My senses returned to me slowly, each one more painful than the last. The sound of wind funneling down a hallway first, then the fading echo of heavy footsteps. A lingering coppery taste coated my mouth — fantastic, I thought groggily; blood. Over the wheezing of what had to be my clogged nostrils, I could hear nothing else.
Ice pressed against the skin of my cheek, and I probed the makings of a split lip with my tongue. Immediately, the movement set my face on fire, and I pressed myself harder into the perfectly flat floor, thankful for the cool chill.
Only once the pain faded did I open my eyes. Or I attempted to. They only widened a little — the swelling pulling a pained hiss from my lips.
What I saw through my bruised face did little to lighten my spirits.
It turned out my promised room was little more than a prison cell.
I swallowed, hardly surprised.
As I sat up — blinking blearily around me — my pulse quickened.
A hand to my hip revealed Enserric to be gone, and I felt the absence of him keenly, his amused humm gone from my mind.
The cell was a hollow cube; ice making up three of the four walls, from which bright light leached through. The fourth wall was a solid door of metal, light shining through from the small barred window and from beneath. Just like the door at the top of that killer flight of stairs — I touched a tentative hand to the back of my head, wincing — there was no visible handle or lock.
My since deepened as my hands continued their exploration of the damage done to my face, even as my eyes roamed for a means of escape.
I bit down on a cry as my fingers grazed my nose, flakes of blood crumbling from my nostrils. It was definitely broken.
Great.
I would have clenched my teeth had my jaw not been a throbbing mess of agony, too. But I couldn't let myself panic. No, I needed to keep my wits about me. First, I would assess the extent of myy injuries, and then I would figure out what to do next.
I've been in worse situations, I assured myself. But even as I thought it I knew that wasn't quite true.
Never had I been so alone. And so utterly blind as to what to expect next.
I was flying blind.
And I realised, with sinking clarity, that it wasn't just Asmodeus that was responsible for the situation I was in.
It was my own damn fault.
I wanted to cover my face in my hands, but even that hurt too much.
I gritted my teeth.
"Stop wallowing," I reminded myself with a hiss. "Escape first, sook later."
I searched for something — anything — to help; to escape or heal, I wasn't picky. But my satchel was gone, my pockets empty, and there was nothing in my little cell but an empty bucket and some stained clothes. I picked through them, but they were in even worse condition than the ragged mess that had become of Valen's tunic. My sleeve was torn, stained with blood, tacky and slick against the shredded mess of my arm. My bicep pulsed with pain with each of my movements, and I grimaced as I peeled away the material.
What I found beneath wasn't pretty.
I felt the room shift around me as blood began flowing freely again. I immediately clamped my hand down hard against the mess of torn skin, blood welling between my fingers.
Huffing through my broken nose, I swore, before I began binding my bicep with the rags available to me, each movement bringing a fresh wave of pain. Once I was sure it was tight enough — fingers prickling with creeping numbness — did I tie off the rags with teeth and hands. Done, and breathing heavily, I crawled to the edge of my cell, bracing my throbbing arm against the cold wall, desperate for any relief.
But the win was short lived; I still needed to fix my nose… somehow.
I must have drifted off at some point, because I awoke with a jolt, pain cascading through my body.
Oh, that's right…
I winced at the walls, trying to gauge if the light had shifted or changed. Squinting skeptically, I couldn't see any difference.
I sat there for far too long — attempting to work up some semblance of courage — before I eventually began moving a hand gingerly across the mess of my face. I took a steadying breath, hissing between gritted teeth as every graze of my fingertips sent a flash of burning pain through me.
But I forced my shaking arms to be steady, knowing what needed to be done. Bracing.
My fingers latched onto my nose, pain immediately lancing through me.
And I twisted.
A crack burst through my ears, my head, the room.
I didn't fight the growing darkness as it pulled me under, thankful for the blissful nothingness it promised.
When I came to, I still couldn't open both eyes fully, but my nose — my nose! — I could finally breathe through it. Painful as it was.
But, again, the moment of relief was short lived.
I gingerly touched my arm, hissing at the pain that still pulsed beneath the blood-soaked rags. I knew, with sinking dread, that something more permanent would have to be done about it.
