Whips clashed on the floor. Whimpers hung on the iron of the cages. Whenever anyone made so much as a sound, the leather of a glove tore across the already thin skin of a prisoner. The rattle of wooden wheels shook unevenly through the bodies.
Half in thought, Salia put her head back, letting the clatter of the heavy iron chains on her body fade into the background. The horizon was already dipping into fiery orange, driving away smoky reds and drowning far off in a blue where she would have liked to linger a little longer. Far away from the seven kingdoms and their rules, and even further away from Couvia, the kingdom from which she had been dragged out by the hair.
“I said look to the ground, you half-blind monstrosity!”
Before Salia could even break away from the sight of the sky, hot pain snapped through her upper right arm. A hiss broke free from her lips, hastily directing her attention to one warden who had taken up a stance outside the cage to whip each of them out of bored glee. This time it had reached her. She was the only one who had dared to look up at the sky.
“What are you looking at?” he yelled at her one more time. Secure in his position, he pushed through his skinny chest in the kingdom's unadorned uniform and looked down at her. The thick fur collar of his cloak hid the lower part of his face and the dark blue, rigid cap cast dark shadows over his eyes.
He was one of many and not one of those who could hold Salia's interest longer than necessary. Her perception was already too dim for that.
So she lowered her gaze to her swollen, blue fingers. The bloody tips and missing nails were still a vague reminder that they had been worked on with pliers. Out of superstition, that caused injury from a demon, a deformed creature like her, was infectious. Everything was done to eradicate resistance.
Her numb hands clenched into fists, Salia pressed her lips together. She should have put up more of a fight when they discovered her in the basement of a remote, crumbling house. The two guards who had come to her to restrain her with magic – she certainly could have clawed one of them's eyes out. For the sake of satisfaction, as a souvenir and reminder that there was still life in her kind, too. Even though she had previously merely lived frightened from one day to the next, with little food and even less water.
The cart's abrupt stop distracted Salia from her hands. Low murmurs drifted through the small crowd of captives and as she raised her head slightly to see why they had stopped, the sight of Aywotoc – the uncharted waters – engulfed her.
“Hah!” The warden, who had earlier gripped the whip in his gloved hands, now thrust them to his hips. “About time we arrived. I'm sure most of you should already feel at home.”
Another man in the same uniform appeared behind the warden, armed with some keys that would open the heavy iron doors of the cages on the fourteen carts.
When the door of her prison swung open, Salia barely got to her feet. The long journey that had left her withering motionless behind bars for two days made her muscles weak and her bones glassy. Carrying her own weight seemed impossible, although her body had been too meagre to really weigh anything.
Hurried gestures urged her and the other nine occupants to get out. The exit was within her grasp, prompting her to lead the way, to spit in the face of the first one to come, but her limbs remained motionless. Eventually she lined up somewhere in the middle – unable to leave a mark. Instead, she followed her predecessors in goose steps to the shore, where the water shimmered gloomily and old wooden boats waited for maniacal passengers.
Salia faltered for a moment as she caught sight of the inert wood on the water, only to notice the snap of a whip beside her. A well-intentioned threat that made her wrinkle her nose before continuing. Resistance was futile. The magically prepared chains would break her wrists and constrict her neck – long before she would be able to do anything.
Still, barely two steps later, her body hesitated again. Getting into one of those boats would be the end that, at sixteen, had come far too soon for her. The heart in her chest thumped conspicuously hard against her ribs, almost as if there was actually something other than indifference. Something other than the certainty that she couldn't escape. But Salia didn't get to get used to the feeling, couldn't classify it when she was grabbed by the black ram's horns of her head and violently dragged forward.
A strangled sound escaped her throat as she was thrown over the edge of a boat and slammed face-first onto the wood. A burning sensation ran through one of her cheeks, while her nose throbbed unpleasantly up to her forehead. Behind her followed the others with whom she had shared her cage.
Hastily, Salia tried to bring herself into a sitting position, to glance over her shoulder and snort. A sound that caught soundlessly in her throat as she spotted the other demons.
Each of them had been dressed in simple rags. They had come into this world with nothing and would leave the same way. In between, she discovered red marks, lacerations, whimpering women, feet away from their husbands. Little children, no older than ten. Babies who had been silent for a while because they had starved to death somewhere along the way. They had been kept in cells far away from their mothers to be returned to the occasion of death.
Tortured screams coursed through the back rows and, if Salia had to count, she looked into the eyes of at least a hundred demons, all different from humans in their own unique way. Some displayed animal claws, of which only crippled stumps remained. Others had horns of various shapes and colours. Skin ranged from scaly to leathery to so transparent that one could count the veins underneath with the naked eye.
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They were special.
The clearing of the warden's throat, who had been watching her, made her gaze slowly wander to his lanky figure. The flicker of a magic book illuminated his angular features.
“For the sake of order, here are your last words of farewell.” A wry smile crept onto his features. “In the name of the Kingdom of Couvia and all surrounding lands and allied kingdoms, you demons are sentenced to death so as not to further threaten the peaceful lives of humans. Just as you escaped these unknown realms when they sought to devour you, so you are delivered to them through our hand to find death in the hell of Aywotoc. May the hero who will one day hold the sacred spear in their hands destroy the rest of you as well.”
