“Anwen, please open the door, I need to talk to you,” I added in hope that it might persuade her to look upon me with a kinder eye.
I heard shuffling and metal clicking as the handle moved and the door cracked open with no Anwen in sight, so I pushed it wider and hurried in. I had visibility into the room and towards the open archway into the kitchen, but she was nowhere near. I took another step and fully entered the house, walking slowly and trying to discover my role in whatever this was. Unfortunately, the painful discovery came when I turned towards the wall and she jumped at me from behind the door where she had stayed hidden, raising a black object. I was too stunned to react and by the time I realised what was happening, the iron pipe hit me fully in the temple, causing me to fall to the floor where my head hit another hard object. I wondered if she planned my fall or the banging of my head was pure coincidence. I did not have time to develop a full thought when my eyelids gave out and I drifted away while something warm soaked my hair. I felt the tangy metallic smell before I lost consciousness. Blood.
I awoke with a sharp pain, a strong pulsation at the back of my neck squeezed tightly, too tight, causing my head to pump blood into the wound at a fast rate. I needed to release whatever kept my head hostage to the ache, but as soon as I tried to raise my hands, I felt a sharp burn, like molten liquid poured onto my skin. Someone around me released startled noises and with it, I struggled to push my eyes open, my eyelids lead-heavy. I only saw shreds of the person in front of me.
“Thank all the gods you're alive!” I heard a female voice, stepping closer to me. Anwen, I recognised her melodious cadence of tone. She sounded scared. Why was she scared?
“My head hurts,” I mumbled through the pain.
“I know, I am sorry,” she crouched close to me but remained at a safe distance. Between blinks and turning my head to the side in very slow movements, I realised that I laid on a settee. Laid wasn’t quite the right word. I was chained to one. Iron chains, I confirmed as my skin touched them again, releasing steam from the scorched skin.
“You know…” I whispered, words barely escaping my mouth but my surroundings turned dark.
Someone shook me awake, my head bobbing back and forth as Anwen repeated my name over and over, ordering me to wake up. I struggled to obey her command to find her standing over me, hands on my shoulders as she kept jolting my neck from side to side, making my body shake and my wound expel more blood.
“I am tired,” I sighed. “Pain,” I barely pronounced and my eyes dipped shut. With the iron chains stopping my flow of energy, I did not get enough to heal the wounds, and by the scared look on her face and the wetness on the back of my shirt, I was bleeding heavily.
“No, you can heal this, I know you can, I read about it,” she implored. I forced my head to raise just enough to look at her and by the goddess, even when she was trying to kill me she still made me smile. I gazed upon her worried face and saw that she cared, maybe more than she realised, the concern genuine. As I took her in, a slap shifted my face to the side and I heard her say, “Stop smirking you idiot and heal yourself.”
“I can’t,” I replied honestly, my hands fighting the instinct to cover my now sore cheek to avoid further burn from the iron chains.
“Why? Just do it, I know you can,” she demanded while her hands arranged the hair on my face, removing it from my forehead to give me a better view of her.
“There’s iron against my torso, fahrenor, I can barely breathe,” I mouthed and on cue, my lungs wheezed a tortured breath.
“If I remove the chains from your chest, will you heal? And swear not to grow strong and attack me?” her view shifted to mine, analysing my reaction.
“I promise,” I whispered and let my head fall back on the pillow she had placed for me, waiting to either be able to gasp more air or fall back from consciousness. In less than a minute, after I heard chains rattling, release flooded my lungs. They filled with much needed air and I sucked in deep breaths, the pressure fading away. I closed my eyes and laid back, focusing on breathing.
The smell of food tickled my nostrils and made me open my eyes. Most of the pain had disappeared and whatever squeezed my head was removed, my hair tied back in some kind of bun. I blinked several times to take my setting in, disappointed not to find Anwen by my side. Judging by the noise and smell coming from the kitchen, she must have been cooking for a while. I took the time to look around me and adjust to the new situation. She knew about me and by some coincidence, the woman had iron chains handy to immobilize me on the sofa. Luckily, only my hands and feet remained tied up and she had made sure that neither chain touched directly onto my skin. I looked down to see my feet wrapped in socks, a weird lavender colour, long enough to cover my skin all the way up to my ankles. I would not complain, anything looked better than open wounds.
My hands were wrapped in the shirt I had worn, which was covered in blood and twisted onto my hands and part of my arms, tied up with various knots along with the iron chains resting over the sleeves. I found myself shirtless and tied up by Anwen, a potentially interesting situation were it not for her thinking I wanted to harm her. By the table, a glass of water laid set for me so I stretched my arms and tried to reach it, but I had no fingers free so I ended up spilling it across a lot of magazines and papers.
I looked to the door where a trail of blood remained smeared on the wall, then followed the stains to find them splayed out on what remained of a small table. That is what must have hit my head. So how did I end up on the sofa, a few meters away from the gory scene? I checked the floor to see a trail of blood smeared across the parquet until it reached the place where I sat in. She must have carried me.
“Anwen?” I called for her, pointing my stare towards the kitchen in hope that she would come out of the room with softer features. I saw her taking slow but decisive steps toward me, then sat on the chair opposite mine, her gaze fixed on the water I had spilt just seconds earlier.
“Are you going to live?” she looked back at me with rough features.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Good,” she stated and stood, heading back towards the kitchen.
“Anwen?” I called her again. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you.”
The room lingered silent for so long I thought her answer would never come.
“You are not sorry you didn’t tell me. You are sorry I found out,” she replied as she came out with the same iron pipe that had wounded me earlier. She retook her seat on the chair, her wrists shaking at the weight of the newly acquired weapon as she squeezed it tight and waved it in the air between us.
“I will ask questions, and you will answer. If you try any magic on me, I will hit you in the head again, I do not care if you die. Do you understand?”
I nodded, deciding it was best to keep silent until she allowed me some time to explain myself and convince her that she had absolutely no reason to fear me.
“Tell me the truth about the first day, why did you kidnap me?” Anwen demanded as her wrists barely sustained the weight of the object she threatened me with.
“You were attacked by another fae, one renowned for its wickedness. On the first day I arrived in the district, it appeared at my home and threatened to turn you into a blood sacrifice. I couldn’t let that happen.” She looked scared enough already, I did not feel the need to give more details about Rhylan and what he could do to her, to all of us, if he felt like it.
“Why did you kiss me? Why come close to me?” she asked as she struggled to process the information I had just given her.
