Page 592 of Rage

Devil in the Details

By: Amanda Cessor

Chapter One

Briar

Iwoke to a pounding head and the sounds of hitching sobs.

“Quiet, they’re going to hear you,” a voice hissed.

“Where are we?” the sobbing voice asked.

“What makes you think I know?”

The stone floor beneath me was hard and damp; moisture that only appeared in the wee hours before dawn–or beneath the ground in caverns or mine shafts. I drew in a deep breath through my nose, smelling urine, sweat, and the sour tang of stomach acid.

I tried to comb through my most recent memories, finding them obscured behind the shadow of pain and exhaustion. Agonizingly, I wrestled myself up onto one of my elbows, squinting in the dark. I could feel my eyes moving, but they saw nothing. Utter darkness stretched out around me, but the room was humid with body heat. How many of us were there?

Sobbing continued from the direction I’d heard it; the sound became deeper, each breath shattering and sawing through the poor girl’s throat.

“You’re going to get us all killed,” the second voice said.

“I don’t think you’re helping,” a third voice came. This one was close–only a few inches away from me.

I reached out and felt warm skin under my fingers, along with the jolt of a flinch. “Sorry,” I croaked.

“I didn’t even know you were there,” she replied.

I continued combing through my memories as the sounds of other people waking around us wove together in a sort of indiscernible mess of noise. I pressed my fingertips to my now-sweating brow, as if I might reach into the confines of my skull and pull something out. Nothing became clearer. I had to go further back, thinking of the morning and my tasks for the day.

I’d had to mend my best dress–the one with the lace I’d kept from yellowing with a bit of lemon juice and some time in the sun. I was going to have to wear it in the evening…I was going to be meeting with someone. Someone important.

“Where are we?” the sobbing voice wailed again and the way her voice caught on the syllables, wet and miserable, made something stir in my chest.

“Shh,” I said softly. “Shhhh. Calm down, love. Take a deep breath in. If you keep that up you’re going to fall unconscious.”

“She’s not going to listen to you,” the snippy voice said.

“Would you shut up and let the woman help,” a new voice said, thickly accented. “It’s not as if your methods have been doing much good.”

“I–I–I’m terrified of the dark,” the crying girl whimpered. “I sleep with a candle lit each night. The servants keep it lit.”

So she was well-to-do. Poor thing. I wondered what got her on the wrong end of someone’s notice.

“What’s your name, love?” I asked, using my most disarming voice.

“C-C-Cassandre–my papa calls me C-Cassie,” she said.

“Alright, Cassie,” I said. “We’re going to breathe together, alright? Let’s calm you down so we can figure out what’s going on and get you out of here. Take my hand. Reach out; I’ll find you.”

I heard the quiet hiss of satin on satin as she reached out. She must have been in her night shift. I stretched my arm ahead of me until I felt the stickiness of sweat and tears on fumbling fingers. We grasped blindly for each other for a bit before she caught my hand in a vice grip. I tugged on her arm, pulling her toward me and cradling her against my chest. My fingers caught in the tangled curls of her hair as I pet soothing lines down her head.

I heard her breathe in a shaky breath before she let it out in a long, shuddering exhale. Her sobbing quieted to small hitches. Her body was so small; twiggy. She must have been no older than eighteen.

Her body went limp in my arms as I soothed her. Her breathing slowed to a steady rhythm in the slow minutes that passed while I whispered soft comforts to her the way I did for my younger sister when we were small. I’d always been good at getting someone to calm down.

“Thank gods for that,” the snippy voice said once she was asleep. “I was getting ready to strangle her myself.”

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