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“I understand that you may be displeased with the way you were relocated here. And your new accommodation.” She glanced around the room.

“Displeased? Displeased?! Ha! Yes, I am displeased . Consider this my formal complaint.”

“Come now, we can do this in a civilized manner, Halja.”

“Oh, you want a civilized manner?!” I stood.

She was taller than me in those heels, but I moved closer regardless.

“What was civilized about capturing me by force? What was civilized about burning down the homes of innocent people? What was civilized about slaughtering families in the streets of Rhyanaes? What was civilized about–”

A crack of pain snapped across my face, like I had been hit with an invisible fist. I stumbled back a few steps and caught myself against the wall. Heat and blood bloomed from a split lip.

“There certainly wasn’t anything civilized about that.” My voice was a low growl, laced with rage.

“No, there wasn’t. But until you show me you’re capable of respectful, dignified communication like two ladies of reason, then that is how this will be.”

“Well then...” I wiped the blood from my mouth. “From one ‘lady of reason’ to another –– fuck you.”

This time the strike hit me in the body first, an upper cut to my solar plexus that made my stomach spasm.

Another blow landed on the side of my head, rocking me back.

The third hit landed in my ribs, the tender places that had just been repaired.

I crumpled to the floor by the cot. My vision swam and the room spun.

“We could be allies, you know,” the High Priestess said.

“We could usher in an era of peace together, with our combined power. You could lead your people into a brighter future with the guidance of the Light. And you could free yourself right now, if you pledge yourself to me, to Enos. The choice is yours.”

I did not answer. The clack of her heels echoed off empty stone walls as she walked away.

∞∞∞

“Hello, Halja.” The same dark male voice from the night before. I stood in the fog-filled void.

“Tell me who you are,” I answered.

“I have many names. I am sure you already know most of them. Tell me more about yourself.”

“No,” I said.

“Sweet little lamb,” he rumbled. “All alone, no one here to help her, and she pushes away her only friend.”

“You are not my friend.”

“Not yet, but I should be. I will be. Soon enough.”

My dreams for the rest of the night were short and nonsensical, but fear roiled beneath the surface of every thought I had, every emotion I felt.

The haunting voice jolted me awake again and again. Sometimes speaking directly to me, trying to get me to reply to questions that I did not answer. Sometimes he just mumbled, seemingly without expectation of a response, as if he spoke more to himself than to me.

I slept briefly just before dawn, and I dreamed of Rhyanaes aflame. I saw children running, chased by armed soldiers. I saw my wolves fighting, I saw El wreathed in flame. All the images were dark, shadowed and dimmed by the malevolent presence, like he watched my dreams right alongside me.

I awoke exhausted. I watched the little square of light cross the room throughout the day and vanish again.

I ate three simple meals, all delivered by Deacon Tessivia.

When darkness fell, I used what power I could summon to light the candles.

It was far more effort than it should have been.

The wards of the Temple put so heavy a damper on my Source that igniting a simple flame felt like lifting a boulder.

I slept fitfully again that night, accompanied all the while by dark mist and the even darker voice. No light shone through my dreams, no landmark with which to orient myself. Just endless black void and that deep, haunting voice.

He told me that he knew me, that he’d expected to find me here, although where ‘here’ was, I wasn’t certain.

Told me he had seen what I’d done, although was always vague about what acts it was he referred to.

My answers to him were short and colorful despite the deep, unsettling feeling that overcame me whenever I found myself in his presence.

Despite the terror I felt when he spoke.

I entertained myself with conjuring my best curses.

He laughed at them all, seemingly unperturbed by my resistance.

Although I was not even entirely sure what I was resisting.

∞∞∞

Days and nights passed like this. During the days I meditated, as I had learned from Eilith.

I was welcomed by the calming, indifferent expanse of the sea, lost myself in its embrace for hours at a time.

Each day I reached for my power, tried to connect with Source.

I practiced lighting and snuffing the candles.

I practiced searching the Temple with my awareness, though was always stifled in my efforts.

