Janette pushed downward on the manor-side ground, forcing her body up into a higher jump than she could ever hope to make as a normal person. She had done this dozens of times by now, perhaps even hundreds. It was hard to keep track of how much time she had spent out on her nightly forays. But this was the first time the last jump went just a bit different. Instead of the open window that she would flip into with the momentum of her own push, the windowsill was covered by an iron cage and locked from the inside.

She gripped onto the grating for a moment as her hands started to feel the bite of the cold metal bars.

‘Who did this?’

Her hands were starting to get numb in the winter air, so she hooked one of her elbows through the grate to help maintain her balance while hanging there. Her other hand reached down into the top of her blouse, pulling out the key she kept there just in case. The metal pieces chattered against one another as she tried to shimmy the small key into the hole of the lock on the other side, but it just wouldn't work. It wouldn't even fit in the lock at all.

She took a closer look at the lock itself this time, noticing the remarkable gleaming shine on the metal piece. A shine that didn't make much sense for a piece of metal that had been attached to her window for close to a decade. Janette allowed herself to drop to the ground without softening the landing.

Pain reverberated up her feet from the solid landing, but that didn't matter. He must have found her out. He was going to stop her. He was going to…

She started walking towards the front door of the manor. No guards waited for her. He must have told them to move away for the night. He didn't want there to be any witnesses.

Janette opened the front door slowly, edging it forward just enough so that she could scrape by into the building before looking around. No one was there in the plain white foyer. Six doors lined the large room, two for the servants wing, two for the nobles quarters, and two that led into the Jocell sitting room and study, both of which were open wide across the hall. She couldn't quite see anyone inside the rooms yet so maybe she could sneak by.

She slammed into the white granite flooring, confident that the solid stone tiles could hold her as she set herself into a wide arc over the top of the room towards the nobles’ wing doors. A much softer pressure from her over a wide expanse of the floor slowed her momentum as she returned to the ground, gliding down in slow motion to land on the floor as quietly as she could. She gripped the nearby door handle, turning it as slowly as she dared when he finally noticed her.

“Janette? Is that you?” A voice came from the study.

A moment later a portly man leaned his head out from the nearby room to look at her. His eyes had known where to find her since the moment she walked into this building, tracking her every movement even as she had tried to evade him, yet still he mocked her.

“Oh, Janette? What are you wearing?” He looked her up and down. “I suppose it doesn't matter. I'd like to speak with you privately.” He withdrew into the room without waiting for a response

‘Oh no. This was going to be bad.’ She almost ran at that moment. Almost took off into the night just to avoid whatever came next. But what would that even mean? Where could she run to, and how would she ever hide from Him?

The uncovered light leaking from the study room door called out to her just as every inch of her heart told her to run. This wouldn't be good, but she slowly walked into the study anyways. Her heart clenched in her chest as she looked over at her father, resting on the edge of his desk looking wistfully at the fireplace. His fingers drummed along the side of the desk, an even beat that could've been the drums of war as far as Janette was concerned.

“Please close the door darling.” He turned to her as he spoke, giving a hearty smile that even ebbed into his eyes. It was just so confusing.

She turned around and reached for the door behind her, but a sudden force shook the room as the door slammed shut in her face. The wind from the motion swept her hair back even as the door seemed to buckle from the sudden movement ahead of her.

“Oh, my bad. I meant the other door.” Came from behind her.

The pulling sensation on the door stopped as Janette walked down the study woodenly until she reached the adjoining door with the next door waiting room. This time he seemed to allow her to close it herself, which she did so slowly.

‘A lady must always close doorways as quietly as she can, so that she need not disturb others.’ His lessons whispered into her ear. She hesitated as the door finally closed, the doorknob still twisted in her grasp which she tried to gently ease out. It was almost good enough, she had just about finished letting go when the doorknob released an audible click as it settled into place.

“WRONG!”

