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I know it. I’ve heard it before.
It’s important.
I open my mouth, but I can’t find the wherewithal to respond. My mind is so fuzzy…
You need to wake up, the voice says. Now!
The last word hits me like a punch, and the eyes I didn’t know were closed pop open.
The room around me is hazy too, just a hint of the dawn’s glow seeping through a window beyond the foot of the bed. I’m lying on my side on top of the covers—no one bothered to so much as drape a blanket over me. My limps feel cold and achy.
My head throbs too, but with a duller pulsing than the previous sharp pangs.
I have the urge to shift and stretch, but at the same moment a large figure adjusts his position where he’s leaning against a side table near the door. A bulky man with his mouth set in a bored scowl.
He’s going to realize I woke up—he’s going to hurt me. I have to hit him first, before?—
I yank back my mind from those frantic thoughts. The quavering panic of them is horribly familiar.
I used a lot of magic last night. Possibly more than I know.
Now I’m having delusions of danger again.
Of course, I am in a lot of danger. But it’s not as immediate as my scattered sanity would have me believe.
The man is gazing toward the window, not toward me. I dip my eyelids so I’ll still look asleep if he glances my way.
Yes, I could knock him down with my magic. It’s already unfurling around my racing heart with my newly recovered consciousness.
But my guard is far from the only threat I’m facing. I have to be smart.
I study the man for a few moments through my eyelashes. I think I saw him around the house after Lothar brought me here the first time. One of his stooges, maybe a captured daimon.
Inside my mouth, I curl my tongue assessingly. The movement comes easily without any force obstructing it.
I’m still wearing my boots. I wiggle my toes inside them, where the man can’t see.
A jolt of hope shoots through my chest. The scourge sorcerer’s magic isn’t clamped around my body any longer. Zaneta must still be sleeping.
I can move myself through my own will.
More memories float up in fragments. Lothar brought me back here—he drugged me so that my puppet master could sleep.
But I’ve woken up sooner than he must have expected.
Because of the voice in my dream.
It was Kosmel. The trickster godlen hasn’t completely abandoned me after all.
How much time do I have before I lose the small advantage he’s given me?
My magic shoots farther through my abdomen, burning hotter with each passing second. These assholes kidnapped me, forced me to do their bidding?—
Great God help me, I don’t know what I actually did last night. The deaths I do remember are awful enough.
A wallop of guilt and anguish hits me right in the sternum. I close my eyes tighter against the swell of emotion and clench my jaw.
I can’t get distracted by regret right now. What matters most is getting away from these monsters so they can’t turn me into even more of a fiend to serve their sick purposes.
