Page 3 of Queen of Vengeance

Perhaps it was my bias, but there was something uniquely comforting about Dask. Our home was tiny, so cramped that my parents, Mema, and I often felt like we were climbing the walls, but it was ours.

What I wouldn’t give to be home again…

I breathed in again, smelling the fresh herbs my parents would dry on the window sill.

There was also the faint scent of stew bubbling away on the stovetop. My grandma often made supper while I sat at the kitchen table and wrote new potion recipes.

If I concentrated hard enough, I could feel the gentle breeze.

The promise of freedom lingered on my skin—so close but always out of my reach.

A loud metallic bang ripped me from my wonderful dream.

My eyes shot open, and the smell of flowers brought on by that gentle breeze became a distant memory once again.

Instead, the horrible scent of mold and gangrene filled my nostrils.

My claws protruded from my fingers, and my teeth sharpened as they sprouted from my gums.

My shift kicked in instinctually, and I had to restrain it. It wouldn’t do me any good here… Probably get me beaten, if anything.

The guard trudged down the hall, banging his baton against the cell bars. His shout echoed down the otherwise empty hallway. “Get up! Get up!”

That meant it was close to eating time, but first, we had to wait for the guards to check all the cells before releasing us.

The only other sounds that stretched for miles and miles of cells were the moans and crying of those losing their mind and the dripping of water onto the stone floor.

My cell was one of the quieter ones.

All the prisoners in this cell had gotten close during our time, and they trusted me a great deal. That was important in a place like this.

My body ached from the cold, hard floor as I sat up slowly. It was the only thing I wasn’t used to after all these years.

I moved my hand around the floor until I found the far wall of my cell while my other cellmates were getting up.

My fingers ran along the bottom until I found the small divet in the otherwise perfect slab of rock. My fingers ran up along the crack until I felt the brush of soft leaves and stems.

I leaned close to it, inhaling the strong scent of mint.

This was my only point of sanity: a single stem of mint that grew up from the ground and broke through the rock to reach me.

Mint, after all, was a resilient weed that could grow through anything. Out of all the cells here, it came to me. It was a small, seemingly insignificant thing that acted as my only glimmer of hope in this place.

It was the reality of being imprisoned in the Federation of Setas’ most inhumane prison, Ryklira.

We only had the light from the barred windows.

During the night, we were in total darkness.

If we saw any kind of light during the night, it was because they were coming to take one of us somewhere else.

Where they were taking them, I didn’t want to know.

I didn’t know how this little stem of mint survived. I liked to think it was someone outside sending me a message.

Fifteen years ago, when they first placed me here, I thought I would lose my mind.

That was what they wanted me to do anyway, but I found that if I kept my mind focused on something, I could surpass the torturing done to me.

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