Pain came in multiple places at once as he was pressed, pulled, jabbed, and scraped. He tried to scream but couldn’t. His mouth was forced open, but the pain was quickly replaced by something cool. He tried to suck it bu
t couldn’t. The moisture spread over his tongue and into his cheeks, an incredible feeling. Then only pain.
Silas woke to a view across a vast expanse of lush green forest. The bottom of a mountain range stood in the distance, peaks shrouded in cloud.
His neck was stiff as he turned his head. The beige stone room was old and undecorated, with a single stool stood against one wall. A porcelain bowl sat on top of a small table next to his bed, with a pristine white flannel folded over its edge.
Tucked in? He gingerly pulled his arms from underneath the white sheet. Both were scabby and bruised, but there were no fresh wounds. A dull ache drew his attention to a cross of stitching that spanned the width of his shoulder. A tidy job. Doesn’t look infected.
An intense thirst came from nowhere, and he tried to prop himself up to reach for the bowl. His legs and back had other ideas, refusing to assist, and after just a few seconds of effort, he found himself out of breath. “Water,” he whispered in a croaked voice, barely able to open his mouth. “Water.”
He swung a leg out of bed. It hung limp and useless. He squeezed at the bony thigh. What the hell has happened to me? He couldn’t remember how he got here, or why, for that matter. The clean room looked nothing like a prison or even a hospital. He looked outside again. The landscape was unrecognisable. Did I escape on the Gallinule?
He wiggled his torso toward the table and reached for the bowl. “Come on, you bastard.” He panted as he stretched, his fingertips brushing the very edge of the bowl, agonisingly close.
Footsteps echoed on the other side of the door. Silas panicked and tried to pull his leg back under the sheet. The footsteps grew closer. His leg felt heavy enough to be three times the size it was. Come on, come on. He hissed and snarled as he came close to hooking the knee over the edge of the mattress.
He let go of the leg as the door opened and a woman entered. She wore a dark blue dress with a white apron, hair hidden away under a white hat. Her perfect complexion gave Silas thoughts of angels. Am I dead?
The woman stood still, brow wrinkling at first, then her eyes widened and mouth opened. She spun and ran down the corridor. “Sister, sister. He’s awake, he’s awake,” she shouted.
“Not dead then.” He watched the woman disappear around a corner. Mara, where is Mara? Memories of Mara were there. They taunted him, just out of reach. The Shadow Forest. Boys on horses. But that was all. He looked at the wound on his shoulder. Did this happen in the Shadow Forest? Was I attacked by a Shadow? Surely I’d be dead.
Multiple footsteps sounded in the corridor, and three women made their way into the room, including the one from before. All wore the same uniform as the original girl. The girl with the perfect skin stayed by the door, while another slightly older woman tucked Silas’s leg back under the sheet. The eldest of the three came to Silas’s side and placed a hand on his forehead. “How are you feeling?” she said, almost shouting.
“Water,” Silas whispered.
“Agatha,” the eldest woman said.
Agatha, the girl with the perfect skin, hurried back along the corridor.
“I am sister Solvena. What is your name?”
“Silas.” He’d said it without thinking. If there was ever a situation to use a fake name, this was it. Bloody idiot.
“You have been asleep for a long time, Silas. There have been many occasions when we thought you may never wake up.”
Agatha came back into the room and poured water into a mug with shaking hands. Sister Solvena took the mug, raised Silas’s head up slightly with one hand, and held the mug to his lips. “Small sips.”
Left to his own devices, he would have most certainly gulped down the water, but sister Solvena kept the angle of the mug slight, so he couldn’t. Even so, the sips were a welcome relief. Only the left side of the mug was visible as he sipped.
He moved a hand to his face. A piece of material covered his right eye. He tucked his fingers underneath it to find a ball of something soft filled the socket. “My eye, what happened to it?”
“Too badly damaged, I am afraid, but it has healed well,” Sister Solvena said.
Silas traced a scar that ran from the eye all the way to the opposite cheek, followed it back to his nose, then to the right cheek and left eye. A cross. Memories of the dead twins in Talon with crosses cut into their faces came. “Mara.”
All three women sketched a crucifix in the air in front of their chests. “So it is true?” Sister Solvena said. “A demon returns.”
Silas remembered Mara crouched above him in the Shadow Castle. “Yes,” he whispered, as the need to puke stirred. “The Shadows?”
“Dead and buried. The spell protecting their castle gone, the sky clear. This is how we found you.”
He remembered everything, Talon, Vespen, the dead Shadows. “I failed. So many people will suffer.”
“This is a demon’s sole purpose… to torment the world. To inflict pain and suffering.”
“Where is he?”