by Terah Edun
Thieves that she could have done something about,, had she warned her family.
Mae had thought she’d known best, that she’d had a plan.
Cure the girls first. Deal with the mercenaries, who were supposed to leave, later.
Nothing had gone according to her desires.
Just thinking about what her family, who’d been taken by complete surprise, was enduring sent miserable chills through her. It was also that pain which told her to stop whining and focus. To use the anguish and set it to a purpose. So, Mae pushed herself harder. She tried to keep her trembling arms from giving in and her hands locked on that hook, the only thing that was keeping her from falling.
Then, she decided what she was going to do about that chandelier, because despite the fact that death would be a release from the persistent ache of this unusual torture, she didn’t exactly want to die just yet.
So, Mae tried to figure out how to get out of her new predicament and keep a teetering chandelier from falling on her head at the same time.
It could be worse, Mae thought doubtfully as she wondered just how that was possible.
But hope was a funny thing. It made her look at her misfortune in a new light. She had after all managed to free herself from hanging upside down like a plucked duck, then maybe she could get lucky once more and get out of this new mess.
Bolstered, Mae took a tiny peek up again, careful to keep her head from moving too quickly and the rest of her body as still as she could.
No sudden movements.
Nothing to jerk the chain she held tightly off-balance and send her crashing to the floor unexpectedly.
Just calmness as she held her breath nervously and studied the architecture above her. She quickly saw that the combined shifting from her weight had caused it to destabilize. The question was, was it enough to come crashing down with her along with it? The noisy sound of metal shearing off above her was unmistakable and Mae squinted her eyes to see that it wasn’t actually the chain anchoring the chandelier to the ceiling that she should be worried about, but the ceiling itself.
One particular anchor point for the chandelier, a flat piece of metal with bolts holding it in place, had come undone. As she watched, another bolt unfastened from the ceiling with a ping as it too fell away under the strain.
Mae held her breath nervously as the creaking sound of stress rising on the other metal anchor points, of which there were four, grew louder. The first anchor point was a goner, but the other four were currently keeping the whole chandelier…and her with it, from crashing down.
She tried to stay as still as possible, but all her momentum from earlier still had her swinging a bit.
Back.
Forth.
Back again.
Until she slowed down towards the center and breathed a sigh of relief.
It was over. The four other anchors were holding and she was still.
Then, with no warning, the chandelier gave the most horrifying sound Mae could imagine and a piece of it snapped off. The same piece that had been tied to the broken anchor point.
She didn’t have time to wonder why or how. She just noticed this heavily weighted branch was coming straight for her.
Horror filled her gaze as she realized exactly what that meant. Still she didn’t let go. She didn’t have much of a choice if she wanted to keep living. Mae counted her blessings that the falling branch moved quickly, because not even a few seconds later she heard a sharp crack as pain shot through her right hand like it had been squeezed between a vice and snapped off. Mae wasn’t even bothering to hide her sobs now. It hurt so much, but despite the pain, she didn’t let go. Instead, she reached up with her trembling left hand and gripped the chain at the base of the chandelier with all her strength.
Through tears, as she looked down at her mangled right hand, Mae realized that it was useless. Desperate now, she peered back up as new creaks sounded. Mae’s breath caught in the back of her throat in horror as she looked and saw the two anchor points closest to the one which had come completely undone were now following their predecessor’s ways.
With three of the anchor points released she wouldn’t have to worry about a broken hand. Her entire body would be crushed on the floor below.
Paler than ever, Mae thought it’s now or never.
She swung back her legs with a mighty kick and arched forward.
Not far enough! She thought desperately.
“One more,” Mae said to herself out loud as every second that passed mattered.
She didn’t hesitate. She just swung her legs back again and this time she put every ounce of strength in her swing forward and aimed for the cornice along the wall. A small statute jutted out at an angle long enough that she could grab it. If she could reach it, this would necessitate the most terrifying leap of faith she had ever made, but Mae knew this was her only option.
Hair swinging and a frantic look in her eyes, as she knew how much this mattered, Mae let go of the chain holding her up so that she could grab at the cornice with her free hand.
For a moment she hung weightless in the air.
Between safety and death.
Behind her she heard the whooshing sound of the chandelier branch falling off to the floor and before her was her stone perch.
Her hand desperately outstretched, Mae felt the breath rush out of her as her stomach hit the edge of the statue’s snout with enough force that she knew there would be a mighty bruise. But she didn’t care as her one hand grasped at the back of the statue, her front plastered to its side as much as she could and her other hand was looped around its leg with her fingers careful not to touch anything else.
Behind her she heard the sound of the chandelier’s fall to the ground where it promptly shattered into what sounded like a thousand pieces. But she couldn’t focus on that now. She was straining not to fall as her feet scrambled the slick stone of the wall to find purchase, or at least enough stability so that she could brace herself against the bricks while her hand kept clutching at the statue enough for it to hold her up.
It worked.
For now.
As sweat dripped down her brow, Mae realized she couldn’t move without disturbing her precarious position. She couldn’t wait either. She needed to get down and look for the others.