Salia swallowed. She had heard much of the legends in which a flood had swept over humanity centuries ago, leaving only the chosen alive. The rest had perished in the waves. Simultaneously, she had considered it a fairy tale and even now, trapped in chains, ready to face death, the stories surrounding the sacred spear sounded implausible. A bit like getting one's hopes up for something that would never come to pass.
A ridiculous, stupid, even human trait that annihilated anything different; and even as Salia ground her jaw, eyeing the prisoners of her people, heat sprouted beneath her skin. If she were to get one last chance, it would be the eyes of this warden that she would claw out first. Like a last fight, with mixed cards, to see if there really was a reason to fear. If there really was a hero lurking out there who wanted them all dead.
“May the hell of uncharted waters hold you tightly in its arms.” Without further ado, the overseer slammed the book shut before giving Salia's boat a good kick. The jolt swayed through her body, making it hard to keep her balance on her knees, and the small distance that stretched between her and the shore within seconds became impassable in one fell swoop.
No further attention was paid to her boat, instead she was left to drift while the next ones were pushed into another wooden shell and the procedure repeated. At least ten times, some of them would have to listen to the words of the book and just for a blink of an eye, Salia was glad that she was in the first unit of doomed men.
The other nine who shared the cramped space of the boat with her had already shut their minds. Heads bowed, they were silent. Their senses had zoned out and the will to hope for anything had disappeared. The chains held them firmly in this place, and although Salia felt the tightness in her chest as communal suffering, it was a spark of remorse that took over.
After all the chaos had befallen her, after the world had relentlessly collapsed beneath her feet, it was only in those minutes that it occurred to her what all she could have done better. She could have lived a life that deserved to be extinguished. Instead, fear had overtaken her and gripped her tightly.
Her head lowered, her fingers came to the fore once more. For what seemed an eternity until a choked cry welled up at her side and faded. The boat swayed. Instantly Salia pulled her head up, making the white, shoulder-length waves sway, and caught sight of a fire arrow in a woman's chest, her body falling slowly backwards. As soon as her upper body hit the ground, the magical flames spread. Everyone who had previously been finished with life jumped up, panic stricken, trying to escape in haste and yet unable to find a way out.
“Put out the fire!” one of them yelled.
“They want to be sure! Definitely sure! Most certainly!” shouted another.
Two jumped overboard, unwilling to be burned when drowning seemed much less painful than the purgatory of this world. Salia, however, tried to remain seated, to compensate for the swaying of the boat. But the others' movements were too fast. The screams rang in the ears, mingled with the cries for help from the other boats, which were also bursting into flames.
Salia's gaze darted over the others, fixing on the fiery image they had been given. In another unit, a woman danced in the flames. Children were strangled – to make it quicker than burning or drowning. Some jumped overboard with no hope of ever surfacing.
And from the shore, they were watched.
“You cowards...” Spellbound by the sight, Salia leaned forward. She barely heard the whisper on her lips herself. If she would only stretch far enough, just a little more, she might reach these people. But they merely moved further into the distance and the heat that unfurled beneath her skin burned almost worse than the flames of the fire whose tongues slowly crept in her direction. “One day you will pay for this...”
The very next moment, her head hit the water's surface.
Cold settled around her body, nestling against her skin through the rag, bringing balm – even calm – that plunged everything into icy silence. For a moment, there were no more screams. The world seemed almost peaceful.
But the darkness of the water invited remembrance and while the chains tugged at her body as heavy as lead, dragging her further into damnation, it was the image on the shore that vied for attention, firmly fixed in her mind. The image of smiling wardens in unadorned uniforms. All in expensive jackets and boots, finely tailored trousers and capes with fur collars.
Her throat tightened. She wanted to sob, but all that flooded her lungs was water. Cold, sallow-tasting liquid that coursed through her body, pushing aside the oxygen. The image faded into the background. Her muscles twitched. The last spark of life tried to save her. But the depths had already swallowed her and, although the violent stirrings of her limbs barely subsided, the tiny bubbles of air that escaped her lips told her it was already too late.
Drowning was strange.
At first one thought they were suffocating and then, all at once, it became natural to breathe water until death came. Salia felt it, noticed how the calm befell her nerves and also how much beauty was hiding in this place.
The water above her shone in the incoming light, and the darkness made a caressing contrast. Blue shimmered in a wide variety of nuances.
If she had had the strength, she would have explored Aywotoc. Maybe she would have found a home in that place. One where there was no hate and no one had to die. A place where she felt no heat.
And yet, in another life, she would have taken revenge first. She would have burned each of those overseers at the stake, sure that they felt the same pain as all the innocents who had been crushed.
“Are you sure?”
A voice in the background reached out to her and yet met only a wavering wall of water in Salia's senses. Promises reigned within her. Wishes and dreams for a war. For a little more justice.
The water had already filled her lungs to the brim.
Only a few more seconds until her thoughts would be oblivion.
But the voice that nestled against her senses persisted. It wrapped itself sweetly around Salia's mind, kissing the weakness far into nothingness, bringing with it an engaging blackness where deep unconsciousness waited.
Dreamless loneliness, in which ultimately only this one voice lurked.
“Welcome home, my child.”