Janette felt a sudden wrenching motion as she was torn away from the door and pulled through the air towards her father. He released her mid arc, allowing her momentum to die out only slightly before he buried a fist in her stomach. She didn't even activate a barrier around herself as she doubled over onto the blow. There was no point, it would only make him angrier if she defended herself. He gripped her from under the chin and tilted her head back to look at him as she allowed herself to withdraw. This, wasn't her. This couldn't be her.

“Why did you go out tonight?” His breath smelt like bourbon. His favorite. She didn't answer.

He slapped her so hard with his off hand she actively flew from his grip across the room, but he grabbed her with his powers before she hit the ground again. She felt the room get yanked out from under her, and she watched the polished wooden flooring blur under her sight until he caught her again. This time he grabbed her by the shoulders, spinning her body around to pin it between himself and the desk.

“I asked you. Why?”

Janette struggled to focus through the pain as she drew her gaze back up to meet his. He always hated that.

“Because I-.”

“WRONG!” He yelled so closely to her face that she was doused in his spit. “YOU don't get to make ANY decisions for yourself!”

Something small but hard slammed into her back like a punch aimed directly at her spine. Then another, and another blow hammered into her as she heard pages fluttering in the air, the heavy tomes falling discarded onto the desk behind her. He didn't even bother to counter pull himself as he allowed his body weight to squeeze tightly into Janette's thighs where they were trapped between him and the desk.

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She bore it all without making a sound. Her eyes teared up, and her nose dripped as her face flushed with the pain. But she wouldn't make a sound. She didn't dare.

“You disgrace this house with your antics.” He spun her around, then pushed her body into the wall across the room. She leaned back with her head as she slammed into the sturdy stone bricks, pushing only the slightest possible bit that he might not notice as she tried to cushion the blow, but her head still ended up colliding with the hard object a moment after her body did. Her vision swam in the dull firelight, the sound of wooden shutters and wall mountings squealing in the night as he continued to push on her from across the room.

His footsteps started to approach her once again though the pressure never lifted, keeping her feet off the ground even as he walked up from behind her.

“You will never leave this house again until you can be trusted.” He didn't even yell at her, just speaking calmly into her ear as the pressure continued to mount upon her back. It was crushing her. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't fight. Even the sound of her father's breath as he huffed into her ears was starting to become a distant echo. Then he released her.

She slid down the wall immediately, face scraping along every unpolished nick and mark in the stone before her legs gave out from under her as she reached the ground. Her father caught her as she fell back, one arm under her knees and one arm under her back as he looked down on her face without a hint of rage in his eyes. Her vision still swam as she felt him open the door to the study with her still in his arms, making his way along the white granite floor, then walking down the nobles’ hallway with her still in his arms.

She felt like a child as her father carried her up the steps to the second floor, every inch of her body throbbing in pain as the upward steps jostled her bruises. Still, he carried her through the upstairs hallway back to her bedroom. Her door whined just a bit more than she was used to hearing as he moved through the doorway, but when he laid her body down on her bed like nothing had happened her vision finally started to piece itself back together.

As he left, he swung closed a heavy metal grate over her doorway that groaned as it moved. The cell door locked from the outside as her father slid over two heavy bars, then placed another padlock on a small notch where they fed into the wall.

‘He had this all done while I was away tonight. He must have known. Must have planned this as he let me have one last chance to stop. And then I failed him. Again.’

“Goodnight Janette.”

The outer wooden door closed quietly, giving her privacy, and she finally allowed herself to cry.

—

Cody's eyes snapped open as his back jostled on the hard wood below his prone body. A single woman sat beside his head, the preacher from the night that he had been at the stone monument. Her blond hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail that seemed to juxtapose with her oddly gray eyes, and he wanted to be anywhere but near her.

His arms and legs spasmed, wrenching at tight ropes tying him to whatever wooden contraption he was trapped in as the blue sky passed mildly overhead. A gag was placed deep in his mouth, almost causing him to retch every time he breathed in as he struggled to keep the panic down. He started to pull inward on himself preparing to release an outward wave that would get him out of this situation, but the masked woman started speaking.

