She woke up gagging, as someone pulled a string of black, sludge-like mucus out of her throat. She retched the longer it took to get the mucus out. She gasped and coughed once it was free. She choked on the air that she could finally draw into her burning lungs.

“You’re not allowed to die on me yet, Princess,” a deep, but familiar, voice sneered. “Your usefulness has not yet expired.”

She shivered at the sound of the voice. She had been listening to and obeying that voice for most of a year now, but did not recognize who it belonged to until now. She started to roll over and a moan escaped her lips. Her whole body hurt. She started to curl into a ball to try and soothe how bruised she felt, but slipped on a slimy puddle of the same sweet, putrid stuff she had just been gagging on.

“Hahahaha. Serves you right for failing me.”

‘I serve no one,’ she growled in her head.

A large, rough, hand grabbed her jaw and forced her to look up. She glared at the shadowed face of the man her father had banished from Abundare.

“You serve me. You belong to me!” he yelled.

She scoffed.

Growling, he threw her to the side, slamming her against the wall. Her breath caught because of the impact, but she still tried to get back up. She hadn’t gotten far when she felt her body and head pinned to the ground. She struggled against the person who held her to no avail.

“Seems I need to remind you of your throneless place, Princess,” the man sneered before he forced her left eye closed and started to sew it shut.

She screamed and fought harder, but more weight and more hands held her down as the dull tip of a hooked needle and thread scraped against her eye. Her struggle slowed for a time, but picked up again when she felt the weight on top of her shift. Unfortunately, her struggles brought more hands and her right eyeball was stabbed more than her left as her captor sewed her right eyelids together.

By the time he was finished, her throat was dry and she could not scream anymore. However, that did not stop the tears from spilling from her eyes, no matter how much they stung. While she knew that not speaking his name would only serve to piss him off, she refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing his name roll out of her tongueless mouth. It wasn’t long before he grabbed her chin again and she was forced to gag down a glass of the sweet putrid filth she had just thrown up.

The glass had barely been taken from her lips before she threw it all back up again. She heard him yell before something hard hit her head, knocking her unconscious.

For several days, her captor forced her to drink the sweetly putrid sludge—each batch more putrid than the last—and each time she drank it, she threw it back up again. It wasn’t until the third or fourth time that she thought she felt a slight tingle in her burned, and otherwise numb, flesh. She tried to pay attention to where the vibrating was coming from each time she was forced to drink the stuff. It was coming from the Alexandrite, Emerald, and Diamond almost equally.

She laughed in her heart and was grateful to her enemy for sewing her eyes shut, so he couldn’t see the true emotion behind her tears. Thanks to the new magics he had forced on her, never again would she fall under his control. Her only problem now was getting out of his reach. Something she had no way of doing right now, or reason to. Not after being manipulated to manipulate Kelton with their betrothal in an attempt to get him into the same position she found herself in. She was also glad that he hadn’t come to her like she originally thought he would. Glad that her near death had broken whatever had bound him to her.

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However, her peace and calm changed on the eleventh day. Several dull aches came and went from her lower abdomen. These were accompanied by the occasional cramp, twinge, or tingling pull over the next few days. She shivered just as her captor returned. Now what was she going to do? How would the constant throwing up affect her baby? Would some of it linger in her system to be accepted by her child? She hoped beyond hope that such wouldn’t be the case. The thought of this hateful man being able to control her and Kelton’s child made her shudder again.

“You can quit the act, Princess,” he sneered. “I’ve decided it’s time to try something different.”

She was too caught up in her thoughts to hear him, so she cried out in shock more than pain, when the first lash of the whip cracked across her back. She could not stop the cries or whimpers that escaped her lips with each lash from the whip. Still, she had to figure out a way to escape. Her biggest handicap at the moment was that she couldn’t see. It didn’t help that they were in the very center of the ruins of Mediocre Village. The Village was closest to the forest that bordered the Southwestern edge of Greywolf Kingdom, but far enough that she’d have to cross countless open fields before she could even reach the treeline.

There had to be something she could do. Anything! The whipping stopped as her limbs twitched and trembled. At first, she just thought they were shaking from the pain of being hit with 20 lashes, but then the shaking grew in intensity and range. Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head as she fell to the side. She felt her being fly high above Mediocre Village. The scenery around her blurred, despite feeling as if she were still where she was. The blurring stopped and she saw a black haired woman who was just about to step into her cottage, located at the edge of town.

‘Who?’ she wondered.

“Ponderosa!” a man yelled, causing the black haired woman to turn. “My wife, she….”

The woman turned and ran with the man into town.

After that, her vision went dark. The familiarity she felt with the woman she had never seen before confused her. Why did she seem to know her when they had never met? A warm vibration near her left shoulder drew her attention. Transformation magic? Did that mean she was a Dragonwoman, posing as a Human? Or was it something…?

She gagged, which brought her sharply back to the cottage floor where she was laying. Some water had been poured into her mouth and it took her a moment to swallow it so she stopped choking on it. A pair of strong arms lifted her into a seated position before she was given more water. She was glad she didn’t have to try and hold it, because she felt very weak. The glass came to her lips once more and she was able to get a little water before the glass was knocked away with a growl.

“That’s enough,” her captor yelled. “What did you see?”

She furrowed her brow, ‘See?’

“Yes, see,” he replied excitedly. “Was I sitting on Greywolf’s Throne? Or perhaps….”

‘Nothing.’

“What?”

She tipped her head to the left a little. ‘You’ve sewn my eyes shut. I can’t see anything.’

“No, no, no. Not physically. The vision you just saw with your mind. You’re starting to be able to see in that way, aren’t you?”

She shook her head. She knew better than to reveal information like that to the lunatic before her. Once he knew she could see with her mind, he would never let her go.

“What did you see?!” he yelled, spittle splashing on her face as he shook her.

She did her best to keep silent, but found herself replying, ‘Nothing about you.’

“Ahaha! I knew I picked the right rune.”

The edges of her mouth turned down more. Why had she answered? Now it was going to be even more difficult to get out of here. She felt a tingling where the Emerald and Diamonds were buried in her flesh. The Diamond had made her speak despite not wanting to,which made sense since it represented truth, but the Emerald?

An image of Ponderosa flashed through her mind before it was gone again. While she had told her captor the truth, that her vision was not about him, she also hadn’t revealed more than that. Thanks to the Emerald, she had more hope that, whatever other questions he asked, the Diamond wouldn’t force her to say something she wished she hadn’t. In the meantime though, how was she going to contact Ponderosa? She was on the other side of the kingdom. Even if she did manage to reach her, what help could she provide? Yes, she could transform, but to what extent? Would she even be willing to come this far for her?

She also wasn’t sure if getting Ponderosa involved was worth the risk. The last thing she wanted was for another person to fall into this maniac’s hands. At the same time, she could not allow her child to fall into his hands either.