Whether it was a side-effect of passing out or not, I didn’t know, but even in that short period of time, I dreamt. Perhaps the strangeness of the dream could be explained by the reeling of my brain, seeking desperately to recover from blunt force trauma - if that’s what it was.

I was in a field. My field. The sun was shining and the birds were chirping, and I could hear children laughing in the distance. I was running, but it was a dream run, and I seemed to half-float along the top of the grass as if carried by the wind.

I was chasing something. Someone. Her.

She wanted me to follow, but she wouldn’t stop for me. She gracefully strode through the scene, the grass parting before her, but I couldn’t keep up. I ran with everything I had, but it felt like trying to wrestle with water, and my feet and hands dug into nothing, and no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t move any faster. She was getting further and further away.

The sun darkened, and the grass was dead, and I was drowning even though there was no water, and my mouth turned blue, and she turned back, and I could sense she was worried about me. Her blond hair was the only thing still shining in the world, and I reached out my hand towards it, and she turned, and I saw her face, and she was smiling, and it was that same damned smile that had mocked me all of my life, and it wasn’t her, but him. It was him.

Tom laughed at me, and I was awake.

When I came to, we were moving. My surroundings were still dark, but small strips of light filtered through… through whatever it was that was blocking my view. Like there were holes in a bag over my head, but not exactly like that.

It was disorienting to feel yourself moving through space, and yet have no other reference of movement. Like traveling in the trunk of a car. I tried to rub my eyes, and couldn’t.

I began a mental check of my body. My hands were tied, and I was sore - my head ached something fierce, and my back was bruised where it lay uncomfortably against my mace. So they haven't disarmed us, I thought. Are they confident, or careless? Whoever they were.

Otherwise, I seemed untouched. I was clothed in the same leathers, and with an increasingly familiar sense, I could feel the nails in my pocket. I could pass my consciousness over them, and sort of test them, like wiggling my fingers. They were still there, still me.

I turned to lay on my side, so as to get off the mace before it messed up my back permanently, and found myself able to. Beneath me was a flat, hard surface, and it bumped and rattled in a way that most certainly did not help my aching head. I assumed I was in the back of some sort of cart, being pulled down a particularly bumpy road.

I’ve been kidnapped, I thought. After a second, I remembered where I was just before losing consciousness, and the men following us. What the hell did I do, huh? Who would want to kidnap me? I’ve got absolutely nothing going for me whatsoever. What are you going to do, steal my debts? They’re yours.

It was probably Cadoc, that fucker. He’s already got one spurned lover - or something -who’s to say he doesn’t have thirty more? The asshole probably slept with the king’s wife or something, and now I’m getting kidnapped just for happening to be nearby. Fuck.

“Th-“ I tried to speak, and the words got caught in my throat. My mouth was dry, and the drool on my cheek that I couldn’t wipe away told me I had probably been sleeping with my mouth open.

“This is some kind of mistake!” I yelled. “I didn’t sleep with your wife, or daughter, or whatever! I’m an innocent bystander, really!”

There was no answer, but I stopped talking when I realized we had stopped moving. That’s either a really good sign, or a really bad sign.

Who are you kidding, Miles? Do you really think that saying ‘you’ve got the wrong guy’ has ever worked in the entire history of kidnappings? They’re stopping so they can beat you up for talking.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I’m sorry,” I said, quickly reversing course, not sure if anyone was even there, but thinking that I heard footsteps off to one side. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I’ll shut up, I-”

My breath was gone in an instant. Something had hit me square in the stomach. I tried to bring my hands up to my gut, but of course, I couldn’t. I doubled over in pain.

“If I hear you again,” a man whispered from nowhere. “I’ll make sure you never make another noise in your miserable life.”

I didn’t respond. Before long, we were moving again.

I fought back hot tears. I was so close. I was so fucking close. Why now?

Voices, just beyond my head. That must have been the front of the vehicle.

“We can’t kill them,” one voice said.

“We can kill one of them,” the other voice said. The one from before, I thought.

“But we don’t know which one, you idiot. You feeling lucky?”

“I’m feeling like a fifty-fifty chance of getting the right guy is better than certain death being caught smuggling these parasites. That’s all I’m saying.”

“All I’m saying is that you need to relax. I’ve done this a million times. You think the guards care? The worst thing that’ll happen if we get caught is they’ll make us cut them in.”

“Seriously?”

“Listen to you. ‘Seriously?’ What, you thought the guards were paragons of virtue, protecting our fair city from the degenerate souls beyond the walls?”

