The darkness that Abel had slowly become comfortable in was suddenly ripped apart by blades of light, exploding everywhere and chasing away any traces of dark. The faint sound of footsteps reached his ears and he twisted his head to glance at the approaching figure.

With his limb tied together, and him lying sideways on the floor, this proved to be an impossible feat and all he was treated to was an image of a pair of knee-high leather boots that gleamed in the light streaming in through the doorway behind her.

"We need you fed." The figure said, and unless Abel's ears were misbehaving as well, he thought it sounded like a girl. It was at odds with the fact that he was currently tied up and gagged in the middle of nowhere. This was either one scary girl, or she had help.

He didn't know which he hoped for.

A hand grabbed his collar and began pulling him backwards, towards the light and the doorway outside. His muscles involuntarily tensed, and he let out a growl that barely made it past the bitter-tasting gag.

"Oh, don't be obstinate." The girl chastised without breaking her stride. "I don't like dragging your heavy ass any more than you do."

She dragged him through the doorway, and with what seemed like tremendous effort, pulled him up until he was kneeling. His hands were tied at his back, and his legs were secured with bands of cloth at the knee and ankle, so he was still useless in this position.

Not that he felt like fighting. Whatever gas they had knocked him out with as he approached the alley where he, Zeinab and Hakim had first hidden had taken something out of him and replaced it with sand. He felt like a hollow ball, waiting to collapse at the slightest pressure.

Kidnapped while trying to save a kidnapped man. The irony wasn't lost on him. In fact, he wondered for a moment if this wasn't the same person who took Felix.

He was shoved into a metal chair, and he grunted in pain when he sat on his own hand, nearly breaking the bones there.

"Klutz." The girl grumbled, shifting him into a slightly more acceptable position. He wasn't sure whether she was referencing him or herself.

She moved around to his front, and for the first time he got a full glimpse of her, illuminated by whatever small sun that was in the room with them, shining on everything. His opinion shifted immediately; this wasn't Felix's abductor. he'd have know if he was so feminine and... curvy.

She was a black haired southerner, dressed in black leather, armor that flowed and melded to her body like a second skin. She had elbow length gloves covering her arms, and several folds concealed blades that Abel immediately spotted.

The whole outfit was quite tight-fitting though, giving the impression this was more lingerie than armor. Abel restrained a snort of dark amusement. Whoever this was, she had a lot of time to spend – waste – on making impressions.

She dropped a plate of gruel, a grey fluid that sloshed around in the bowl, on the metal table before him.

"I'm going to take off your gag so you can eat, but you spout any nonsense, and I'm returning it. You'll have yourself to blame when you starve." She warned, drawing closer. She grabbed his gag and pulled it out of his mouth, so it fell and hung by his neck.

Abel restrained the urge to bite off her fingers, watching through narrowed eyes as she scooped a spoon of the gruel and brought it to his lips. He let the spoon reach his lips, and he sipped it.

The girl relaxed when he accepted it and turned back to the plate of gruel. Abel chose that moment to spit. Right on her.

She froze for a moment, staring at her body in slight shock. Then she looked up and her expression hardened. The thought that he had made a mistake flashed through Abel's mind. His heart began beating faster in his chest and his breathing hitched.

Her hand swung through the air in a blur, and his head snapped to the side at the impact of her iron-hard palm.

Dark fingers reached around the edge of his vision, and his body slowly went limp. Sleep softly caressed his mind him and he let it, relieved at the opportunity to leave this place. The last impression he had was falling off the chair, striking the floor with his shoulder and nearly dislocating it.

He might have made a mistake, but he didn't care. If it meant sleep, he didn't care.

He just prayed to the seven gods Zeinab or Hakim would have discovered he was missing and have began searching for him.

\\//\\//\\//\\//

"When do you think this excellent nightmare will end, my friend?" He tossed another small husk of bread at his silent companion huddled in the corner. The brown mouse jumped at it before it finished rolling, nibbling at it enthusiastically.

It looked up at Felix with shiny reflective eyes that seemed to say, If the nightmare provides such sumptuous snacks, I have no issues with it.

"You're not the one starving while attempting to sleep on the frozen floor." Felix grumbled, nibbling on the small hunk of bread in his hand. He sighed as he realized he actually responded to the mouse.

"I'm losing my mind, aren't I?" He asked the mouse. It cocked its head, feeling insulted.

If it gets me a meal, I wouldn't worry about it.

Felix began to worry about the recurring mentions of food from the mouse. If he was truly talking to himself, and not a mouse, what did the cyclic references to food mean for his mental health?

The days in the cell had begun to blur together, and Felix knew that was bad. He'd tried to keep a tally, but fish bones did not make sufficient material to scratch counting marks on walls.

He'd given up on the now seemingly ludicrous hope that his father's soldiers would storm the place and release him. His abductor had gone through a portal when Felix was taken and wherever they went was obviously far enough to remain undiscovered by the soldiers.

