This is an interesting chapter. More of a set-up. More pieces falling into place. But more unanswered questions, of course.

Thank you to my beta, lizbre, for being able to revise so quickly.

Enjoy.

-------------------------------

Bella's POV:

We all know what pain feels like. The pain of falling, bruising yourself. The sting of slamming a finger in a door. Maybe worse. Maybe we know what it feels like to really be hurt.

And then there's the mental pain. The emotional injury. The kind that leaves ashes in your mouth, and ice in your heart. We all have heard it portrayed a thousand times. But you don't really know. Not until you're the one dying.

And that was what I was doing.

Dying, I mean.

I hadn't been ready to let go. I still had the fire, the burning desire to carry on. And it was still there. But buried deeply. And with every passing minute, that dwindling flame striving to survive flickered.

How long would it take to go out?

Would I feel it?

I felt my breath drag out between my dry, partially cracked lips. My throat and lungs were on fire, a slow, smoldering burn. I could vaguely feel the cold, cracked stones beneath my cheek. Through partially slitted eyes, the barest lancing of sunlight arched into the dark room. But the shadows were lengthening with each moment. I could feel my life fade along with the slowly sinking sun. Gently, but surely. Bringing on the chilled cloak of night.

But was night so cold a thing, after all?

A small cough escaped my throat, the movement of my body sending sharp lances of pain through my body. I felt a cold tear slide town my contorted cheek, landing with the softest whisper of a noise on the roughly hewn ground. The torn fabric of my tunic scraped over the open sores on my back, sending a jolt of pain through my body. All my muscles were sore. It felt as if my skin had been scraped clean off in some places. My throat was inflamed from the constant screams that had torn from my lips. Those screams that had been emitted from my own lips still echoed in my mind. Worst of all though, was the warm, sticky blood.

I felt it sliding down the back of my neck, mingling with the matted hair strewn with twigs and gravel. I felt the warm lightness gently caressing my back as it slipped from the weeping sores there. Even over my legs, my arms. It was drying, causing my skin to become unpleasantly stiff. There was a time in which my current state of hygienic deficiency would have been driving me insane.

But at the moment, I couldn't really care.

My muddled thoughts eventually turned to Ebba. I hadn't seen her since I had been dragged away. I wondered idly if she had met the same fate.

More tears dropped from my burning eyes as I thought of her.

Was she dead?

Maybe it would be better if she was gone. She wouldn't be suffering from the same pain inflicted by torture. Literally. She wouldn't be curled up in the cold darkness, cramped, waiting to die.

The ghost of a smile flickered over my lips, causing me to wince in pain.

I had never imagined anything like this. Not in my wildest dreams. Or, really, my darkest nightmares. In a way, I almost felt as if this whole thing was a nightmare. That in a few moments, my father would wake me, smiles crinkling over his forehead. Then we would both laugh at my foolishness.

If only.

I wished, almost more than anything, that this whole thing was a twisted dream. I knew I was chasing air. Trying to capture smoke with my bare hands. But the smaller, childish part of me yearned for the childish naivety that would allow me to dismiss the world. Cliché.

Life is but a dream.

Life is but a…

Dream…

The haunting tune of the lullaby came back to me. Dad had told me, once so long ago, it was an old song. The childish melody had survived the war, the famine, which had torn the world apart. So funny how something so simply as a child's tune could reach further into time than anything else.

Row, row, row your boat…

Gently down the stream…

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…

Life is but a dream…

What if life was but a dream? What if nothing, which we so clung to as reality, was true? What if we were but fleeting shadows in a world that was made of real things? What if we were the unnoticed, the imagined?

But who would imagine this? This nightmare?

"Isabella…" The whispered voice was soft, gentle. So smooth, the sound of silk.

I exhaled, breath gently filtering into the air. My eyes were open but my vision was blurred. I couldn't see. It was all fading away. But maybe that was the point. Maybe I was almost dead after all.

"Please, Isabella."

I smiled. The voice of an angel.

I don't want to die.

Don't want to…

"Please don't die."

Maybe I did though.

It was all so confusing…

"You're going to be alright. Don't be scared, it's almost over."

Closer to over than I could have imagined.

Something cold and hard slipped around me. I gasped in pain, whatever it was, was brushing against the lash marks that covered my back. It hurt, awfully.

"Shhh, it's alright." The voice hushed me softly, as if it was speaking to a small child.

"It…. hurts…." My whimper was so soft it was almost inaudible to me. But the angel heard it.

"I know, I know. It's alright." The voice was just a glib, just a cherubic, but held the bitter edge of hatred. An oxymoron. Hateful angel. I almost smiled at the thought.

"Just a little while longer…"

Just a little while longer…

Just a little while—

-----------------------------------------------------

High Chancellor's POV:

Everything was going flawlessly according to plan. I had the prisoners, would get as much information out of them I needed, and then it would be I who would rise to the top of the political ladder. Not Dre Marsch and his simpering associates, thinking they were so clever.

The trick was subtlety.

They wouldn't realize who they were dealing with until it was too late.

Unfortunately, these things took time. And I was not a patient man.

Leaning back in the plush, embroidered chair, I inspected the pile of documents before me with satisfaction. A few arrests, more information slowly leaking into the ears of my intelligence agents… Yes, everything was fitting into place quite nicely.

I studied the room with a contented sigh. The rough walls were hidden behind thick, tastefully colored tapestries, the floor blanketed in a soft rug. The furniture, oak wood gleaming from its perfect polish, decorated with elaborately curved designs. The product of years of work. And years of appearing an incompetent moron in order for no one to challenge me. There was nothing worse than an ambitious nobleman that actually had the brains to back him up. That man, who so foolishly revealed his cleverness to the other human vipers, was a sure target to be eliminated. Swiftly.

