelry, but decided he didn’t really want to know what his uncle meant with it. It was obviously a sign of devotion between the pair, and Thuleos was happy to leave his wonderings at that conclusion. Looking down at her neck, he noticed the bruises, ligature marks, as if her captors had tried to remove it and failed miserably. But they obviously took great pleasure in hurting her with it in the meantime.
When Lena’s breathing grew deeper and slower, Thuleos stood and stretched, eyeing his rifle propped in the corner of the room. He picked it up and silently slipped out the door, settling in a chair just outside of the room, standing guard. He rubbed his face with the palm of his large hand and sighed, eyes growing steely and setting his jaw. They could have just left well enough alone. What had Uncle Kras been up to for them to attack with such viciousness?
—-
Lena shot up in the bed when she heard the screaming, her own throat still raw. She was grateful for the interruption of her dreams – until she realized she was the one screaming. But she couldn’t stop herself. The shadows of the room were threatening. Members of the Underground were watching her, they were still watching her. She clutched at the blankets with her broken and battered fingers, moving as if to hide, when she heard the door open and Thuleos stepped inside. But she couldn’t stop screaming.
—-
She couldn’t remember yet how they had caught her. She could only remember the room – room was far too conventional a description for the pit with a thick iron door they had put her in. They forced her to her knees, shackling her wrists behind her and chaining her tight to the wall. She could only watch as they gleefully tore through her bags, laughing as they found her trinkets and smaller treasures that she carried all the time. They ripped the rings from her ears, leaving her lobes dripping blood onto her shoulders – they hadn’t been expensive and weren’t worth much, but the Underground humans were obviously living in squalor. Naively, she figured if that was the worst of it, she could handle it.
Kras had long told her that if the Underground ever caught up with them, she was not to say a word, not give them anything. It seemed fairly easy, since he wanted to keep her out of that part of his former life. He told her of the times when he had been party to such captures, and how the screams of those they tormented only urged the torture further along. She set her jaw and tried to remain outwardly calm. Meanwhile, she was simultaneously testing to see if there was a magical intervention to release her from her bonds and desperately calling out to Kras with her mind. She could feel him nearby, but he wasn’t responding. He wouldn’t abandon her…
Lena had been surprised to see women in the group. One of them held a small dagger to her cheek and picked up the pendant hanging from her collar. The blonde human grinned wickedly and tugged the setting, expecting it to come apart easily, but frowned when she found it harder than it appeared. The elementium collar was enchanted in such a way that only Krastos could remove it if and when he wanted. The pendant, when Lena had created the setting for the Argussian crystal, took on the enchantment as well. Lena glared at the human and growled deep in her chest, but the woman only laughed, and called over the men. ”I want that,” she drawled, jabbing at Lena’s chest with the dagger as she pointed to the crystal.
The men had the same problem – unable to remove the collar, unable to tear the pendant away, they tugged her and dragged her around the muddy stone floor by it, a new game to see if they could make her scream. When that failed and they grew bored with it, they chained her to the wall by it, pulling the makeshift leash so short and so high on the wall that Lena basically hung from the wall by her collar, choking and gasping for air as she stretched taller on her hooves. The left her like that for a time, taking her belongings and slamming the iron door of the pit and leaving her alone. Only then did she let herself cry.
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