The future, in the ways he could see it, were bleak. His abductor had divulged no plans to demand for a ransom, nor shown any true urge to want to harm him, so his life would mostly remain the same for a long, long time on.

That was if he didn't starve first. Already, his skin was stretched around his ribcage and his muscles – finely trained things he'd spent good hours working on – were already looking more like a joke. He didn't want to imagine what his sunken face looked like, dirty and full of shadows.

"That's enough self-pity for today." He forced himself to say. "I have some scheduled for tomorrow. I'll make good use of it."

He watched the mouse scamper around the room, continuously glancing at him as it waited for him to toss another crumb of bread in its direction. When that did not happen for several long seconds, it turned away and climbed up the wall opposite.

A few bricks up, it suddenly disappeared, as though swallowed by shadows. Felix blinked in confusion and it took several seconds before he realized he was not hallucinating. The mouse truly had disappeared.

He dragged himself up from his paper-thin bedroll with budding excitement, approaching the wall. He examined it closely, but the bricks were naught but dark rectangles in the dim lighting from outside the cell.

He began to pore over the cold moist bricks for a few seconds before his fingertips brushed a crack wide enough to stick his fingers in. He hooked his long fingernails into the gap – the damn things resembled a wild animal's after so long without care – and pulled slightly on it.

He felt the thousand-year-old brick tremble and vibrate as it shifted. Dust sifted out through gaps, and the brick came slightly loose from the wall. He would have whooped if his abdomen didn't hurt so bad.

He was about to pull the entire brick loose when the sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears. Trembling anew with trepidation, he pushed the brick back into place and settled back onto his bedroll.

The thought flitted through him that his abductor might have heard the scratching. The thought that he might have had his dark magic watching him the whole time followed hard on the heels of that. Then he ceased to think at all, as his abductor stood before the gate, golden torch light illuminating a cruel, hard face.

"WAKE!" He barked, rapping at the bars with a strange scepter.

Felix debated ignoring him, but something in his voice warned him that would be too big a mistake. He rolled over to face the bars of the cell, sighing dramatically. "No need to be so loud."

"Get up." His abductor snarled, and Felix realized the hopeful man was gone, replaced by the maniac he had seen only a few times. This time seemed to be worse than any other episodes; his eyes were completely black, even the whites. Shadows swirled around him, crowding the cowering flame of the torch in his hand. He emanated a rancid smell, and Felix fought the rising urge to heave.

"What are you staring at?" His abductor demanded, his voice a shrill scream. "Get UP! Let me see the one my parents favor so."

Apparently Felix was not doing so fast enough. Invisible bands suddenly wrapped around his limbs, straightening them abruptly. He groaned at the forced movement and the sudden unnatural cold of the dark lashes of shadow holding him.

"Weakling." His abductor sneered. "I survived far worse at a far younger age. You think you know the meaning of darkness and isolation? I lived with it from the moment I was born. Do you think hunger is familiar? Imagine being a child lost in the world with nothing and no one who cared enough to give a second glance, much less a morsel. You're pathetic."

Felix squeezed his eyes shut as the pressure on his bones ratcheted up, and all left in the world was him, his abductor, and the pain. He threw his head back to scream, but the sound that came out was a low groan.

"You have not felt true pain, feeble child, and never will because you have already tasted of a happy life. All I had to keep me alive was my harsh magic, and the old crone who found me as a child and took me in as her own. She was no better than the wild." His rant paused and he took in a deep, pumping breath that sounded very close to a sob.

The sound of heavy locks turning and the metal door swinging open cut through the pain. Felix began to heave in panic. The gates had been the last security he had, the only thing stopping the lunatic from murdering him with his own hands. Now, that was gone.

"You will never know true emptiness, my brother." His abductor whispered, as the bonds raised him above the floor and floated him out his cage. "But I can give you a taste."

His abductor turned, walking back up the stairs with an almost unconscious prisoner floating in tow.

\\//\\//\\//\\//

Laila whimpered as the wind screamed louder, raising the edges of the tents slightly above the floor. Rain seeped into gaps in the sewn leather and under the tent, flooding the ground inside.

She didn't know whether the raging storm was the work of her father's mages to slow her, but she wouldn't put it past him. Unfortunately, it was working.

She had to share the tiny tent with her claustrophobic horse, and it was stifling, even with the cold rain. Half of the few belongings she owned were soaked through, probably permanently damaged. She felt almost sure that the wind would rip her tent, with her and her horse in it, off the surface of the earth and into the night's clouds, never to return, or for lightning to strike and turn them into ashes.

Even worse, the rain clouds were packing enough water to start a small sea right where she stood. If it didn't stop raining soon, floods would soon follow.

"Hold on, Tarun." She whispered to her horse, putting her forehead to his. "We'll soon be out of this, and the bright sun will return."

They both flinched at a thunderous crack outside, and the earth trembled under the strike of the lightning bolt. Loud thunder threatened to do the job of the wind and unearth them, rumbling through the air and the earth.

A low moan built up deep inside of her as she realized she had no choice but to admit that her panic was slowly affected the storm, magnifying its strength.