“Stop. Before you do something stupid, there's something you need to know.”

Cody didn't release the wave even though he could at this point, merely holding the power deep within him like a held breath as he waited until she continued.

“I've fed you something terrible that you might be feeling even now. If you decide to start killing my people, your newest friend might decide to stop you in a way that you can't do anything about.”

A faint bump pressed against the inside of his stomach as he felt something moving down there, shifting in the depths of his intestines. It didn't hurt him despite the odd sensation of something physically moving itself within him, but the threat was there. Cody released the inward pressure he had been preparing, unwilling to test just how much control this woman might have over the thing in his stomach.

“Good. I wouldn't need to threaten you if I didn't also want to help you.” She said.

He shot her a look that he hoped could convey just how much he didn't believe her.

“It's true. I wish only to show you a new perspective on things young soldier. You are after all a bit of a wayward soul are you not?”

His eyes widened, but she continued on.

“I'm going to show you my home so that you might begin to understand what we fight for. So with that in mind I'm going to have to put this blindfold on you for the rest of the trip. Can't have you knowing too much can we? Oh, and don't try sending any messages either. I don't want you to have to deal with any stomach pains along the way.”

A tight piece of cloth was wound around his head so thoroughly that Cody couldn't even see through the edges of the blindfold. The woman had gone silent as he started to accept the circumstances. The sun was warm on his face and body and a faint wind stirred the air.

‘What a vacation.’ He thought.

—

Cody had fallen asleep by the time they reached their destination. Tied down and blind to the world, his nervousness about the kidnaping had dulled into placit boredom and eventually the only thing he knew would pass the time faster.

His body jerked in place when someone touched him, immediately pulling him from his nap as he realized that his body had gone cold. The sun must have set already as a pair of thin arms lifted him up rather easily from the wooden cart. Somehow his hands were now released from the wooden cart but still tied together, and his head spun as the stranger started walking away from the cart like he was nothing more than a babe in the arms. A short time later the stranger shifted his weight over their shoulder and the two started descending somehow. A sharp stabbing shoulder bone cut into his ribs and made the journey anything but pleasant as his captors steps changed pace a bit.

A set of stairs perhaps? Were they going underground?

The sound of many bodies moving down a hard dirt shaft turned into the rhythmic beat of feet on a ladder as the group seemed to continue making their way further and further downward. Eventually, the strange noises morphed into the more tell-tale sound of shoes on stone.

He tried to keep a general idea of where they turned in the maze like location they were bringing him to, just in case he could escape. But then he started to notice his captors doing near full spins in place and doubling back on themselves, obviously trying to mislead him. Cody stopped bothering trying to remember the way in. If they were going to be so blatant about their tactics he was more worried about the tricks he might not have noticed.

Their walk continued for a long time, perhaps five minutes in total within the stone building before they set him down in a sandy pit. Someone untied his hands and feet, though he didn't use the chance to try and resist since he still felt the strange weight in his stomach that shouldn't have been there. Next, someone unwound the blindfold from behind him, and Cody began to be able to see a large stone wall ahead of him marked with many small holes. The preacher woman called out from behind them.

“Don't turn around just yet.”

He waited patiently until the blindfold was fully off, feeling at the raw marks on his wrists from the awkward bondage they had just put him through. Soft braziers were lit in the corners of the room with strange metal hoods and pipes over the top of them that ran into the ceiling.

“Alright now, I'm sorry for the inconvenience but I have to go for a bit. I'm sure that someone will be along to talk to you soon though.”

Cody turned around to catch sight of the woman, still wearing her customary mask as she stood next to another armored man with a strange pendant around his neck. The gem started to flash with brown light and the wall suddenly closed in front of him before he had a chance to even move. Light flickered absently in two of the four corners of the perfectly square room as Cody tried to process what had just happened.

‘Arcanists working with death mages huh?’

He started to search the corners of the relatively plain room looking for a way out. There was nothing good about this situation at all. Masked ladies, death cults, enemy mages, and an underground lair. Nothing good at all.