Arranged by Jessica Spears Page A

her chin bravely. "Then let me go."
    His grew silent, watching her. "I cannot."
    She felt hot tears threaten again. "Then why am I here?" she asked in a shaky voice.
    He growled softly as he stood, straightening himself. "For now, you are a prisoner. You killed a Vidarian warrior."
    "Killed?!" She gasped. "I killed no one!"
    He studied her for a moment crossing his arms over his chest, "I hope you are right. You will remain here until the council has decided your fate." With that, he turned on his heel and left the cell.
    The door closed behind him and she listened as a bar slid into place. He had left the lantern behind. She quickly grabbed it, her chains clattering as she moved. Her hands shook as she turned the flame down to save the oil.
    She felt a little better now that she could see, but she was unnerved by that creature. She chewed over what he had told her. They thought she murdered one of them. They probably meant the body in the ravine.
    It was an accident! Her mind screamed. It was chasing me…
    She sucked in a shuddering breath. Would they believe her? Would they even ask her side of the story? Her eyes searched her stone prison as she lifted the lantern to help her see. There was no way to escape when her legs were chained to the wall. The cell was large enough to house more prisoners than herself. Chains decorated the walls; however, no one else was in with her. For that she was thankful. Who knew what manner of creature she'd be imprisoned with.
    The walls surrounding her were damp and cold. It was obvious she was in a dungeon. She shivered, fighting the bone-cold that suddenly swept through her. She should have never run away. She should have stayed and tried to reason with her uncle again.
    Her mind wandered to James. How could her uncle be so foolish as to think that she would ever agree to marry him? She wondered briefly if they had discovered that she was missing yet or if it was still too early for them to be awake. It was impossible to tell time when locked in a room with no windows. Even if it had windows, she was in a cave; she highly doubted the sun made an appearance in here.
    Fighting to keep her mind from hopelessness, she brought the lantern to her ankle. It was definitely broken. It hung limply to the side and her ankle was beginning to turn a sickly green color. She grit her teeth in pain as her fingers grazed it. She had no idea how to set bones or splint so that it could heal. She had no supplies to work with. Then it hit her, she was going to die.
    Her shoulders sank with a new heaviness. She had realized it before, but now she had a moment to ponder over it. These creatures would not listen to her; they would kill her and probably eat her, drinking her blood like the vampires she'd heard in legends from William, her father's friend. Even the thought of his kind face did nothing to sooth her. She tried to direct her mind elsewhere, but it was no use. She rubbed her hands quickly up and down her arms, but the cold seeped all the way through her.
    She shivered violently as she wrapped her arms around herself. They had taken her cloak. What she wouldn't do for it now. The heavy material would feel heavenly. The thought of warmth only made her colder. Tears demanded to be released, but she fought them back. She couldn't lose it. She had to stay alert to every opportunity to escape. That was her only hope.
    Sleep came, but it was not the blissful escape that she had hoped for. Instead, she had nightmares of being led to some strange altar and sacrificed. She constantly woke from one dream, only to fall into another, her hope for sanity diminishing with each dream.
    Qwinn grit his teeth, his hand tightening around his goblet of wine as he thought of what the council was demanding. It was true that one of his best men was found dead in a ravine. They had found his body cold against the rocks. As his men set on a quest to bring the body back to the city to be given a proper burial, the council had