Another chapter! Slightly edited; skipping some of the torture prawns that were in the original. I don’t know what drow are like, soooo here’s my guess.

Very sleepy. Too many early mornings. I have only early mornings until Thursday, and I’ve had them since Friday. Boo. At least I’m almost healed. My voice is still a bit off, and my nose is still a bit odd, but I’m pretty much back to normal.

Also, too many projects. This will be the last chapter you get for a little while, although I do know what happens next chapter, vaguely. I have some visual arts to do in my free time. Aaaand then there’s the music I have to learn… Tried to get some work done on the Kakadu tonight. Am concerned that I am trying to learn my long-term music too fast. Need to spend next weekend solidly in a practice room.

Oh, right, I went to Toronto and was in the middle of that yesterday. Word to the wise: the Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre is a lovely amazing modern building, but it is not where Google maps says it is. Soooo 1) I have no sense of direction, and 2) somehow Google misplaces one of the more important concert halls in the country, culminating in a half-hour journey turning into an hour-long journey as I only had to walk down two streets and went in the wrong direction both times. Still! Managed to squeak in at the last minute, just as the orchestra finished tuning. Standing tickets are a very reasonable $12 (as compared to getting a new sitting ticket, which would have been $99, and then I would have had less room and been embarrassed by how bad I smelled (having just run five Toronto blocks with a backpack after finally finding out what the RIGHT direction was) so yeah standing tickets are awesome). The ballet was beautiful. I didn’t cry, although I did laugh, because dang, Mercutio is FUNNEH. Too bad he dies. The set was in awesomeperspective design, where all the perpectives are grossly exaggerated, the costumes were beautiful, and the dancers… they have such control over their bodies. It’s amazing. The moves they do are so intricate. That was my first live ballet that I’ve seen and it was splendid.

Well! Bedtime!

(Chapter 9)

Chapter 10

Illinia looked around in bewilderment. The dark-robed figures were tall, slender, elvish, but their skins were ebony-black and their eyes were an eerie golden colour. The hand that had grabbed her was not black-gloved at all, but simply black-skinned. Their hair, where it spilled out of their dark hoods, was cloudy white. She had never seen such outlandish-looking people in her life.
The female guards around Michael were dressed slightly differently. They wore form-fitting silver plate armour that clearly allowed for mobility over protection, to put it politely. They wore purple cloaks, and carried many weapons.
Michael himself was unrecognizable. His hair was as white as theirs, but his skin was a deep blue, his eyes a solid blue that was almost black, even the whites. He was dressed in blue velvet, richly embroidered. He was clearly in charge.
The young lord turned to her. “Welcome to Harken Keep, the home of the Drow-Above-Ground. Lady Illinia, you will be… under my care, shall we say?” His smile was more inhuman than ever. “Get her cleaned up. And throw the hawk out. It keeps attacking me.”
Illinia tried to remain stoic, but her glance was anguished as they seized her hawk, which tried to claw at them, and flung it out into the night. Then they dragged her away.
They gave her a bath, which she did appreciate… and then they took away all her clothes and her pack, which she did not appreciate, and gave her to wear an extremely skimpy outfit, which she definitely did not appreciate. But worst of all, they took her locket.
They led her to a golden door and left her, shivering, in its opening.
“Come in,” said Michael’s voice, and she stepped forward, hesitantly. Her bare feet were numb on the cold stone floor, and her pale bare limbs and midriff were covered with goosebumps. Lace and gauze and golden chains just were not suitable clothing for a castle in December. Golden bracelets jingled on her arms as she tried to cover herself a little, and golden anklets jingled on her ankles as she shuffled forward slowly.
At least her hair looked nice. They had done it up with pearls, done it in such a way that she actually looked lovely. The last time her hair had been so fussed over was at her wedding.
The room was expansive, not particularly full of furniture. Folding screens hid parts of it. The floor was covered in a purple carpet, and her toes sank into it as she stepped on it.
On a blue throne-like armchair, framed by windows at the other end of the room, Michael lolled, watching her from under heavy-lidded eyes. “What’s taking you so long?”
“C-c-cold,” she managed.
He clucked his tongue. “Well, I’d imagine so. When I said to get you cleaned up, I didn’t mean to turn you into a sex slave.” The corner of his mouth turned up in amusement. “Although I’m rather enjoying it now.”
She scrubbed her arms, the thin gauzy shawl providing no cover against the air or his gaze. “I-I’m sure y-you are.”
“However, it would do me no good to have you freeze to death. Come here.”
She moved forward reluctantly. He kept urging her forward, with more and more impatience. “Now, sit down,” he said, when she was standing at the arm of his chair.
She did so, crouching on the carpet beside his chair, and with a flump, a familiar black velvet cloak fell about her shoulders.
“Oh!” she cried in surprise, and pulled it around herself quickly.
The shapeshifter rolled his eyes. “You were expecting something else? Just because I have the right to do whatever I want with you doesn’t mean that I’m going to start by indulging in that.” The tight smile. “No, it will be far more effective once you start trusting me again.”
She looked up at him with large, guileless brown eyes. “I still trust you.”
He glared at her. “You’re definitely lying. Oh, you’re a better actress than I thought. You’re lying in your teeth.”
“I am not!”
“Then how can you say such a thing!? I left you for dead and captured you and threw away your hawk, and you keep thinking you’re going to make a lovey-dovey friend out of me.” He was furious, and Illinia huddled down, a tiny pile on the carpet. “You should hate me!”
She dared to look up, and he struck her full in the face, sending her sprawling across the floor.
“I should hate you,” he said almost inaudibly, his face in his hands.
Something in his tone told Illinia she shouldn’t let him know she had heard that. So she got to her knees slowly.
“I still trust you because I have no choice,” she said softly, nursing her cheek. “You are the only one I know in this castle. You are the only one who will bother to protect me, even if you say it’s only to try to betray me again. I know you led me here to bring me into this situation. But I still have my own side to defend. And I still don’t hate you. Not because of our contest of wills, and not because you are the only one who won’t kill me outright in this place.” She paused. “I think I like you. You’ve been a good friend.”
“A good friend who is actively backstabbing you?” he snorted.
“Yes,” she said, looking steadily at him, indomitable in her simplicity and unshaken innocence. “I will always forgive you.”
He stared at her. “I should have killed that stupid hawk,” she heard him mutter, before he lunged at her, seized her elbow, and dragged her away behind one of the folding screens, where there was a large bed. He pushed her down and collapsed beside her, propping himself up on one elbow; she waiting, shaking, for something to happen, but he just watched her, smirking.
“You’re afraid of me,” he said softly, with amusement.
She nodded slowly. “I will always forgive you, but I won’t deny that you can still hurt me, at least temporarily.”
He nodded with satisfaction. “There’s some acknowledgement of what I’m trying to teach you.”
She glanced up at him from under shy eyelashes. “But you aren’t hurting me, for which I am grateful.”
“Ah, but I’m only not hurting you yet. Besides, you are grateful to your goody-good friends for not hurting you?”
“Well, for caring about me?”
“Do you think I care about you?”
“I-I don’t know,” she stammered. “Y-yes, I do.”
He might have blushed. It was hard to tell with his skin colour. But her attention was taken off examining his face when he reached out to her. She flinched at the touch of his fingers on the bare skin of her waist, and she was inexorably drawn closer to him.
“You naive little idiot,” he muttered, and cradling her like a large doll, fell asleep.
She had no need to sleep, and spent some time wondering at the closeness of another living being. She knew that he didn’t love her, and she was only in love with her husband, but there was something nice about being held by a warm, breathing, person.
Of course, she had never been held while wearing so little. She drifted into memory, remembering the time she had sung playful love-songs to her husband, and he had responded in kind, and how the whole affair had ended in cuddles and giggles.
Or there were the times that her area had come under attack from spiders, and Esgalwen herself had been ambushed in her own home by a particularly large one, and had barely fended it off with the knife he had given to her before he and her brother had come to help her. Or almost worse, when she had been carried off and wrapped up, spider-food, until her fiancé had come along and freed all the prisoners – and then realized that she was among them. She remembered the violent tremor that rippled through his body as he imagined what it would have been like, should he have been only a few minutes later than he had been.
If she could only see him again… She wouldn’t mind the loss of her locket if she could only see him. Perhaps hear him, and maybe touch him, as well. But even to know that he was safe…

