Page 59 of Crown of Storm and Silence
When evening falls, someone lights the great bonfire in the center of the square. The flames leap high, casting dancing shadows on the surrounding buildings and turning familiar faces into flickering masks of light and dark. Musicians begin toplay—fiddles and drums and pipes that call to something primal in the blood.
"Come on," Banu says, grabbing my hand. "Let's dance!"
I let her pull me into the circle of dancers, my body moving instinctively to the rhythm. The music is infectious, spirited, and I find myself spinning and clapping along with the rest of the village. My earlier melancholy evaporates in the warmth of community and celebration.
Banu is a wonderful dancer, light on her feet and graceful in a way that makes her seem to float rather than step. She spins me around, her laughter bright as silver bells, and for a moment I forget everything except the joy of movement and music.
The faces around us blur together as we dance—smiling villagers, rosy-cheeked children, elderly couples moving with the practiced ease of decades together. The firelight makes everything dreamlike, magical, as if we've stepped into a fairy tale.
"I need a drink," Banu pants after a particularly energetic reel. "All this spinning is making me dizzy!"
"Water for me," I call after her, pressing a hand to my belly. The baby has been active all evening, seeming to enjoy the music and movement as much as I do.
She waves acknowledgment and disappears into the crowd, leaving me standing at the edge of the dancing circle. The music continues, couples and groups forming and reforming in the ancient patterns, but I'm content to watch for a moment, catching my breath.
That's when the hand closes over my mouth.
The grip is iron-strong, cutting off my scream before it can form. An arm wraps around my waist, lifting me bodily off my feet. I struggle instinctively, but whoever has me is inhumanly strong, and the crowd is too focused on the dancing to notice one figure being dragged into the shadows.
Something hard strikes the back of my head, and darkness swallows everything.
Consciousness returns slowly,bringing with it the taste of copper and decay. My head throbs where something struck me, and when I try to move, metal clinks against stone. Chains. My wrists are bound in heavy shackles that seem to drain the warmth from my skin wherever they touch.
The chamber around me is a nightmare made manifest. Ancient stone walls weep with moisture and something darker, while the air hangs thick with the stench of old blood and human suffering. Iron hooks dangle from the ceiling, some empty, others bearing burdens that make my stomach clench with horror.
Bodies hang inverted like grotesque fruit—some still moving weakly, others long past any earthly concerns. Beneath each one, dark stains have soaked into the stone floor in patterns that speak of years, perhaps decades of use. The floor beneath me is sticky with congealed blood, some of it old enough to have turned black, some still red enough to gleam wetly in the dim light filtering through barred windows.
And there, in the corner where shadows gather thickest, a small form that makes my heart stop completely.
A child. A little girl who can't be more than six, her tiny wrists bound with the same draining chains that hold me. She's unconscious, her face pale as porcelain, while something feeds from the small wounds that dot her throat and wrists. Her small chest barely rises and falls, each breath a struggle against the life being slowly drained from her.
"No," I breathe, struggling against my bonds with desperate strength. "No, please, not a child?—"
The chains bite deeper into my wrists as I struggle, and I can feel my magic being pulled away like water down a drain. Whatever metal these shackles are made from, they're designed specifically to contain creatures like me. The golden warmth that usually lives beneath my skin feels distant, muffled, almost unreachable.
My baby kicks frantically against my ribs, sensing the wrongness of this place, the danger that surrounds us.
"It's going to be all right," I murmur, though my voice shakes with terror.
But even as I speak the words, I know how hollow they sound in this place of death and suffering.
"Ah, you're awake." A figure materializes from the shadows like a nightmare given form—a pale creature with dark hair and a long, gaunt face that tapers to a pointed chin. His features are sharp and unsettling, like someone had carved them from bone with too much calculation. "Excellent. I was beginning to worry I'd been too... enthusiastic with my greeting."
Around him, other shapes move in the darkness—pale figures with eyes like burning coals, their movements too fluid, too wrong. They circle me like sharks scenting blood, and I realize with crystal clarity exactly what kind of nest I've stumbled into.
Obur. A whole coven of them, and I'm chained helplessly in the center of their feeding ground.
20
UNBORN TERROR
Neslihan
"Let me go,"I demand, though my voice cracks with terror. "Let the child go. We've done nothing to you."
"Done nothing?" The dark-haired creature laughs, the sound echoing off the stone walls. It isn’t just laughter—it’s the kind that vibrates through marrow, that seems to live in the walls themselves, like the dungeon has learned to mimic his cruelty. "My dear, sweet creature, you exist. That is crime enough." He kneels beside me, his pale hand settling on my belly with possessive hunger. His touch is cold—so cold that my skin prickles and tightens under his palm. The scent of earth and old blood clings to his skin, suffocating me with every shallow breath. "Do you know what grows within you? Can you feel the power that pulses with each heartbeat?"
The baby kicks frantically against my ribs, as if sensing the wrongness surrounding us. Each sharp jab feels like a plea, a signal that the innocent life inside me already knows death is closing in. Terror coils in my gut, mixing with the raw ache of helplessness until I can barely breathe. I curl protectivelyaround my belly, trying to shield the life within from whatever madness gleams in the leader's pale eyes.