I spent the next couple of hours searching every inch of my tiny cell — barely wide enough to lie flat in — and watching for any shift of the light that shone through the thick ice. But the light didn't change, and I found no way to open the door from this side — not even a visible bolt that I might hope to unscrew. Beyond my cell, I could see nothing more than a long white hall; with floors, walls and a ceiling of the same smooth ice. I scraped at the wall around the door with a booted heel — with no success — and pounded on the door with my good arm, screaming into the hall until my throat was hoarse with every insult I could think of.
But nothing changed.
And nobody came.
The hours ticked by, and still the lighting didn't change; the room permanently enveloped in an icy blue glow from the world beyond.
Despite the constant light and the fear that had taken hold of my heart, I let exhaustion claim me. I dozed on and off, unwilling to consider the true reason why I was so tired — despite the pulsing heat that burnt through my arm.
I don't know how long I slept, but I woke with sweat on my brow, to the sound of my door scraping open.
Momentarily forgetting the pain, I scrambled back, leaning against the wall for purchase and reaching blearily for the empty space where Enserric should have been. At the empty space, I hissed again, eyes swivelling to the door.
Despite the noise, it was still locked tight. However, the small panel at the base — which I'd tried to force earlier, leaving my fingers raw — was now wide open.
Large masculine hands — human but for the black pointed nails and slightly reddish-brown skin — pushed a metal tray through the opening. Beyond, I glanced booted feet.
Not the barbed devils from before, then. My shoulders slumped in relief.
I tried to stand, but my legs shook so badly that I couldn't move. Instead, my eyes snapped up to the bars in the door, meeting the considering gaze of a man.
No, not a man; his devilish blood was all too obvious.
My heart stuttered in my chest at the memory of intense blue eyes that flashed through my mind, so very different to this tiefling's considering yellow gaze. His lips were pursed, and — as he ducked his head closer to the door to get a better look at me — my swollen eyes followed the bumpy ridges of his forehead. I traced the shape up to the four curled horns at the crown of his head, two curling back on top, and the others weaving behind his slightly pointed ears; long and black and perfectly symmetrical. Pitch black waves of hair fell into his eyes as we considered each other.
Despite the humanity I saw, there was no kindness. Only silent curiosity.
And I wondered, staring at this tiefling, if he'd been chosen just to mock me. To mock what I'd lost.
Eventually the skin around his light flecked eyes creased in a smile, but the expression was anything but friendly.
"What a sorry state for Cania's new ruler," he said.
I jolted at the voice, teasing and human.
I didn't think, didn't have the energy to say anything. Instead, I snarled at the smiling eyes, spitting at the door despite the tackiness of my mouth.
I heard a throaty chuckle, as his booted foot reached back into the room through the small opening. The tip of his toe pressed down on the edge of the metal tray, balancing there in warning.
I felt the grumble of my stomach — again, wondering at the passage of time — before snatching for the tray. His boot balanced for a moment more, before relenting.
I was pulling the food towards me when the little opening snapped shut.
From the other side, the eyes considered me again — as if waiting for something — before I saw his nose shrivel in distaste.
He scoffed. "You killed Mephistopheles?"
With a shake of his head, he turned away.
I heard his booted feet as they moved down the hall, and — straining to hear — I counted his steps, the sound fading well before I could gleam anything useful.
From then on, time passed slowly.
I spent three days in that cell fighting the truth of my arm — or at least I figured it was three, based on the meal pattern I'd begun to work out.
The lighting never changed, and the only sign of life outside of my four walls was the same tiefling who brought me food. I ate the decent parts of the half-moldy bread, and — though I practically begged him for them on the third day, much to his amusement — he brought me no medical supplies.
I wallowed in my own self pity, at first keeping my mind busy with thoughts of what Valen and Deekin might be doing, since finding me gone. And — when thoughts of them grew too much — I found myself imagining scenarios in which the yellow-eyed tiefling would come into my cell. And, despite myself, I found a smile curving my split lips as I imagined bending my metal food tray over his horned head, over and over, before finally escaping my tiny prison.