Just as she was thinking on a plan as to how to go about doing that, a voice shouted up at her incredulously.
“What are you doing?” they said.
Mae froze in a mockery of a monkey clinging to a tree branch. It was quite clear she was hanging on for dear life if the person had eyes. But she couldn’t be in a worse position if she wanted to defend herself.
Well, that’s not true, she thought with sarcasm. I could still be hanging upside down by my ankles like a plucked chicken.
“Hey! You can hear, can’t you?” the voice said in a persistent tone.
Mae clutched the stone statue tighter as she thought about her options and found that she didn’t have many.
Hoping to buy some more time, she said, “You can see, can’t you?”
There was silence from below. So either the person was preparing to shoot her in the back with some kind of projectile or they would watch from where they were. Either way, Mae was on her own two stories above the ground floor while her present circumstances prevented her from smoothly turning around and confronting whoever it was.
Grimacing at her dislike of her positioning, she hesitantly relaxed her hold over the back of the statue’s raised form with her maimed hand. She didn’t like loosening her grip, but she thought she could reach the wall hook to the left. It was supposed to act as a bracket used to hold curtains and such back from the windows on this side of the room…away from the balcony she’d escaped down days before. Today those windows were empty of anything resembling curtains and the round bracket would be perfect to anchor her arm through by the elbow knowing she still couldn’t touch anything with her hand.
If she hitched herself onto the brac
ket and it could hold her weight at least momentarily, then she could scramble onto the broad window ledge with her good hand.
There, Mae thought, impressed despite herself. Now that sounds like a plan.
Swallowing deeply and making the leap before she could tell herself she was being a fool, she let go of the statute and pushed off simultaneously.
Her hand outstretched towards the bracket, she brushed it briefly but couldn’t get a grip. Not with her hand mangled as it was.
With a short scream Mae fell to her death a second time, but this time there wasn’t anything for her to grab onto and stop her fall.
3
A scream was yanked from her mouth by the very air itself before she could vocalize it.
Mae felt herself falling. Her body angled to the side even as she plummeted, so that her front and head were at least partially protected. But she knew that nothing she did would protect her from that crushing blow as the cold stone floor rose up to meet her with punishing quickness.
It was to her surprise however to feel a harsh wind billow up out of nothing. One second the air was still and in the next, it was turning and moving in a furious funnel of wind and air all around her.
Caught in the middle of the air vortex which had come out of nowhere, Mae couldn’t do anything but flail about as she was spun about the middle of the room. Her hair was whipping around her so fast and into her eyes that she couldn’t see. Even if tears from her stinging eyes weren’t being dragged from her eye sockets, she couldn’t breath because the air itself was moving too fast to gasp. Her breathing troubles weren’t her only concern. Her maimed hand felt like it was being tortured in the fierce current until she managed to expend all her energy in dragging that arm inward for shelter against her chest. After that, there was nothing she could do but float in a spiral of air as she waited for the wind tunnel to settle down…or for it drop her, whichever came first.
She was hoping that would be soon but nothing seemed to be moving at a pace she could understand. Mae also couldn’t tell one way from the other, she just kept turning like a spinning top.
She only knew she was down when her feet felt solid ground as the air beneath her abruptly dropped away and she fell to the floor. Promptly collapsing onto bruised knees, Mae winced and tried not to cry out. She wouldn’t give whomever it was, who had sat by and watched her discomfort, the pleasure.
At least that’s what she told herself as she gritted her teeth and looked into the eyes of her viewer. She flinched when she met his gaze. It was like it all came back in that moment.
A rush of memories so fast that she only saw selections of one before another crashed into its place.
The clearing. Surrounded by mercenaries and him holding her back.
Before that. The hallway off the great hall and bumping into a rude, sarcastic foreigner.
Today. Or was it yesterday? She wondered. The day he had betrayed her and her entire family.
“Well, you don’t have anything to say to the person who has saved your scrawny life twice now?” the young man said as he looked down at her with strange eyes and a raised brow.
Her captor. Her savior.
“You,” Maeryn Darnes spat out with hatred in her voice as she recognized one of the many people she never wanted to see again unless their body lay on an unlit pyre.
She couldn’t say anything else. He might have been her savior, but he was also the reason she was in this mess in the first place. Well, him and his mistress.
“Me,” replied Rivan with a conflicted look in his eyes.
If she thought he would be apologetic about his role in her family’s destruction, she was sadly mistaken. She could see by his gaze that he was unrepentant. In fact, the longer he looked at her the more she saw his expression transition from pained to disgust and boredom. That was Mae’s last straw. She didn’t care if she was sore and bruised, weak and frail, delirious with hunger and dehydrated. She would kill him if that was the last thing she did. The only thing she wanted right now was to wrap her hands around his throat and squeeze so hard that his face turned purple. Not willing to deny herself this, and wanting revenge for her family above all else, Mae lunged forward to choke the life out of him.
