Awakening - Adriana

The rune engraved chains scorched Adriana’s skin like branding irons straight from a fire. Each symbol cut into the stone table beneath her flared white-hot, scorching through her flesh and bone to claw at something deeper within her. She bit down on the leather strap they wedged between her teeth until blood filled her mouth. She would not give Saeril the satisfaction of hearing her scream. “Yes, fascinating,” he said just beyond her teary view, his voice just as calm as ever. “This reaction is more peculiar every time. Notice how the magic responds to her mood, and her determination. It’s almost melodic.” She could hear quills scratching across parchment all around them as his assistants recorded every twitch from her body, and every gasp for air around the hard leather. Adriana tried to ignore the sounds and the magic forcing and searing its way through her veins, but the power kept pushing, like insistent, invisible fingers clawing for something hidden inside her. “Give her more,” he ordered. “It is time to push her beyond all of her previous limits.” Her world exploded, even from within the quiet place she focused on within her mind, a cry tore from her throat. It rang off the stone walls as the academics around her mumbled to each other, pleased with the results. Damn them all. Was her last thought before darkness took her. ⁂ A few mornings later, in her cell. She heard a cart with a squeaky wheel being pushed down the hall outside her door as the thin slots on them were pushed open before being slammed shut again. A tin bowl was pushed through the small opening in her door as the broth sloshed dangerously against the edges, spilling a few drops of the only meal she’d likely get that day. The sound had become her tolling of the new day starting. There were no birds, no bells. Only tired metal and boots, a bowl of broth, sometimes with bread if she was lucky, then silence. “Seven years,” she whispered to herself as she saw her reflection in the murky water. She sat up slowly and rolled the stiffness from her joints as bare straw rustled beneath her. The pile of old rags around her legs was heavy with mildew as she saw the new burns that ringed her wrists. She slowly brought the bowl to her mouth as the thin and gritty liquid scalded her dry throat. She drank it all anyway. She could have refused it, it might’ve been easier, but it would not achieve her goal. Across the hall she heard a dry, racking cough. She had learned his name a few days after he arrived, Michael. He was a baker, but six months he had been here. Longer than most she’s met through these steel doors, but every day is worse than the last, and she could hear him fading as the coughing gradually grew silent. “May your soul find peace.” She muttered to herself as she laid her head back against the stone wall behind her and a tear rolled down her face for the old baker. She sat there, still as she just listened to the ancient stone around her: the distant clang of hammers ringing out against steel, the shuffle of robed feet and the occasional yell from a fresh captive trying to escape, but they never get very far before their yells are cut short. She had learned the rhythms of the narrow world around her; the routine was the only thing that kept her mind together, she thought. A thin blade of gray light cut through a crack near the ceiling. She had learned to count the hours by its slow crawl across the wall, and the seasons by how far it wandered from her. In her time here, she had learned that the fortress she’d been held in had been built into the side of a large mountain, like a large stone growth. She had learned almost everything about this place, except how to leave. She still had dreams of her home, her family, and her brother laughing across the lake behind their old village. “He should be twenty-two now,” she reminded herself as she wondered if anyone back home still worried about her or if they had moved on like water does. The thoughts of her home did not sadden her, not like they used to. Instead, a small fleck of warmth blossomed within her. Focusing on it would warm her in the cold, damp cell, but too much would alert the guards on patrol. She was always dragged back to Saeril, or Eva when that happened. Their questions had grown stranger lately. In the most recent interrogation, Saeril asked about her dreams with something like a hunger in his voice. He got close enough in his excitement that she could smell the ink on his fingers as he scribbled every response she gave. “Tell me, in your dreams, do you see fire? Giant wings, or voices speaking in tongues you have never heard?” She lied, told them that her dreams are memories from home, like always. But she saw in Eva’s eyes, she knows she was not telling the truth. Adriana did her best to deceive them anyway, she did not know why, but her dreams had been burning lately. Flames that did not burn her skin, thundering voices that she could not understand and would not respond to