Casteel
It was dark, cold, the air was filled with some sort of damp feeling, a familiar sensation. I blinked my eyes open, wincing as the scents hit me all at once, the fear staining the air seemed to permeate right through me, sinking into my bones. I knew this place, I knew where I was, even if my mind wouldn't face it, my body knew exactly what was coming, knew exactly what would happen, whether it was minutes or days away, I knew. This room, this cell, was the same, the bars were the same, the floor was the same, everything was the same, everything except me. I still couldn't quite understand how we'd failed so badly, how Ileana, no, Isbeth, I couldn't fathom how she'd tricked everyone, how no-one had known who she was. I squeezed my eyes shut at the memory of her smile, at Poppy's screams. Poppy. She wasn't here, that much I knew, but Carsodonia was huge, she could be anywhere, or she could be home. She was alive, the marriage mark told me that, but there were things worse than death, things Isbeth would delight in providing. She couldn't be here, she couldn't.
The door at the end of the corridor flew open, and I blinked against the onslaught of light as Isbeth stepped towards me, a triumphant smirk across her face. She halted a few steps from the bars, and grinned down at me, I stared right back at her, at those eyes that had lit up at every moment of pain, every moment of torment, I stared right back at her, letting all of my simmering anger shine bright in my eyes. She tutted,
"Well, that won't do at all," she said, cocking her head to the side, "I'd watch yourself, we wouldn't want your wife to suffer for it, now would we?" Blood roared in my ears as I lunged for her, she was close enough, I could, I would kill her for what she'd done. But she stepped back, leaving me grabbing at empty space. "Oh dear, we will have to get that temper of yours under control. Here's the deal, you behave, and dear Poppy goes unharmed." She let out a soft laugh at the horror racing through me, "Oh yes, I have her, so noble, sacrificing yourself for your wife, but futile nonetheless." She was still grinning when she left, my shouts of rage following her as she slipped away into the darkness.
I didn't remember falling back to the floor, I didn't remember leaning against the wall, but I did notice the way it leached the warmth out of me, or perhaps that was the knowledge that Poppy was here, in danger. I didn't remember screaming, but the hoarseness of my throat gave me away. I didn't remember anything beyond Isbeth's grin, the way her eyes had sparkled at my pain when she'd threatened Poppy. But sure enough, my clothes, still stained with Ian's blood were damp, this time with my own tears. It must have been hours, days even that I sat there, my mind racing, desperate for a way to escape, to get to Poppy. There was nothing, there was no way out, Isbeth had won.
Slowly my mind slipped farther and farther from myself, slipped away from the cell, from poppy, from the world, slipped towards that darkness within me. Each moment that Isbeth left me there drove me further and further away from who I was, what I was. With every passing moment I slipped closer to the monster that crawled beneath my skin, the monster that lay waiting for an opening. I tried once to push it away when it tried to wrest control away from me, but my racing mind quickly lost control of my body, letting the monster seize control, leaving me a passenger in my own body. A familiar fog descended on my mind, leaving me to watch, watch while unable to intervene. The monster wanted blood, it wanted death, and I was powerless to stop it.
I only remembered one thing when a group of blank-faced, black-eyed men stepped into the darkness. I was very good at killing.