Chapter 5

This takes place when Dustfinger, Meggie and Farid go to the secret camp, find that there is nobody there and move on to follow the captives' progress to the Castle of Night.

!!!!!!!I don't own any of the characters, etc!!!!!!!

Brianna felt her head throbbing painfully. Somehow it felt heavier than usual. Her entire body ached and her heart thudded against her chest. Where was she? Her mind was slow and unresponsive. She tried to open her eyes but the sound of voices stopped her.

She kept still; afraid that someone would notice that she was awake. Her instincts told her that she was in trouble but she couldn't quite figure out why yet. The voices were coming closer. Steadily her mind caught up with her racing heart and she began to think a bit more clearly. What have you gotten yourself into this time? She thought.

Using her other senses, she felt the rope against her wrists, binding her hands together behind her back. She tried to listen to what the voices were saying but it was no use she couldn't make anything out. Instead she strained her ears for any other sounds that would give her some kind of idea as to where she was. She could hear the distant sounds of birds but everything else was strangely muffled.

She could also smell something vaguely familiar. It took her a little longer than usual to identify it; it was the traces of smoke and ash. Father. He used to smell like that. It used to comfort her in the night, make her feel warm and safe.

As the voices grew louder still, Brianna suddenly recognised one of them: Basta. That voice had haunted her nightmares for weeks now and it was a voice that she was not likely to forget. Now that she now what he was capable of she was more afraid of him than ever but there was something else as well. Knowing what he had done made her hate him intensely; she felt anger and rage build inside her and she wanted nothing more than to hurt him as he had once hurt her father.

Brianna tried once again to hear what they were saying but it was impossible. After a few minutes of just waiting, waiting for them to reach her, waiting for them to discover that she was no longer unconscious, that she realised that the voices were gradually getting quieter. They were moving away again.

At this she tried again to open her eyes. Everything around her came in and out of focus. She blinked a few times. Slowly her vision cleared. She was in some kind of building. It was badly built. Small rays of light came from the many holes in the roof and everything seemed very unclean. Looking up to the roof she saw that the sky outside was full of oranges and reds. Sunset.

She looked around the room again, this time taking care to take in everything. The more she looked around, she saw that this must be the only room of the building. Every where she looked there was evidence that whoever had lived here had eaten, worked and slept in here. She wondered if the place had already been deserted when Basta had brought her here or if Basta had gotten rid of them.

Brianna shifted her weight uncomfortably. She was tied to a hard chair and her body longed to move, just to get some feeling back into her legs. As soon as she had opened her eyes she knew that there was no chance of escape. She was tied up so tightly that just shifting her weight was difficult. What was she going to do? What the hell was she going to do?

Just then she heard the sound of someone making their way towards her quickly. Before she could even consider feigning sleep someone banged open the door and saw her.

"She's awake! Basta! SHE'S AWAKE!"

Basta was there in seconds, standing in the doorway just like he had that night when he had managed to get to her room. Smiling broadly he said, "Well now sleeping beauty, we were beginning to think that you would never wake up weren't we Slasher?"

Slasher just grinned stupidly. Brianna did not say a word; she didn't think she could trust herself to even open her mouth. However she did not take her eyes off Basta. Watching his every movement, she was desperately trying to find a way out of this mess but she was gripped by fear and her mind simply refused to function properly.

"Are we not feeling very chatty today?" asked Basta, his smile getting more and more pronounced. He was enjoying this but Brianna just bit her lip and glared at him. She could not let herself play his games, she would not give in.

"It was a struggle to get you all the way out here," he continued, "You know where you are I suppose?"

Still Brianna said nothing. She knew. The smell, the tools around her, she was in a charcoal burners' hut; which meant that she was in the Wayless Wood. If she had to guess, she was quite far into the wood as well judging by the sounds around her.

"A friend of yours was particularly……upset about you coming with us."

At these words Brianna felt her whole body tense and Basta saw it.

"His name was Cloud-dancer."

"What have you done to him?" She knew she was playing right into his hands but she didn't care anymore.

"Well, it's unfortunate really. If he had just done as we asked." Basta let out a dramatic sigh while Slasher just stood there still smiling that stupid smile. "Needless to say he didn't make it."

Time seemed to come to a halt. Oh no. Not Cloud-dancer. Please no. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't. He didn't make it. The words seemed to echo around the room.

"How- how could you?" Brianna managed to choke out. She expected the tears to come flooding but they did not. The shock and disbelief seemed to keep them at bay, for now.

Once again Basta smiled. "It was all over quickly if it makes you feel any better. Nothing like what I have planned for you," he said. "And your father," he added as an afterthought.

Basta and Slasher both left the room laughing, closing the door behind them and leaving her alone in the darkness. She was going to die. She was going to die and there was nothing she or anybody else could do about it. She was far away from the reach of the castle guards and the Black Prince would have no idea where she was. She could not even hope that her father would be able to reach her somehow. She had been so distant to both him and her mother that it was unlikely that they would even realise that she was missing.

That's when the tears came and despair took over.

Just so you all know i'm probably not going to do many more chapters after this i will end it over the next couple of chapters but the same again let me know what you thought of it because it was my first try and i realise its not perfect.