I had hoped to at least locate Eilith, but she was too far, and the force of the wards within the Temple was too great.

I tried to beat the bars off the windows, tried to break down the door, tried to chip away at the stone walls with my power. All of those efforts earned me long strings of verbal abuse from the guards and yielded no results.

In addition to meditation, I did my best to move my body each day.

I did push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and jumps.

I stretched, and jogged in place. Anything to get my heart rate up, to feel a connection with my body.

But there was little food, and after several days of this even the light workouts felt more painful and exhausting.

I grew more and more tired, but sleep came less and less. Every time I closed my eyes, he was there. Every time I began to slip into a dream, I slipped into one of his disorienting, dark nightmares instead.

One night I found myself yet again in that shadowy void. Black fog roiled around me, and I shivered with the cold.

“Hello again, Halja.” That deep voice reverberated through the space, and my skin felt as if spiders skittered across it. “Pleasure to see you once more.”

I did not answer, but instead got up and began to walk away. I had no sense of direction, no idea where I was going. But I would at least try to leave that presence behind. I walked off blindly into the fog.

“Careful, little one. You don’t know where you’re going,” he said. Still near me.

“Away from you,” I replied.

“If you want to get out of here, you need only ask. All you have to do is join me, and I will spring you from this trap you’re caught in, wild one.”

Something about the way he said wild one felt too intentional, too familiar to be a simple guess. I paused my directionless marching.

“Do you like that name?” he murmured.

I felt him draw nearer, that dark, looming presence. Huge and invisible, a mountain above me in the dark. I shrank away.

“Wild One,” he purred. “I like it too. It suits you. Yet here you are, one leg in the crushing claws of Zisorah’s steel trap. I could get you out, you know. Or you can chew off your own foot.”

“What do you mean, get me out?” I asked.

“Just that. I can open the door. And, together, you and I can walk from here, free as wild birds.”

“Are you trapped here too?” I asked.

He laughed. “No, no, not at all. I choose to be here. With you. This is my domain, you see. I am impossible to trap.”

“Then release me,” I said. “Let me go.”

“Hardly a word for days and now so hasty to leave. You have to take me with you when you go, Wild One. That is the agreement.”

“No,” I said. “I would not be free if you still held me captive in my mind. I go alone or not at all.”

“Am I so terrible to be around?” He was closer now. Something brushed my shoulder and I flinched. “You wound me so, Wild One. Sweet lamb.”

A deep anger flickered inside of me at that word. I saw Byrgir’s face, and the anger turned to pain. Sharp, breathless, chest wracking pain.

“Ah, who is this?” the voice said. “You miss him, yes, deeply. You miss him.” More images, memories of Byrgir flashing into my mind. I could not tell if it was my heartsickness for him that brought them up, or if it was the work of the dark presence.

“Get out of my head,” I snapped.

“I could get you back to him.” He left the offer hanging in the air, could tell I was tempted. I said nothing, so he went on, “I could get you home to him. Safe and sound, in one piece. He still lives, you know.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I have seen him,” the voice said simply. That was all the explanation I would get.

“You lie,” I said. He had found a tender spot and I would not allow him to exploit it. I kept walking. Going nowhere.

“I have no reason to lie to you. He lives, and he searches for you. Let me take you home to him.”

“No,” I said reflexively, but I was rattled. My body ached with exhaustion, my heart ached for Byrgir.

“Pledge yourself to me, little one. Give yourself to me and I will give you back to him.”

“Leave me alone!” I whirled in the dark to face that looming, invisible presence, fighting back tears as I began to shake. There was silence, but in it I felt his anger rise. Felt the tension grow in the dark.

“Fine.” The fog seemed to warp and bend with the low fury in his voice. What was unsettling before was menacing now. “Chew off your own leg, Wild One. Bleed to death alone, or rot here in this trap. I am your only hope. You will come to me in the end.”

I awoke with tears already streaming down my face. I hugged my knees and cried.