her. Lately, though, there have been eyes like molten gold watching her. Both right next to her and impossibly far away at the same time. She set the empty bowl down and pulled her knees to her chest as she laid her head down and her breathing slowed. For a moment, with the warmth, the weight of her captivity, of years of her life taken away from her melted away. She could hear her father’s voice telling stories to her by firelight as her mother braided flowers into her hair. She could feel the summer sun on her skin as she ran through golden fields, laughing and impossibly free. She was pulled back to her reality as the sound of a key scraping in the lock as the door to her cell swung open slowly. Two guards stepped in, blocking what little light filtered in from the torches in the hallway. Using the wall for support, she pushed herself to her feet before they could force her. It was easier that way, as she learned very early here. The taller guard was silver at the temples with a nose still crooked from an angry headbutt when she first arrived. He carried the chain they always attached to her ankles and wrists, the cold iron bit into the fresh burns on her skin, but she refused to show them her pain. “You’ve been ‘ere longer than any others, girl, didn’t think ya had it in ya.” He muttered as he stood after locking the manacles. “I’ve been here long enough to remember when you had no silver in your hair and your nose was straight.” She replied as she stared straight ahead at a crack in the wall. The shorter, fatter guard snorted and yanked her chains forward as he stepped out of the cell. “Talking to it is a waste of breath.” “She,” the first guard corrected. “She’s still a person.” “For now,” the second grumbled as he yanked her into the hall. They marched her down the long hall as the sharp clips of their boots on the stone was muted slightly by the padding of her bare feet. Torches popped and hissed as she struggled to keep up with their pace as the chain rattled every few steps from being yanked forward. She tried to keep her head high, hair matted but still catching in the firelight. Hollow eyes or not, she refused to be broken. They guided her past cells where women sobbed, and men scratched at stone until their fingers bled. She had learned the stages they all go through: rage, bargaining or begging, then emptiness and giving up. Sometimes they took longer or came in different orders, but they all came, nonetheless. They turned and led her up a spiral stair at the end of the hall. The air chilled as they climbed. “I guess we’re in a tower, today.” She muttered to no one in particular. “Enough,” the fat guard snapped as he yanked on her chains again, unease filling his tone. The discomfort grew with every step they took. Gradually the smell of incense and dried blood filled the air. This was Saeril’s domain, she had rarely been taken to the upper floors, especially so soon after being returned to her cell. They finally crested the top and came to an intersection of three hallways. A worn statue stood watch in the center. Its face had long since worn away under its hood, in one hand it held a think tome and the other was over its heart. She imagined that maybe this statue used to comfort people, but no longer, not today. This was where her worst days happened. Adriana quickly looked down from the smooth face of the statue to the floor as she heard the clicking of heels approach them on the stone floors. From the corner of her eye, she saw the crimson robes flowing towards them as she gradually took their full figure in. Dark hair pulled tight, eyes like a winter sky, with a mouth that Adriana thinks never learned to smile or frown. Saeril’s chief assistant, and the one who always held her in place when she tried to escape the straps or chains holding her down, then would whisper an apology later. “You are late,” Eva scolded. “Apologies,” her taller escort stammered. “She’s moving a bit slower today.” Eva’s gaze slowly moved over Adriana, her thin frame disappearing under the rags draping her body. A flicker of something, maybe pity, maybe disgust showed on her face, before it quickly returned to normal. “This way,” she turned as she walked down the center hall, waving to follow her. “She’s to be brought to lab seven today.” “He has some new equipment he’s finished,” she glanced back at Adriana, “He’s excited to test it. But what about you, Adriana, have you felt any different? Have you noticed any strange dreams?” “I dream of my home,” she answered flatly. “Of my family and people who knew me, my name and not just a number on some record.” Eva’s jaw tightened at her response before she sighed. “Thank you for your answer, honesty makes it easier for everyone.” “Does it?” Adriana muttered. “Or does it help you sleep better, knowing how you’ve treated a child?” For a heartbeat, some emotion showed on Eva’s face, “You’re not a child.” She said as she stopped in front of a massive oak door, banded in iron. Runes crawled across its