Chapter 150: Waking in the abyss

I woke to a start, my head reeling with whirling pain. For one long, tortured moment, I didn't know if I was dreaming or if the actual world had slipped its moorings on sanity. My eyes cleared, to see nothing but blackness. My head throbbed, and my body complained about every muscle. When the veil of ignorance was removed, a grim, terrifying reality was revealed: I was not in my bedroom. I was bound, my wrists and ankles securely tied to an unforgiving, cold chair.

Panic set in. I tried to shift, but the ropes dug into my skin, holding me fast. I tightened every muscle, trying to break free, but the restraints did not yield. My heart thudded in my chest, the rhythm pounding out my increasing terror. In that black, cramped tunnel, my mind ran riot: Had I been kidnapped? Was all the laughter and warmth yesterday a mere fading memory, a barren chimera?

I was crazy, so I reached out with my mind, attempting to mindlink Grayson, my anchor, my balance, that had ever steadied me. But as I focused, a burning awareness washed over me: a wall, a hard, thick wall was between my mind and his. I struggled again, my mind pounding and pounding against some invisible barrier, but my efforts were futile.

With a shaky breath, I attempted to call on the power of the talisman that had ever been my safeguard. But as I looked down at my chest to look at the talisman, I found nothing. In one nauseated flash of horror, I knew the talisman was missing. Its absence of gentle heartbeat sent a shiver through me, and a wave of fear crept in. I pushed the feeling away, refusing to give way to fear, but the cold fear could not be held back.

I pinched my eyes open and surveyed my surroundings. I was in a tiny, poorly furnished room with harsh, damp-smelling stone walls and no windows, except for a small, very barred one high up, from which a thin strip of gray light filtered. The room reeked of stale air and something metallic, an odor that made me want to vomit.

My head spun with questions as I struggled against the ropes. Who had done this to me? What did they want? And most of all, why had they taken the talisman from me? Each unresolved question fueled my terror, and I was alone in my own cell.

I closed my eyes, attempting to still the spinning thoughts. I attempted to recall each instant of the previous hours, but my head was a muddled jumble, training with Calista, laughter under the sycamore trees at breakfast, and then. nothing. Was I asleep? Did I faint on the way home? The unknown nagged me, each unresolvable question fueling my sense of helplessness.

Despair caused me to writhe my trussed hands. The rough strands cut into my flesh, but the harder I writhed, the less the ropes yielded. My trussed feet, also, pounded with effort to move, but every struggle contributed to my frenzy. Beneath the oppressive silence of the little vacant room, the rasp of my own wind was an avalanche.

I forced myself to be logical, to pull strands of sense from my brain that were not yet claimed by fear. I needed to impose meaning on my situation before I could think of any attempt at escape. I recalled the comforting hum of the talisman, its comforting guarantee of power and protection. But now that reassuring figure was gone, and in its place was a void of uncertainty. I could sense the absence almost like a heaviness in my chest.

Then, ear straining to hear, I realized that the room was not totally still. Faint, muffled sounds were emanating from the far side of the heavy door, a rustle of footsteps, a whisper of movement. I braced myself, holding my breath, listening intently, heart pounding with each slight sound. Has someone come to rescue me? Or were the faint voices just outside the door the voices of my captors?

My heart thudding, I endeavored to summon even the faintest flicker of magic that had ever been so instinctively mine but I was in despair and could hardly think straight. 

Time crawled in that small cold chamber. Minutes, hours, clocked by agonizingly slow in complete quiet as I worked to acclimatize to my new circumstances. I dipped my eyes, staring at my chest, acutely feeling the empty absence of the talisman as if it had ripped some part of myself away. Hysteria teetered near, but I pushed it away with sheer dint of will. I could not afford to lose control, not yet.

I swept the room with my eyes for some sign of my captors or what had become of my talisman but once again, I found nothing. 

I heard the noise of footsteps approaching, the slow, gentle ones, echoing down the outside of the hall. My heart pounding, I realized that I was no longer alone. Fear and hope were mingled with a frenzied hope that I should be saved. I shut my eyes as hard as possible and instructed myself to remain quiet, feigning sleep. I heard the steps approach, step by step a stake in the coffin of my questionable liberty.

The steps grew nearer, closer, until they stopped just outside the door. I pressed my ear to the cold of the wood, trying to pick up any slightest murmur of voice or indication of who was waiting on the other side. Waiting was agony, my mind flying over every possibility, rescue, additional injury, or savage combat.

And the door creaked suddenly open, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. Voices grew louder as the unknown people entered the tiny, damp room. A shrill voice echoed in the stillness: "Wake her up!" I had no time to react before a bowl of ice water was thrown into my face, thumping me brutally out of tense tension. I gasped an unconscious breath and my eyes strained wide with pain of water mixed with terror of captivity.

My body shook, I was taken aback by the sudden splash, I blinked furiously, trying to get the water out of my eyes so I could see clearly. 

There, standing in the doorway with faces that chilled my blood, were two individuals. Their faces, highlighted in the pale light, were recognizable, Cassius and Selene. Their icy, unyielding eyes gazed into me with a look of contempt blended with something else I could not see.

I attempted to form a cry or a protest, but my throat closed with terror. My leaden body, still shuddering from shock and the effects of the freezing water, felt as if it had been made of metal. Cassius's and Selene's black shadow loomed over me, and I knew with a feeling of sick realization that the truth was far worse than I could have ever imagined.

I looked up, fighting to calm my racing pulse, and saw myself facing the icy glare of my captors. Cassius's face was set in a hard, unyielding line, and Selene's face was fixed equally hard in stone, eyes blazing with an unyielding determination. I craved a glimmer of sympathy in their eyes for a moment but found there only the chill of evil. 

My mind spinned as I once again succumbed to darkness.