Kyra opened her eyes to blackness, lying on a cold stone floor, her head splitting, her body aching, and wondered where she was. Shivering from the cold, her throat parched, feeling as if she hadn’t eaten in days, she reached out and felt the cobblestone floor beneath her fingers, and she tried to remember.
Images flooded her mind, and she was unsure at first if they were memories or nightmares. She recalled being captured by the Lord’s Men, thrown into a cart, a metal gate slamming on her. She remembered a long, bumpy ride, remembered resisting as the gate opened, struggling to break free and being clubbed on the head. After that, all had, mercifully, been blackness.
Kyra reached up and felt the lump on the back of her head and she knew it had not been a dream. It had all been real. The reality sunk in like a stone: she had been captured by the Lord’s Men, carted off, and imprisoned.
Kyra was furious at Maltren for his betrayal, furious at herself for being so stupid as to have believed him. She was also scared, pondering what would come next. Here she lay, alone, in the Governor’s custody, and only terrible things could be coming for her. She felt sure that her father and her people had no idea where she was. Perhaps her father would assume she had heeded him and ventured to the Tower of Ur. Maltren would surely lie and report back that he had seen her fleeing Volis for good.
As Kyra scrambled in the dark, she instinctively reached for her bow, her staff—but they had all been stripped. She looked up and saw a dim glow coming through the cell bars, and she sat up and saw torches lining the stone walls of a dungeon, beneath which stood several soldiers, at attention. There sat a large iron door in the center of it, and it was silent down here, the only sound that of a dripping coming from somewhere in the ceiling, and of rats scurrying in some dark corner.
Kyra sat up against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest, trying to get warm. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, forcing herself to imagine herself someplace else, anywhere. As she did, she saw Theos’ intense yellow eyes staring back at her. She could hear the dragon’s voice in her mind’s eye.
Strength is not defined in times of peace. It is defined in hardship. Embrace your hardship, do not shy from it. Only then can you overcome it.
Kyra opened her eyes, shocked at the vision, looking around and expecting to see Theos in front of her.
“Did you see him?” a girl’s voice suddenly cut through the darkness, making Kyra jump.
Kyra wheeled, stunned to hear the voice of another person here in this cell with her, coming from somewhere in the shadows—and even more stunned to hear it was a girl’s voice. She sounded about her age, and as a figure emerged from the shadows, Kyra saw she was right: there sat a pretty girl, perhaps fifteen, with brown hair and eyes, long tangled hair, face covered in dirt, clothes in tatters. She looked terrified as she stared back at Kyra.
“Who are you?” Kyra asked.
“Have you seen him?” the girl repeated, urgently.
“Seen who?”
“His son,” she replied.
“His son?” Kyra asked, confused.
The girl turned and looked outside the cell, terror-stricken, and Kyra wondered what horrors she had seen.
“I haven’t seen anyone,” Kyra said.
“Oh God, please don’t let them kill me,” the girl pleaded. “Please. I hate this place!”
The girl began to weep uncontrollably, curled up on the stone floor, and Kyra, her heart breaking for her, got up, went over and draped an arm around her shoulder, trying to soothe her.
“Shhh,” Kyra said, trying to calm her. Kyra had never seen anyone in such a broken state; this girl looked positively terrified about whoever it was she was talking about. It gave Kyra a sinking feeling for what was to come.
“Tell me,” Kyra said. “Who are you talking about? Who hurt you? The Governor? Who are you? What are you doing here?”
She saw the bruises on the girl’s face, the scars on her shoulders, and she tried not to think of what they had done to this poor girl. She waited patiently for her to stop weeping.
“My name is Dierdre,” she said. “I’ve been here…I don’t know. I thought it was a moon cycle, but I have lost track of time. They took me from my family, ever since the new law. I tried to resist, and they took me here.”
Dierdre stared into space as if reliving it all again.
“Every day there await new tortures for me,” she continued. “First it was the son, then the father. They pass me off like a doll and now…I am… nothing.”