surface, glowing slightly with their approach as Eva opened it for them. Anymore… Adriana thought to herself as she shuffled inside with her escort behind her. The room was part surgical, part workshop and to Adriana, torture chamber. Sloped inward at the center as rows of seats were installed all around it, filled with more assistants as Eva took a seat right in the front. Saeril stood in the center, beside a steel slab with leather straps dangling from the sides, looking up at them as they walked in. Thick glass tubes filled with different cloudy liquids connected to tubes dangling with needles on their ends above the table. “Ah, you have arrived,” he said, curtly, with a slight bow and a smooth accent. “Right on time. It appears I was right to call you up here earlier than planned, you’ve clearly experienced something, even if you think you can lie to us.” His pale blue eyes seemed to look straight through her, through any resistance she may have. “Today, the goal is to learn why.” Adriana said nothing to him, but she could feel the warmth in her chest rising with her anger and defiance towards him. Saeril simply smiled back at her. “Yes,” he whispered, eyes bright with his terrible excitement. “Let’s find out what you really are.” The guards behind her shoved her forward, towards the steel table waiting in the center of the room. They quickly undid the manacles binding her ankles and wrists before pushing her to sit on the table before laying her back and binding the straps around her arms and legs. “Make sure they are tight this time,” Saeril flatly reminded them as he slowly brought the needles down, pushing one in each arm. A strap quickly found its way across her forehead before the guards were shooed out of the room. Saeril slowly circled her once, inspecting his work. “My previous methods barely scratched the surface of what I’ve been searching for.” He started narrating to everyone around them as quills started scratching. “This will force our subjects’ body to react in much more powerful ways than we’ve ever seen.” “Instead of blindly filling them with magic like before, this uses an extracted and condensed magic, straight from our source.” As he finished his sentence the liquid in the tanks began to drip into her arms. Cold at first, then heat exploded across her body. Not like the familiar comforting warmth she’s used to in the privacy of her cell, this was rougher, heavier. This was like molten stone poured straight into her bones. Her jaw clenched until she felt them start cracking, refusing to scream. “That’s it, breathe through it.” She barely heard through the roaring in her ears. Pain clawed its way up her spine, the air became thicker, impossible to breathe. She coughed as she tasted smoke deep within her throat, but nothing came out. Her vision darkened at the edges. Then, for a heartbeat she was not there. She stood on a plain of black glass beneath a sky split by four massive pillars of flame. A great shadow moved through each of the fires with wings wider than any mountains. Then it was gone. A scream ripped from deep inside her as her back arched off the table. Heat was pouring off her in visible waves as the needles began to glow. “Yes, things are progressing nicely.” She saw Saeril whisper to himself out of the corner of her vision. “Time for more.” The heat within her became an inferno. Adriana’s vision narrowed to a single spot above her as she felt her own warmth start to mix with whatever else was inside her. For the first time, she could not stop it, hide it or begin to force it back down. Flames began to lick along her arms without burning her skin. They danced in the same color as the molten gold eyes that watched her. One of the glass tubes above her shattered, raining the rest of its contents and broken shards across her on the table. "Yes, this is it!" Saeril scribbled furiously as he stepped forward, leaning over her. “What I’ve—” The flames surged higher across her body. The cuff on her right wrist blacked immediately and split, allowing her hand to come free. It shot up, catching him by the front of his robe, pulling him down. For a single impossible second their faces were inches apart as her rage grew. His pale eyes stared back into hers calmly. The lack of fear from him drove her anger even higher before there was nothing there at all. The flames vanished as the heat inside her sputtered and dissipated with her strength as she went limp. Saeril straightened himself and patted down his singed robes as a thin line of blood ran from his nose. “Remarkable,” he whispered. “Eva, double the restraints on the table, thicken them too. Prepare for an even heavier dose next time.” The guards returned to the room quietly, unstrapping her and loading her onto a stretcher. “As soon as she recovers, bring her back here.” Adriana drifted in and out of consciousness as she was hauled back to her cell before being tossed onto the pile of straw in the corner where she finally let sleep claim her.

End of published story