None of them had all their limbs intact. So were completely limbless, being little more than bloodied sacks of at and bone slumped on the ground.
Flies the size of my thumb buzzed in broad, droning clouds, landing on open wounds, and crawling across the staring eyes of the victims.
The air stank of rot, decay, iron, and the sour reek of sweat caused by fear.
This was a torture facility. A thoughtfully surreptitious one.
These people had been unfortunate enough to cross the Amazons; they were probably spies, saboteurs, failed negotiators, or possibly soone who might have been suspected of hiding Benjamin Mark.
And the Amazons had answered with rciless and calculated cruelty.
They were all being kept alive, I realized, not out of rcy, but politics.
The alliance of races still held, even if barely.
If the humans hadn’t actually taken Benjamin Mark, the Amazons could return these broken survivors, "fix" them as best they could, and claim they had shown considerable restraint.
That was likely the cold reasoning behind leaving them breathing.
But goodness... the brutality was appalling.
Had Benjamin Mark left such a deep mark on this place that the Amazons would go this far for him?
Or... had they always been this... inhumane?
When all was said and done, this level of savagery was perhaps forty percent of what I would do if soone dared harm my family... Lily, Silverøse, Her Majesty, or my team.
Nevertheless, I now seriously and desperately did not want to be caught by these bizarre wo—
GASP!
Soone suddenly appeared.
I froze instantly, with every muscle locking, my breath held, and my body beca nearly one with the tree I was leaning on.
An Amazon warrior had stepped into the clearing. She was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a short silver-streaked hair, with a scar along her jaw.
She moved with predatory refinent, bending low, with her nostrils flaring as she scanned the area like a wolf sniffing for blood.
The mont she entered, the broken hostages had begun to plead harder; with their voices rising in a pitiful, overlapping chorus.
They begged to be spared. That is, they begged to be killed. Because... anything but more pain was reasonable. Anything but that endless, rotting limbo.
If the Amazon hadn’t arrived so soon, I had a small intention to kill them myself.
But right now? I could feel my heartbeat inside my skull, so hard I thought it might crack a bone. My fists clenched until my nails bit into my palms, and another single bead of sweat rolled slowly down the side of my face.
It was surprising and it was exciting.
What I felt currently: it was pure, unadulterated fear. It was so rare, feeling this level of terror, it almost felt like a drug.
My pulse thundered in my ears, as my mouth went dry.
But fear was still fear.
And fear could get one killed.
Just as suddenly as the last one, another figure stepped into the clearing.
Lotus.
The legendary mage moved with calm, unhurried steps, with her grey hair wafting around her shoulders like smoke. She soon stopped beside the Amazon and spoke in a voice as cool and clear as winter water.
"Aria, the invader is right there."
She lifted one elegant hand and pointed... straight at .
My heart plumted into my stomach, and my hairs stood on edge.
I’m really in trouble, and I didn’t know whether to run, or to stay perfectly still and pray the shadows would swallow on their own.
For all I know, it might be a trick; Lotus pointing right at and naming my position with such composed certainty.
So if I moved even a fraction, if I so much as twitched, they might finally make out enough of my features to identify . Maybe if I stayed frozen like this, and I let the darkness cling to just a little longe—
DUUNNN!
Breaking my thoughts, and the rest of my ribs, the swollen war-club the Amazon called Aria held connected with my stomach in a deep, bone-rattling vibration.
The impact nearly crumpled into a sar, as air exploded from my lungs in a soft gasp.
I didn’t even know what was happening anymore: but I seems the force was threw off that area. I was airborne now.
But before I could even begin to fall to the ground, I was already being pumled; with fists I couldn’t see, from directions I couldn’t track, hamring into my hurting ribs, my shoulders, my eye, and my jaw.
Soone, possibly my attacker, seized a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back with brutal force.
But then I twisted violently, slamming both of my heels into her face with every ounce of strength left in my small body.
I felt the bone crunched under my soles, and she released with a choked snarl.
I didn’t wait for her to recover, and I bolted; running and leaping, with every muscle feeling like shared of crystals were buried inside them, as I tried to put distance between myself and the area.
My heart still hamred so hard it felt like it might burst through my chest. I must not get caught no matter what.
Warm and sticky blood dripped steadily from my scalp, running into my left eye and turning half the world red and blurry.
To make matters worse, arrows began to whistle past .
They sealed every escape route I tried to take, the silver-tipped sticks thudding into bark inches from goring my head, my legs, my back.
I was left with no other choice; I decided to turn sharply and sprint back into the deeper forest, desperate to lose them among the trees.
I dodged, and twisted, and rolled under low branches and vaulted over roots.
Most of the arrows missed, but one kept finding narrowly.
A single bronze arrow which was sleeker and faster, more precise than the rest, continually grazed my shoulder, then my thigh, then the side of my neck.
Each near-miss tore my fabric and so skin, leaving stinging lines of burn and slash.
I forced my stinging eyes to focus into the distance, to find who that remarkable archer was—as if it would stop the stream of arrows.
But there she was.
Tamar, the daughter of Queen Elara, standing atop a high branch, a bow already drawn for another shot. Her expression was utterly cold and focused, so utterly rciless too.
I thought she was away from here? Was she not near Shishi-no-su’s borders before I left?
I had made a catastrophic miscalculation.
...Wait.
Is it possible that I might actually be killed here?
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