Layla was shaken awake early the next morning by one of the guards. He jostled her bed unapologetically making the entire frame shake. She jumped from the bed startled as the grogginess quickly left her.
"What the hell was that about?"
"Lord Rahl wants to see you," the guard said unfeelingly.
"He couldn't wait until the sun came up?" Layla asked rhetorically as she stared out the window at the dark sky. She drew a robe around her shoulders as a cold breeze leaked in through a crack in the window she couldn't manage to stop up. The room was still just as cold and unwelcoming.
"No," the guard didn't seem any happier than she did to be up so early,
"Fine," the word sounded aggressive and hopeless, "Let me get changed."
"He said to come as you are," The guard said grabbing Layla by the elbow and pulling her into the hall.
He prodded her towards the stairs which led down to the dungeon. The steps were dark and cold. They felt like ice on Layla's bare feet. At the bottom of the steps was a small room with a medium sized wooden door on the wall opposite the staircase. About a foot in front of the door stood an iron grate spread from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. The door in the grate had three locks which ran up it, two from the outside, and one from the inside.
Layla approached the gate with caution as the guard escorting her talked with the guards that stood between the gate and the door. The men floundered with the locks, until, finally, the gate was opened. Layla was pushed through and locked in on the other side. She looked back to see her escort turning to go back up the stairs.
One of the other men took her through the wooden door and into a corridor lined with cells. At the end of the corridor was another corridor, and a flight of stairs. The two of them descended these stairs to another, smaller wooden door with a face sized grated window cut into it. Yet another of Rahl's minions peered through the grate before opening the door. Layla was prodded inside, and again the door was locked behind her.
The cold pervaded, matching the chilling tension hanging in the air. The only light came from a few small candles placed on tables around the room. When her eyes adjusted she saw a freshly beaten man piled in a heap and chained to a grate on the floor. They had attempted to clean up his mess of a face, probably for her her sake, but it was no use. The was a clump of swollen flesh where his right eye should have been and a thick gash on his fat, bruised lip.
"Layla," Rahl's voice cooed. Her head snapped away from the bloodied man and toward Rahl. She hadn't realized he was standing behind the man until he spoke.
"Who is this?" Layla asked, her tired mind still processing, "And why-?"
"You don't need to know that," Rahl said casually, "I need you to read him." He stood still, watching layla with his hands clasped behind him as he waited for a response.
"No." She said
"You said you'd work for me." Rahl's eyes glistened with the threat of what would happen if she didn't obey.
"Not like this. Not with a man beaten and tied to the ground."
"You don't control the circumstances, Layla." Rahl advanced toward her, stepping over the bloodied heap on the floor, and kicking it in the side as he passed by
"Stop that" Her voice wavered.
"Stop what?" Rahl feigned a look of innocence
"Saying my name like that. Kicking an already beaten man."
"I don't know what you mean? Layla-" He had that look in his eye that she hated.
"Just stop! You don't have to do this! Why do you have to be so cruel? What are you really getting out of all this?"
Silence hung in the air like the sound following the slam of the executioner's ax. Layla looked away from Rahl's stone cold face. She knew there was some emotion under that surface, but she was just unable to see it. So she looked at her dirty toes instead.
"You shouldn't feel bad for him you know"
"What?" Layla asked, looking at the half conscious clump in front of her.
"He's selfish and a womanizer. Not worth your concern."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Nothing. I just thought it might realign your intentions."
Rahl waited for a response. He knew she was thinking it over. Ultimately, she didn't have much of a choice.
"Keep in mind Layla," Rahl said looking at her sideways from his eyes, "If you don't cooperate I can have an entire troop of D'haran soldiers by your family's doorstep by sunrise."
"Fine" Layla agreed rigidly, swallowing her pride and kneeling by the bloody heap. Before she could help him up, one of Rahl's soldiers yanked him into a sitting position.
"Gentler next time," Layla said, glaring at the soldier. She turned to the man now sitting across from her. His eyes fluttered and his head lobbed from side to side. Layla turned towards Rahl with an anxious face.
"Rahl, I don't think I can read him. He's hardly conscious. Who knows what it might do to him?"
"Just do it." Rahl turned Layla's shoulders back towards the man. His voice was calm, but beneath it laid the threatening rage. "I don't care what it does to him."
Layla reached for the man's forearm, but no vision grasped her. She couldn't get a good hold on the man's arms and all she felt was cool iron where his wrists should have been. She looked into the man's eyes. They weren't exactly lucid, but he wasn't in a trance either.
"I think the shackles are blocking the magic." Layla looked up at Rahl, "You have to unlock them." Layla saw Rahl's eyebrows crease, and she knew he didn't like the idea.
"We don't have a choice, Rahl," Layla insisted, "If you want me to read him you have to unlock the chains." Rahl waited a moment before signaling the same soldier to take the man's bindings.
Once removed, Layla reached for the man's wrists once again. This time the vision was immediate.
She saw the man, with a black eye and a scabbed lip, sneaking through a crowded market. He ducks into a small shack and waits. There is a knife at his throat, and a rank breath in his ear. "Where is the plan? How do we get into the People's Palace." The man's arm was still weak from his beating, and it trembled as it held up a letter which contained the plans for Rahl's assassination, "I hope he burns".
The vision started to fade, but as it did Layla felt the man's resolve growing stronger. This vision was different. She wasn't alone in the vision, the man was there too. When the vision faded, Layla stared into the man's eyes and knew he saw just as much as she did. Neither of them looked away until the man lunged for her. He pressed her into the ground and squeezed her throat. She gasped for air while Rahl and the soldier in the room tried in vain to pull the man off her. Layla felt her lungs go dry and before long everything was black.