All her life, her father had tried to force into her the mastery of controlling the four elements. She failed woefully at everything but the wind, which she detested using or even remembering because her 'control' of it was at the whim of her emotions.

She wouldn't be surprised to find their tent was the center of a whirl storm of her own making at the moment.

She had to bite her tongue to hold back a scream when lightning crashed again, drowning out the screeching, weeping wind.

"Okay." She whispered to the horse. "I need to calm down. Any ideas how?"

The evidently non-talking horse just snorted in answer.

Laila sighed and glanced at her belongings. She had packed them onto a small wooden skiff that kept them above the ground. A book, one of the few she owned, poked its corner out the edge if the pile. An idea slowly crept into her mind, and she smiled.

"I'll tell a story then." She glanced back at her horse, who stared at her with sage calmness. "One of mine, of course. A good one."

She took a deep breath and began telling a short tale, pausing between sentences as scenes of the story ran through her mind.

"There once was a young girl, who lived in her father's cottage. Her life was bleak, guided by the hands of men who sought to make her and her inheritance theirs. Her father was wicked himself, and he would no more help her than he would help his rival.

"Instead of protecting her from them, he sold her off to the highest bidder, a rich man who was far richer in pride than he was in possessions. He was a truly vile man, and the three women he had married before her were now haggard slaves of his, empty of their former beauty and pride.

"The same was her fate. There was no brave knight or handsome prince to rescue her, nor any prophecy to save her.

"Seeing this, she packed the few belongings she owned, and fled from her village on a stolen horse, far into the woods. There were true monsters there, beings not of this world, but from a far darker place.

"The girl was afraid, but she did not let her fear rule her. Instead, she harnessed it, learned to respect and live with it, and in the process subdued the forest. She became queen of all that dwells in the shadows.

"To this day, neither her father, her husband-to-be, or her suitors have found her, and she rules the woods, free and wild."

She finished her story, slowly becoming aware of the world around her again. She felt calmer, assured that all would be alright. She looked down to find Tarun nibbling at the sugar pouch on her hip, whinnying softly as he begged for a treat. She shifted the pouch away from him and he let out a steamy breath of protest.

"I'm keeping those for later." She rebuked and he tossed his head in irritation, and she could nearly imagine him rolling his eyes.

Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance, and she looked up at the top of the tent. The storm had lessened greatly, the rain calming and the wind dropping. The story had calmed her. Stories always had since she was a child in her mother's arms.

Laila dropped to her knees and squeezed around the horse, crawling out the tent. The floor was muddy, and it did wonders to the color of her armor, but she ignored it. She would find a time to clean it up later.

The earth outside was changed, a brown landscape covered in white mist that thickened in the distance. The tent was the only thing in sight as far as the mist let Laila see.

Tarun pushed his way free of the tent as well, shouldering his way roughly past her. The horse slowly walked through the muddy earth, disdainfully raising his hoofs from the mud as though disgusted by the muck.

He suddenly froze in his tracks, eyes wide in fear. Laila glanced around for the approaching danger, but she saw nothing. Her horse continued staring though, a single leg raised comically in the air.

And she'd never known him to give false alarms.

Laila pulled her bow off her neck and an arrow from her quiver. She nocked it and aimed it randomly towards the mist, listening for any sound.

The longer she stared at it, the more menacing the mist seemed to become, swirling in unnerving circles. Something about it did not sit well with her, some base instinct that warning her that this was something more dangerous than mist.

She drew the arrow back, counting her breaths. Waiting for a signal.

It came a moment later, an earsplitting, high pitched scream that ripped the air around her apart. A figure materialized in midair, hurtling for her so fast she barely saw her coming.

Laila released the arrow on reflex and it flew like a ray of light, thudding into one of its eyes. It's heard jerked back and its flight ended awkwardly. It crashed into the ground, bowling towards Laila.

She nocked another arrow and drew it before it finished its roll, stopping just before her boots. It did not move again, now just a broken mess of bloodstained flesh and bone against the gray floor. It took her several seconds to calm her breathing and identify it, but when she did, she began panicking again.

The body looked human, essentially female, down to the blue flowery dress. She did not have strangely colored eyes or nonhuman limbs, but it was clear by the large tattoo of a waxing moon drawn on her neck in dark red ink what she was.

A Sahirat Aleasifa. A Storm Witch.

Laila jerked her aim back up as another scream pierced the air. The mist that had once been calm, began eddying in violent patterns, and the wind began to pick up again. The mist thickened and soon, she could see nothing beyond her tent and her horse.

Her hand ran through the small forest of arrows in her quiver, rapidly counting how many shots she had left. Two dozen. They should do her well if she utilized them properly.

The air quickly filled with screams, their owners sounding outraged at the death of one of their sisters. She could tell, even without seeing them, that they had surrounded her, and were swirling in a tightening circle, preparing to pounce and tear her apart, into until she was nothing but red flesh and pale bone.

At least she now knew without a doubt her father was involved in this.