Page 5 of Hex
I took my eyes off the prize and momentarily forgot about the second harpy, who is now behind me, breathing down my neck. It’s gross. With every breath out, splatters of something wet hit my skin and I have to suppress my gag.
“Ugh, say it, don’t spray it.” I don’t suppress my opinion, though. My entire body feels too sluggish to make a run for it and I’m fucked either way. May as well say what I mean. “Hack will find me. You know, one of the Four Horsemen of the freaking Apocalypse. Yeah. So I’ll go with you to your silly little cell, but you won’t keep me there for long.”
The cackle from the two harpies is like pure evil, making the space we’re in feel huge and empty with the echo bouncing off the walls. It’s not even a little comforting.
“This mountain is warded. But keep that hope alive and see how far it gets you.” The angry one behind me spits out her words, much like her breaths, and quickly grips my arms. With a rough tug, she ties a rope around my wrists behind my back, scratching at my skin with her sharp, claw-like hands.
The nicer of the two, Mera, I think, snaps her beak together and sighs as she leans into me. “You’re going to help create a new world, so just do as we say and you’ll be fine.”
“You won’t, but if my sister’s words make you comply, believe what you will. Ha.” The ‘ha’ sounds like a bird caw and it sends a chill up my spine.
She pushes me again, forcing me to walk forward into the darkness. It doesn’t take too long for my eyes to adjust, and the farther away from the candles and stone altar thing we get, the easier it becomes to see my surroundings. The angry harpy said something about a mountain being warded, so it stands to reason that the walls are all hard rock, potentially a lot of earth,but it’s too dark to tell for sure. There are a lot of jagged, rough surfaces but it doesn’t take long before things brighten up a little. Though, I kinda wish they hadn’t.
A long, narrow cave is lit up by a few burning candles shoved haphazardly into cracks in the walls. On each side, there are three openings with metal bars.
These are clearly the cells they were talking about.
How fun.
I’m still wearing the dress I died in, and it’s only now that I’m realizing the rotting stench is partially coming from me. My body is fine, it just hasn’t been washed for two weeks, and neither has my dress or my underwear…ugh.
“I don’t suppose there’s a shower around here so I can freshen up a little?”
The harpies ignore me, but I do hear a light twinkling of a chuckle coming from one of the cells.
Stopping in front of a set of thick iron bars, too close together to fit a body through—regretfully. Although, I’ll probably still give it a try when the harpies fuck off—Mean Harpy takes a key attached to her long skirt and places it in the lock. For the first time, I look down, seeing my own battered toes from the rough edges of the ground, and that’s when I notice the bird feet beneath the skirts. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that.
“We will bring you food and water to sustain your body until we need you.” Mera gives a little smile before Mean Harpy pushes me, yet again, into a space no bigger than my old bathroom.
“Behave.” Mean Harpy snarls, or the equivalent of a snarl with her beak, before she slams the door made of iron bars closed and locks it.
Neither of them give me a second glance as they walk off, their bird feet clattering against the rock terrain.
There’s a chill in the air, a damp one. Must be the constant water droplets every few minutes. Sounds like there’s a pool of water somewhere that it’s falling into. A threadbare blanket sits in the corner of my cell—which isn’t actually a corner because it’s more circular than anything—and there’s also a metal bucket on the opposite side. The lap of luxury…
Sighing deeper than I have ever sighed, I lower myself to the ground, onto what seems to be a yoga mat beneath the blanket. At least there’s that.
My hands are still tied behind my back, making this way more uncomfortable than it needs to be, but my feet hurt too much to stay standing. I think I liked it better as a spirit.
The rope burns my wrists as I try to wriggle my way out of it, thankful, at least, that I wasn’t restrained by something a lot less flexible. I’m trying to stay optimistic because I can’t be so unlucky that I’d die, only to be brought back to die again so soon…
Ooh…I was brought back…supposedly with some new knowledge. With a deep breath in through my nose, then out through my mouth, I search my mind for something that can help me out of this. Some kind of spell…anything?
Why did I think this would be easy?
“Come on, Sage.Think.” The ropes are beginning to loosen a little with my twisting and pulling, which is a good thing because I’m sure there’s no magical spell to unbind ropes—not one I’m able to do without a heap of ingredients.
My energy is depleting as time goes on, and I’m not surprised. It doesn’t stop my struggling to get out of these damn ropes yet, though.
“Psst.”
The noise makes me jump and I can’t decide whether I’m happy to hear a normal voice in here or not.
“Hello?” My curiosity often wins out over logic. I’m self-aware.
“Ah, English. Good to know. I’m Saffron. A faerie princess.” The sweet voice travels through the cavernous space, but I can’t see anyone.
Other than the firelight outside of the cell, we’re in darkness.