“Well, I mean…”

The man laughed. “Wait until you hear how the guards have fun on their days off. I take back what I said. The worst case scenario is the guards take our marks, have their fun with them, leave them with a few new scars, a few less fingers, and a lifelong fear of setting foot outside again. And then we’d be late. That would be the worst case scenario.” The man raised his voice. “And I know you two can hear me back there, so why don’t you keep that in mind and shut up, aye?”

You two. So Cadoc is back here with me. He’s just smart enough to stay quiet. Or he hasn’t woken up yet. Whichever.

And the one guard said they can’t kill us. I almost sighed in relief, but didn’t want to make the noise. That’s something, at least. It sounds like they were hired, and whoever hired them wants us alive. One of us. Fucking Cadoc.

Of course, that might just be so the chick who hired them can kill us herself.

Wait a minute. Did they say they are sneaking us in to Eraztun? Why? And how could Cadoc possibly have pissed someone off who lives inside the walls?

Before I could think about my impending doom any more, something nudged my side. I knew it must have been Cadoc. I sent a foot backwards, kicking him. Possibly too hard, but he didn’t make a noise.

I listened to the cart, trying to anticipate the bumps in the road, and failing. I could hear the panting and snorting of the animals drawing us - perhaps horses, perhaps not - and tried to think of a plan. I was not about to die because my new friend was a heart-breaker.

Of course, I thought immediately of magic. There were nails in my pocket, though using them at that moment would only burn my leg. Maybe it would catch the wagon as well, but with me inside of it. I tried to reach a hand in, but with something tying my wrists together, the tips of my fingers were unable to reach, though they felt maddeningly close.

Then there was talking again. A third voice, though I couldn't make out what it was saying.

“Hail Eraztun and it’s power,” one of the kidnappers responded. “We act under orders of Berenguer, high citizen of the first ring.”

I didn’t know what any of that meant, and I certainly didn’t ask. I thought about yelling at the guard, despite what the kidnapper said. They could have been bluffing. But if they were, it was a good bluff. I’d seen enough police brutality videos back on Earth to know it was more than possible. And that was in a first-world country. I’d heard stories of third-world countries where the police would straight-up rob people. Ultimately, I stayed quiet.

Before long we were moving again. No one ever bothered looking at the cargo, and I didn’t know whether or not to be relieved.

And despite it all, for a moment, I was excited. For a moment. Cadoc had impressed upon me, before, a sense of how significant these walls that we were passing through really were. I’m in Eraztun. I made it into the walls.

An errant elbow poked me again, which must have been Cadoc silently calling my attention to that fact. I kicked him again.

I couldn’t speak, but I guessed that he also thought now was the time to get going. A lot of information can be contained in an elbow. Or imagined in one. I hoped my kick brought my message as easily: how the fuck do you propose we get out of here, then?

I jumped at the sound of a voice, but it was only in my head.

The voice was giving me inane advice that I couldn’t possibly follow. Perhaps burning a hole in my pocket - and my leg - would solve my problem, but I couldn’t see how. That was perhaps a mystery only Tom could unravel.

I sighed internally. There was another way. The binding around my wrists was loose enough that I could twist my hands. I turned them in opposite directions, and closed them into fists. My nails touched against the rope.

I took a deep breath. I had to stay quiet. If the kidnappers discovered my attempt, there wouldn’t be a second try. They’d probably rip the nails off of every finger, like a resident of Dross.

With a tug on the mental string, I lit the nail on the middle finger of one hand, then the other. I winced at the pain. It seared away at the soft skin beneath the nail, and I swore I could smell burning flesh. I kept the burning fingertips pressed up against the ropes, which I hoped were burning, too. I was grinding my teeth. It felt like pressing your thumb into an open wound.

You think a little pain is going to stop me? I was biting my tongue now, literally, and thought I could taste blood. But internally, I was screaming. Pain is my home. I live in pain, breath in pain. Is this all you’ve got? A little physical discomfort? You’re going to have to do better than that.

I don’t know who I was talking to.

I kept the pressure on. I blinked as sweat rolled into one eye. I poured myself out, forcing out the small reservoir of power I had built up over the past few days. I thought I might pop a blood vessel, but I couldn’t stop. I squeezed the power out of me, like trying to squeeze blood out of your own veins.

Finally, I felt the burning reach my wrists. I jumped at the new pain, and my hands separated, tearing the remaining strands of rope. And I could feel that strange, aching organ, empty. I was spent.

I smiled. Fuckers thought they could take me, huh? Thought I was just going to lay down and take it?

I fumbled around as quietly as I could, searching for Cadoc. Even if this was all his fault - which still seemed likely - he was one of the few weapons I possessed. And I would use every last thing I could.