Page 15 of Broken Fate
Propping myself up on one elbow, I winced against the pain in my back, then managed to take a small mouthful of water and swish it around, ridding myself of the last of the grit and desert-like sensation.
“Thanks,” I repeated after swallowing another mouthful. “I appreciate it.”
The woman just nodded.
“Where am I?” I asked, trying to remember what had happened. The last thing I recalled was Andracis. The whip. I frowned, trying to dredge up memories that didn’t exist.
“You were worked over rather severely,” the woman said, perhaps interpreting my reactions. “When you got here, you were unconscious and bleeding badly.”
I nodded. “I remember that much. The whip …”
“Ah, you had the pleasure of meeting with Andracis, did you?” she said scornfully. “He’s a sadistic sonofabitch, that one. Takes pleasure in the pain he inflicts on others.”
“Sounds about right,” I muttered, shifting to a sitting position, trying to ignore the stretching sensation across my back as the new skin had its limits tested.
“Easy,” the woman said. “You don’t want to reopen any of those. They’re just starting to heal over properly.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked.
“In and out for two days,” she replied.
Two days.
“Where am I?” I repeated, only now starting to look around at my surroundings.
We were in what could only be another jail cell. Stone surrounded us on all but one side. The walls arced up like a dome instead of the cube I’d been in before. The cell wasn’t damp or full of moss and mold. It was clean, dry, and there was even bedding on the bunks.
And the door was open.
Beyond it, I could see others moving about. Men and women both, though they mostly kept to each other. There was plenty of light to see by. It was a courtyard of sorts. More cells occupied the far side, and I could just see the feet of other people walking on the floor above.
“You’re in jail,” the woman said dryly. “Well, not jail. That’s where they send drunks and minor ne’er-do-wells. This is prison, where the truly bad apples get sent.”
“Prison?” I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Where? Not in Arcadia, certainly. We don’t have that kind of problem.”
The woman stared at me in astonishment before tilting her head back and barking with throaty laughter that cut at me. I blushed, feeling stupid and naïve even as the wounds on my back burned in pain.
We don’t have that problem. Just like our leaders are good people, right?
The gleam in Andracis’ eyes came back to me.
“They hide it so well,” I said, accepting the harsh laughter as the rebuke it was. My world growing up was vastly different than the real one, it seemed.
“Yes, they do,” the woman said.
“Are you my cellmate?” I asked, nodding at the other bunk.
“Yes.”
I nodded, but my attention was pulled outside of the cell. A woman was watching me from afar. Had been the entire time, in fact. She was tall, with long, reddish-brown hair and a pair of big, brown eyes that glowed with golden intelligence.
“So, what did you do to get sent down here?” the woman asked as a few others stopped at the cell door, noting that I was awake. They called for others, and a crowd slowly grew outside.
“I …”
Did I want to tell them? What would they think of me if I told them I tried to destroy something so core to our world? Was that judgment really something I wanted, given my current condition? I was in no shape to fight them off if they got pissed about it.
I recalled how my cellmate had immediately known it was Andracis who favored a whip. It wasn’t the first time she’d come across it. Everyone in the prison was there because they’d crossed the line. Many of them were probably worse than I was.