If she had been thinking properly, she might have used his surprise appearance to get him on her side. Maybe even free her from this room and sneak her out of the greater holding itself. Which was sweet irony seeing as she had wanted nothing more than to return here in the first place and had begged and pleaded her way into coming home. Now that she was faced with one of her oppressors however, she couldn’t help it. Her mind was overwhelmed with the need for vengeance even if her attempts to fight back were more pathetic than successful. As soon as she rose halfway up, her weak legs gave out from under her and she fell back to the floor with punishing quickness.
For his part, Rivan looked highly unimpressed.
Undeterred Mae got up again and this time she raised her hand back for a quick slap.
He stepped back with one foot, and caught her upraised hand with his own.
That was alright, she was already swinging with the other mangled hand. He flinched at her clearly broken and torn flesh coming for his face.
Out of disgust, she thought.
That was alright, her broken hand would be the instrument with which she would make him blind, a far worse deformity and more one permanent at that. To her irritation however she couldn’t quite reach him. He ducked away and brushed her arm off to the side, careful not to touch her bloodied flesh as he did it.
She expected her arm to still be hurt in the encounter. His glancing blow when he cast her aside with a deft block at her elbow, should have sent reverberations down into her hand and had her practically crippled with pain. But it didn’t. Mae couldn’t stop and ponder this interesting development though. She was running on fumes and fury. If she stopped, she would collapse in an exhausted puddle unable to do anything and that just wouldn’t do.
Retaliation was on her mind and he was the focus of her attention.
And so they set up what ended up to be practically a dance.
She would lunge forward to dart her fingers into his eyes and claw at his neck, all she could really do with no real weapon, and with boredom in every gesture he would weave and dart around her. Not really acting against her, but countering her blows.
She noticed soon enough that he wasn’t even harried as he did it. More than once, she stumbled from pain and confusion and she even felt his hand on her waist and on her lower arm, steadying her so that her fall wasn’t too great.
Just as he’d done with his winds and his magic, she thought in despair.
She wasn’t relieved because his ‘caring’ light touches were just one more sign of his mockery to her. It was his way of saying that no matter how angry she got, no matter what she did, he was always one step ahead of her.
He’s picking me up just so he can play with me even more! She thought infuriated…and exhausted. I’m just his entertainment.
She wanted more. She wanted to wipe that sardonic look off his face and as she thought more about it, a darkness seemed to rise within her. It clustered around her heart and when she hesitated at its presence, it shrunk back. But soon enough it would come out.
Not yet but soon, Mae mused.
Maybe not ever she wondered as she saw a quick expression cross Rivan’s face and for a moment she could have sworn she had seen pity. If she kept up like this, she’d collapse on her feet before she got any revenge. But she didn’t know what else to do. The generous emotions on his face weren’t helping either. He actually looked like he cared, that is when he couldn’t keep the mask of boredom in place at all times.
Her stomach roiled at the thought.
She didn’t need pity from him! Especially considering the details she was only noticing now that they had danced together for what seemed like minutes. He was wearing new clothes. Ones that had her family’s signature stitch about the collar. Mae couldn’t be
lieve her eyes. Whatever weakness that was within her before drained away then, and rage rose up that paled at what she had felt before.
She was livid and she lunged at him, slapping with both hands.
Despite the horrific injury to one hand. She was blinded by fury, tears stinging her eyes, heart aching, and punishment above all desired in her mind. He countered her ineffectual slaps with practiced parries. Pushing her hands out of the way and away from his face as if he could read every move in her mind before she made it.
It was then that something changed.
Something within her.
Whatever she had been pushing back and locking away, rose again.
This time Mae didn’t have the presence of mind to restrain it, she didn’t care if it escaped if it helped her enact her vengeance. The darkness rose in her heart unchecked and spread throughout her body.
A physical change seemed to come over her then. She didn’t grow more adept at fighting or moving in the dance of combat, but the energy that had been barely a thimble in her limbs before became a roaring fire, something not built on rage. It was something else. Something that felt like she’d never be exhausted and powerless again. If she had been thinking rationally, she would have questioned it. Nothing that promised endless, boundless energy was ever a good thing. A human being always had their limits. But in that moment, she wasn’t feeling human at all. Out of the corners of her eyes, Mae saw sparks all along her arms. Her sleeves had been ripped away. Perhaps in preparation for Donna Marie and Ava’s torturous castings or maybe while she’d been scrambling around trying not to fall to her death as a heavy chandelier came crashing down above her. But whatever the case, she could see the glow clearly now and it was beautiful. Bright streaks of orange, at once as dark as the rust on an old iron anvil and as bright as some of the wild berries she gathered in the forest when bored. Seeing them claw up her arm like little spokes of lighting delighted her when it should have frightened her.
The orange spokes weren’t even and they didn’t flash in unity. Some would appear with a fierce glow on her upper arms and disappear before a longer, flickering tongue made its way down from her shoulder to the crook of her elbow. The show would start all over again but this time with more and more tongues forking until they grew long enough to reach her wrist. Even though most of her attention was focused on Rivan, where he was moving, how to get there one step behind him, she saw it growing and it amazed her.