It grated at my pride, certainly, that I had to play the part of an imbecile. That I had to simper in front of morons like Dre Marsch and pretend I was cowed. They had no idea who they were dealing with.

And Dre Marsch, as well as anyone foolish enough to get in my way, would never know anything ever again.

A light knock at the door brought my attention sharply back to the present. "Come in," I called, idly twirling a quill between my fingers.

The captain of the Guard entered. Really, it was my Guard. They were supposed to serve the city and government, but I had more than half of them in my pocket. Three times as many as Dre Marsch had. And four times as many as he suspected I had. There really were uses to pretending incompetence.

"My lord," he bowed, crimson cloak swirling around the highly polished amour he wore.

"Ahh, Captain Riem. What news?"

He straightened, dark eyes flickering away from mine nervously. The foreshadowing hint of what news was to come immediately managed to deflate my formerly buoyant mood.

"My lord, -- we've had a problem with getting information out of one of the prisoners."

"Which one?" My voice was cool, deceptively calm. Captain Riem suppressed a shiver at the tone.

"The younger one, sir. She wouldn't talk. Even after the usual treatment. I was thinking…is it possible she knows nothing?"

"I don't pay you to think, Captain," I sneered, fully irate. "And the chances that she knows nothing about the very subtle conspiracy are unlikely."

I cursed under my breath, frustrated. The conspiracy had been going on for a while now. Freeing slaves. Disappearances of important documents. Public vandalism. Other subtle signs that, were I a less intelligent man, I might ignore. But they were all the symbols of a starting revolution. And I didn't intend to let it happen.

The only problem was, I had no idea who was behind any of it.

"Let me see her," I ordered tersely, slowly rising from my comfortable seat. The Captain looked visibly relieved that I hadn't taken the prisoner's unaccountable silence out on him.

Not yet, I corrected myself with a mental sneer. But I certainly don't reward incompetence.

The hallways to the dungeons were cold and drafty as usual. I, on a common basis, avoided the dungeons themselves. I only deal with what information I could get from the inmates.

The sound of our feet echoed through the spiraling stairs, along the dimly lit hallways. Crevices where the mortar had worn away revealed rats' nests and spider webs. Sickly green mold was beginning to cover the once gray stones. I wrinkled my nose in distaste. It was below me.

"This cell," the Captain announced after a moment, rising aloft a flaming torch. Fumbling with his belt, he produced a ring of keys, and with a trembling hand, tried to fit one into the cell's lock. I bit my tongue, forcing myself not to push past him and do the job myself.

At last, the rusting door swung open with a loud creak, sending goose bumps up my arms. Not flinching, I pushed rudely past the captain.

It was empty.

The straw that covered the floor was rumpled, and the place where she lay was clearly visible. Fresh blood was evident, clinging to the straw and floor.

My sharp eyes scanned the gloom.

It really was empty.

Jerking my head upwards, I glanced at the slitted window, more than eight feet above. The bars were slightly crooked. But they could have been like that before.

"What," I hissed, turning back to the now visibly quaking Captain, "Is the meaning of this?"

"My- my lord. She was w- was here."

"She's not anymore, is she?" I snarled, scanning the room once again. "Were you able to get any information out of her?"

"N-n-no."

I ran a hand through my balding head. A catastrophe. A sheer disaster.

That girl had been involved in that conspiracy. I had been sure of it. But now, I was left with no information, and only a querulous old woman who didn't know barely anything. Ebba, I think her name was. She was irrelevant, anymore.

I had been so close. If I could just have found out who was behind it, the whole operation would have unraveled. But no…

I turned on the Captain, nostrils flared. "Give me your keys," I snapped, "and check the cell again."

Anxious to do my bidding, the young man quickly complied. "Were those bars like that before?" I asked, inspecting them again.

The Captain glanced in the direction of my scrutiny. "N-no, my lord. They weren't," he replied, a clearly puzzled tone.

I ground my teeth together. How had they done it?

True, the window was probably the way out. But that window had a fifty foot, sheer drop below it. No roofs or convenient handholds. And even if a person had managed to get up to the window, those bars had been solidly wielded to the stone. There was no way any human man could have simply ripped them apart.

And the damn person even put them back into place once he was done.

Even if a person had managed, against all odds, to get that far, there was still a major problem. They would have been encumbered with a bleeding, dying girl. How in the name of hell had they managed it?

This required some attention, certainly. I would be keeping my eyes and ears open, even more than usual, for any odd activity. Any clues. Any, even vague hints, I would follow up on. Because I would quash whatever was going on, once and for all. I could not have it stand in my way once I was ready to take power.

No one, and nothing, would be safe anymore.

A frown still etched firmly onto my face, I stepped briskly out of the cell. Swiftly, I slammed the rusting iron door shut behind me, inserting the key. It locked with a satisfying metallic click, stopped into place.

"High Chancellor?" The Captain looked at me, horrified, from the other side of the bars. Let this be his punishment for his incompetence. "My lord! Please!" He rattled the door wildly, but to no avail.

See if he can make a miraculous escape.

I turned, walking down the gloomy hallway, not sparing a glance back. The rattling of iron and dismayed cries of the terrified Guard followed me, until they faded in the distance.

Nothing is safe from me. Not anymore.

And I will have vengeance.

-------------------------

So a character that didn't seem important now turns out to be one of the villains. Interesting, isn't it? I'd love to claim I had everything ingenuously planned out. But I'd be lying. The though occurred to me when I was halfway through this chapter.

Aren't I reassuring?

Well, the story's getting places. You'd honestly be one of the dimmest stars in the sky if you didn't realize where Bella went. But the consequences of the rescue are what is the concerning part.

I should be able to update again within the next two days.

---------------------------------------

Lon-Dubh