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How did I get past the ward?

“I-” His growl cut her off.

His head lowered to the point it was almost touching the ground as he stomped forward.

“After everything I have tried to do, you dare to flee?!”

His snout crinkled into the hateful scowling snarl he only wore when he was completely enraged. The kind of rage she knew she wouldn’t be able to calm him from, no matter how she tried.

“Wait.”

Instead of letting her speak, he roared, jumping both his front paws up to slam them around her body.

Amalia threw her hand up, not in fear, but to ward him away. She didn’t think he would hurt her, but it was still unnerving to have his large body stomp around her in uncontrolled anger.He is too close!

All of a sudden, she was thrown to the side by some unseen force. She knew it hadn’t been him. She didn’t know what it was since they both flew apart, but she heard the crack of bone when her back met the wall, and then she was unconscious.

Amalia woke in suffocating darkness.

There wasn’t a shred of light. It was the kind of voiding darkness that she couldn’t even see if something were inches from her face and about to poke her in the eye.

She couldn’t move. She felt dazed. She lay there on what must be her side.

Am I dead?No, she couldn’t possibly dead, not with the pain she felt in her hand and the back of her head – although it was a small pain, throbbing enough just to tell her it was there.

She didn’t feel like rising since her mind felt fogged.

Where... am... I?She knew the question rung slowly in her mind, but it was like she no longer remembered how to use her body or how to think properly to figure it out on her own.

She could hear nothing other than her own breath and heartbeat.

It was like she had been cut off from the world.

I do not feel well.Her eyes could only open a sliver since they were too heavy for her to use. Her head spun, and that seemed odd since she didn’t even know where she was to know if she was upside down or not.

The air was cool, the ground hard and freezing against her rain drenched body. She knew she was unbearably cold, but she couldn’t shiver. She felt the want to tingling in her knees and fingertips, but nothing came.

Eventually she heard a scraping noise before light filled the room. Everything she saw was hazy, but she could tell the Dragon had moved something so she could see.

There were multiples of him. She couldn’t count how many, the images moving too fast, but it seemed as though there were three to six of him. He stared at her before he closed her off from the light again.

She wondered if he wasn’t able to tell she was awake because her eyes were barely open.

I am in the prison cell.That’s all she knew, but she couldn’t connect the dots enough to be upset or think as to why she would be there.

A long time passed, but she did eventually find the strength to move. It was only enough that she half sat up with her side leaning against the wall with her legs partially under her.

She was once again limp and unable to move.

Amalia felt like she had bundles of energy, could feel it radiating inside her, up and down beneath her skin and mixing into her organs and bones. It didn’t belong to her and the parts of her that did, were drained. Her magic felt drained, her body felt useless.

In the new position, she felt woozy. She couldn’t handle being upright. She knew her body was trying to fight nausea, but it won out, and her body heaved while she made no other sounds or movements in distress.

Nothing came out, her stomach empty.

Something is wrong with me.

Rurik walked around his tunnels restless and seething.