I had no other option but to sit there, letting the wound on my arm gnaw on my strength, and trying my best not to think about the constant throbbing that shot sparks of poisoned lightning through me. But worse than that was the growing panic — panic that the wound hadn't quite stopped bleeding.
I knew what it meant when blood continued to flow.
I kept one eye on the wound, either out of hope that I'd find the blood clotting, or from terror that I'd spy the first signs of infection.
By the fourth day I couldn't keep any of the food down, the smell alone causing me to vomit everything up into my waste bucket.
The disgust in the tiefling's yellow eyes that day had been palpable, and — if I'd had the energy — I would have laughed at his obvious discomfort.
By the fifth day, I didn't even respond to his approach.
I was sitting against the far wall of my cell, savoring the coolness of the icy wall.
I'd awoken from another fitfully sleep, finding my skin burning hot, burning with the kind of fire that made everything muddled. My injured arm hung limply at my side as I gazed at the door.
I could see movement beyond the bars, but — try as I might — I couldn't make myself focus. Couldn't bring myself to care.
Infected, infected, infected, my thoughts thrummed in time with every beat of my head.
I was going to die, alone in this cell, from a treatable injury; Asmodeus' — apparent — granted immortality, be damned.
The room swirled around me as I tried to focus through the haze, each of my breaths like swallowing broken glass. I felt bile bubble up in my throat, but knew there was nothing more to bring up as I pressed my face harder against the cool wall. I prayed for the spinning the stop.
Praying. I felt my chest move in one silent, delirious chuckle. Praying was something I'd been doing a lot more of, lately.
Or rather, cursing.
Mainly cursing Asmodeus and the god's that had granted him his power. And then — when that was no longer enough — cursing Shaundakul, who had let him wear his face and bear his name.
The room felt as if it lurched again, and I groaned at the pain that shot through my body.
My eyes were fluttering closed when I heard the door scraping on ice.
My stomach roiled at the thought of more rotten bread.
I didn't want food.
I needed medicine. Clean bandages.
But then I heard the crunching of booted feet on the ice before me and real fear coiled in my chest.
My eyes snapped open, and I was met with the considering yellow eyes that had been my only company for the last week.
Except, now there were no bars between us.
The tiefling squatted before me, arms leaning on his knees.
My hands twitched towards the metal tray from yesterday, but my body didn't obey. I attempted a snarl, but it only came out a choked grimace.
His nose was creased in distaste, but still he wore his ever-present smirk.
I sat there, waiting for whatever was to come.
"You smell absolutely putrid," he told me.
I closed my eyes against the sound of his voice, against the thumping of my head. I heard him sniff faintly, nearer to me than I would have allowed under normal circumstances.
I felt him drawback sharply. "Hells, the tanar'ri I can smell underneath all that is almost worse than the vomit and blood," he hissed.
When I didn't respond, I faintly heard him swear under his breath, a frustrated grumble.
There was some movement before pain lanced through me, and I cried out as his clawed fingers wrapped around my arm. My eyes snapped open, and I saw black and white and red.
I tried to pull away, but he held me firm.
My head swam as my senses narrowed down on the fire burning across my bicep, at the shredded flesh sticky with blood.
His lips curved up into another smirk, granting me the sight of two pointed eye teeth as he considered my injury.
"Oh, isn't that just wonderfully gruesome," I swore at him half-heartedly, and he chuckled, tutting in amusement. "Such words from a lady."
I told him where to stick the words, stumbling over a too-thick tongue, despite the speed in which the room was now spinning. I was going to say more, but I had to bite back at my growing nausea. Pinpricks of light dotted my vision, my eyes stinging, and I clenched them shut against the pain, willing myself to stay conscious.
"...can't have you dying of something so minor," I heard him saying, before I realised that I'd missed something vital.
My arm erupted in pain again, as he peeled away my soaked tunic, and I felt my scream — more than heard it — as it escaped my lips. I thrashed and bucked, but he kept his grip on me, prodding at the raw skin he had revealed.
I felt the world around me narrowing, and — this time — I didn't fight it.
The last thing I saw was his long spaded tail — the tip lashing against the ice cold floor, bringing to mind another tiefling; an entire world away.