I crawled to Ivian as soon as the men sat down.

Her hands and legs were still bound and I had no way to help her, but she didn't complain, and just motioned for me to sit in her arms.

Still, I was trembling, if not from the cold, then the hunger. It was probably almost noon.

Just yesterday, I ate 6 times during the day, my little stomach feeling the need to growl after a single poop.

Today, I was dragged on horseback and kept awake for almost 12 hours and not given a bite of food.

I looked around to try to get my mind off of my hunger.

Nistan had called this place 'ruins', but I would have called it a cave.

There were creepers hanging from the ceiling, the flickering light of our kidnapper's fire revealing stalactites dripping water from the recent rain. I wouldn't have known how far the cave reached, since it was just darkness a pebble's throw away, but in the distance, there was a crack of light that showed foliage and dripping rain water below it.

This cave was big. Enormous even, if that pool of light wasn't the opposite side.

Ivian tapped my head with her chin as she hummed a few notes of a tune. Her humming was breaking up though, and she stopped.

I felt her chest shake and a tear drop land on my forehead.

I feel helpless too. I feel miserable too.

The ceiling was slanted, or maybe it had been curved, reaching upwards to the peak of the domed cave.

It was oddly familiar.

The broken notes of Ivian's humming reminded me of something.

Where the stalactites dripped, orbs of light appeared and instead of a ridge that Nistan could sit with his legs off of, I saw a raised stage.

In a dome like this, where minstrel played.

Stupid of course, my useless memories were just illusions, now making me see weird things in a cave.

Ivian was still shaking, I didn't want her to hurt.

I started humming back to her through my nose, picking up the song she had made.

The music was simple, and she only gave me a few notes. But I could feel more of it in me.

Ivian's red-rimmed eyes opened and I felt her cold fingers brush against my cheek.

It wasn't the same thing Ivian had hummed. But in my mind, it burst with harmony, base and sounds from instruments I had never heard.

Perhaps to Ivian who didn't see the lights, the melody would seem like a child's tune. Repeated notes and frequent refrain.

The concert hall I saw, it was in the sky, held aloft by nothing except its own magics.

Drops of salty water found my brow once more, a face I wanted to see smiling, unable to stop crying.

My own welling sobs started to break up my tune, already echoey and muted in the damp and sprawling cave.

This wasn't a concert hall, nor was I the pixie of the stage who could rile the phantom crowds.

"Stop that humming, woman. That's some creepy shit," the shout of the crooked nose man. "This place gives me the shivers as it is."

I don't want to draw his ire, not now, not when Ivian is so helpless.

And yet, now that he finished stuffing his mouth, the crooked nosed man came over to pester me and Ivian because of me.

So stupid. Why had I let myself give in to emotions?

"How 'bout I take the baby. Then I bet you'll listen."

"Leave the baby, she can't do anything and it's better he stays warm before we leave again." Nistan told him.

"Gets warm?" The other man balked, "It'll probably starve before we get anywhere."

"A baby will last a week without food, just let it be."

I shivered.

Just as I thought Nistan was protecting me from the crooked nosed man, he says he wants to starve me. How would he even know someone like that?

"Have ya' even heard it cry? This baby ain't natural, I'm tellin' ya."

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"Enough superstitious prattle."

"Alright milord, alright. I was jus' sayin'." he said, "Still, ya' should'a seen the way it stared at me at that stupid valet's funeral."

Ever since we first got here, harried by those possessed birds, the man was determined to find someone to vent at.

"... What about the woman? Or are you keepin'er fer yerself?" He asked.

A sense of panic burned my stomach as moments passed, Nistan considering. I wasn't ready to fight yet, I didn't even have a knife.

"Hmm, they had a valet that died? When?"

"What?"

I didn't understand Nistan for a moment, but when I realised he was dismissing the other man's comment without deigning to answer it, I felt relief wash over me.

"I thought'ja didn't care about my superstitious prattle..." the crooked nosed man started to grumble, probably mad his request was ignored.

"When I give you an order, you follow it. The same goes for questions. Who is the valet?"

"Just some servant the lord had. Some shaman fellow came along and, as I unnerstanit, gav'im the plague. Died o' coughing, the both of 'em."

No one spoke for a moment, so he spat to show what he thought of Aian's memory.

"No, not the plague..." Nistan mumbled.

"What's that milord?"

"You're saying the shaman was inside the house?"

"What's got you so worked up, huh? Yer reckon the valet would 'a gotten sick otherwise?"

"It wasn't the plague, you fool. If the shaman had the plague, we'd all be dying by now." Nistan raised his voice in some frustration.

"Huh?"

"It wasn't the valet who was supposed to die..."

"Supposed'a die...?"

A moment passed, then Nistan decided, "I'm still eating. Give me some quiet."

"Yes milord, whate'er ya' say milord."