She stared back at Kyra with an intensity that scared her.
“I just want to die now,” Dierdre pleaded. “Please, just help me die.”
Kyra looked back, horrified.
“Don’t say that,” Kyra said.
“I tried to take a knife the other day to kill myself—but it slipped from my hands and they captured me again. Please. I’ll give you anything. Kill me.”
Kyra shook her head, aghast.
“Listen to me,” Kyra said, feeling a new inner strength rise up within her, a new determination as she saw Dierdre’s plight. It was the strength of her father, the strength of generations of warriors, coursing through her. And more than that: it was the strength of the dragon. A strength she did not know she had until this day.
She grabbed Dierdre’s shoulders and looked her in the eye, wanting to get through to her.
“You are not going to die,” Kyra said firmly. “And they are not going to hurt you. Do you understand me? You are going to live. I will make sure of it.”
Dierdre seemed to calm, drawing strength from Kyra’s strength.
“Whatever they have done to you,” Kyra continued, “that is in the past now. Soon you are going to be free—we are going to be free. You are going to start life over again. We will be friends and I will protect you. Do you trust me?”
Dierdre stared back, clearly shocked. Finally, she nodded, calm.
“But how?” Dierdre asked. “You don’t understand. There is no escape from here. You don’t understand what they’re like—”
They both flinched as the iron door slammed open. Kyra watched as the Lord Governor strutted in, trailed by a half dozen men, and joined by a man who was his spitting image, with that same bulbous nose and smug look, perhaps in his thirties. He must have been his son. He had his father’s same sneering, stupid face, his same look of arrogance.
They all crossed the dungeon and neared the cell bars, and his men approached with torches, lighting up the cell. Kyra looked around in the bright light and was horrified to see her accommodations for the first time, to see the bloodstains all over the floor. She did not want to think of who else had been here—or of what had happened to them.
“Bring her here,” the Governor ordered his men.
The cell door opened, his men marched in and Kyra found herself hoisted to her feet, arms yanked behind her back, unable to break free as much as she tried. They brought her close to the Lord Governor and he looked her up and down like an insect.
“Did I not warn you?” he said softly, his voice low and dark.
Kyra frowned.
“Pandesian law allows you to take unwed girls as wives, not prisoners,” Kyra said, defiant. “You violate your own law to imprison me.”
The Lord Governor exchanged a look with the others, and they all broke into laughter.
“Do not worry,” he said, glowering at her, “I will make you my wife. Many times over. And my son’s, too—and anyone else’s whom I wish. And when we’re done with you, if we haven’t killed you yet, then I’ll let you live out your days down here.”
He grinned an evil grin, clearly enjoying this.
“As for your father and your people,” he continued, “I’ve had a change of heart: we are going to kill every last one of them. They will be a memory soon enough. Not even that, I’m afraid: I will see to it that Volis is erased from the history books. As we speak, an entire division of the Pandesian army approaches to avenge my men and destroy your fort.”
Kyra felt a great indignation bubbling up within her. She tried desperately to summon her power, whatever it was that had helped her on the bridge, but to her dismay, it would not come. She writhed and bucked, but could not break free.
“You have a strong spirit,” he said. “That is good. I shall enjoy breaking that spirit. I shall enjoy it very much.”
He turned his back on her, as if to leave, when suddenly, without warning, he wheeled and backhanded her with all his might.
It was a move she did not expect, and Kyra felt the mighty blow smash her jaw and send her reeling down to the floor, beside Dierdre.
Kyra, stung, jaw aching, lay there and looked up, watching them all go. As they all left her cell, locking it behind them, the Lord Governor stopped, face against the bars, and looked down at her.
“I will wait for tomorrow to torture you,” he said, grinning. “I find that my victims suffer the most when they are given a full night to think about the hardship to come.”
He let out an awful laugh, delighted with himself, then turned with his men and left the dungeon, the massive iron door slamming behind them like a coffin on her heart.