Serves the bastard right, not getting any respect from Nistan. I almost felt like I could warm up to this 4th son of a cond as he kept on slapping down the other man.

As silence fell over the cave again, I wondered what Nistan had been saying.

The whole affair with the shaman seemed so long ago now.

The old man had broken out in a coughing fit right in the middle of his visit, then I remembered Vis, throwing up in the yard a bit later. If anyone should have been infected, it should have been me. I had been handled all over by the old man.

Instead, it was Aian, and the rest of us miraculously survived, none of us getting sick or anything. It would almost make sense if it was not a disease but a spell, cast on the shaman and somehow passed on to Aian when he died.

If it wasn't a coincidence as Nistan seemed to claim, then someone was after my or mother's life.

Well, rejoice, whoever you are. I'll probably be dead before the night is done.

"Alright, Drim," Nistan's voice broke my pondering, "we've rested an hour and I don't hear the shriekers anymore. We should get back on our horses before the search party catches up."

As I heard the name, I realised I never did hear the crooked nosed man's name before.

"And the wench?" Drim asked.

Every time Drim spoke, it seemed he was more cruel and mean than the last.

Nistan started repacking the rest of his rations in his saddlebags while Drim just sat a moment to grumble to himself. Then, the two men went to check the edge of the dome again, perhaps making sure there were no signs of a search party or shriekers in the clearing.

As they came back in, they went to check on Pricel and then Nistan made his way towards Ivian and me.

His eyes looked grim.

Goosebumps rose on the back of my neck as he unsheathed his sword.

He bent down and grabbed me in one hand.

I couldn't let him kill her. I had to do it now.

I was the only one of us three who wasn't bound. If I didn't do anything, nobody else would.

I reached out towards the dagger still hanging from his belt but even hanging under his shoulder, my arms were still too short.

It was so close, just a few more inches...

Nistan raised his arms and I closed my eyes.

Schpliit

No, please.

My cry came out much more like a wail.

My eyes snapped open as I felt Nistan stagger.

There was gooey red steel blade just inches to my left, but I only saw it for a moment before I felt myself falling. Nistan's arm around me had suddenly let go.

I desperately reached out my hands to grab onto something as I fell, but the hilt I grabbed just tilted and the knife slid out on top of me.

Fortunately, I fell right on Ivian, the sword flat against me thus was spared dying from clumsiness.

I could feel her breathing. She was still alive.

I thought I was hallucinating as I saw the blade sticking out of Nistan's shoulder above me.

"Gyaaaaah!" Drim screamed from behind Nistan as he lunged at him, looking to overpower the man with wild slashes.

Why?

My head was spinning as I checked to make sure Ivian wasn't harmed.

"You bloody fool," Nistan screamed at his accomplice while blocking Drim with his own sword.

But Drim just growled, his irises turned a solid red and his eyes unfocused as he lashed out.

I realised with terror that the man had gone insane. He was just like those demonic birds, the glowing red eyes, the shrieking and a beast even more wild and savage than the mean and petty Drim he used to be.

But each swing of his sword was easily repelled, and an arm of his was sliced off by Nistan's sword.

Could people really just change like that? One moment a man, the next an insane beast?

It was still clear who would win this duel though.

I clenched my fist around the knife I had grabbed and channeled my fear into my limbs as if it were magic. I still needed to do something and make my pain filled body move.

I slammed the knife into the back of Nistan's knee and twisted it as he kicked me in the chin.

My vision exploded and I could feel blood from the shattering of one of my previous 4 teeth.

"Aaaaaaai!" I shrieked, trying to hold onto the fleeing stream of my consciousness.

I could not falter yet. Even without his knee, Nistan would still live through this. A tooth or an arm, even my life were fair game, as long as Ivian survived.

I pulled on the knife that had sunk into the bone. I felt Nistan falter, but it wasn't enough and I couldn't pull it out to stab him again.

"Aaagh!" He shouted and cut Drim in two.

Then, he turned on me, blood still falling behind.

His nose was scrunched up in a snarl.

"Gaah, haah, haah," Nistan's breathing was ragged and raw as his raised sword paused in the air.

"You're not..." his eyes blinked as they met my own.

I didn't hesitate and grabbed onto the knife, still trembling in his knee.

A chop came whistling down right by my head. I was just barely saved by the yank on the knife that put him off balance.

I tumbled more than a meter away.

But despite the crashing pain, I kept my hand on the knife and started furiously crawling back towards Ivian.

I saw her despair filled eyes widen with shock as she looked at me crawling back towards them, knife clenched between my teeth.

"No! Tilly! Run!" Ivian cried, this time in a very different voice.

Her head was shaking desperately.

Maybe if Nistan was crippled and Pricel could ride a horse I would still survive.

But I needed to save Ivian.

I could still hear Nistan's ragged breathing as he tried to recover himself.

I kept going, one hand and knee in front of the other, trying to get closer to Ivian.

"Tilly..." she cried.