She became aware of her surroundings again the next morning, of arms around her and her face buried in a velvet-covered chest. It was early yet, and he was still sleeping. She wondered if she should move; this close, and in these uncomfortable clothes, were incredibly embarrassing to her. But if she moved, he would wake, so she lay very still.
After a while, he also woke; she could tell because his breathing changed. It settled back down, but he was clearly trying not to disturb her.
They might have lain there for an hour before he whispered: “I know you’re awake.”
She immediately rolled away and sat up, covering herself better with the black cloak. “I knew you were awake too, b-but I didn’t know you knew.”
He lay back and regarded her thoughtfully. “Your omniscient elf senses failing you?” he asked sarcastically.
She didn’t know what to say to that, and he rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
There was a knock on the door, and he moved quickly. He pulled the black velvet cloak from her shoulders and flung it under the bed, and pushed her down so that she was sprawled helplessly deep in the middle of it. With one hand he examined the bruise on her cheek. “That’s darkening nicely. All right. Act like you’re terrified of me.”
She watched him with wide eyes and made no move.
“Come in,” he said, leaning casually on his chair, a little way away.
The door opened and several people came in. She couldn’t see them, but she guessed they were more guards.
“Good morning, Lord Kilness. We have brought food for you and the prisoner.” A pause. “Where is she?”
“She’s right here. Why would you have to ask?”
“Ah… only for the reports for the Lady and the Master.”
“And what’s this slop? You’re not feeding me this, are you?”
“No, sir, that’s for the prisoner.”
Michael waved a haughty hand. “Throw that out. Get some real food.”
“Why waste real food on such a creature, sir?”
“Are you questioning me?” He smiled sinisterly. “An experiment needs to be in top condition for the best results, yes?”
“Ah… yes… right away, sir.”
The door closed, and Michael turned to her, that smile still on his face. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Entirely creeped out, she remained motionless.
He dropped the smile and sighed impatiently. “You’re no fun. Have some food.”
The food was strange, incredibly bland pancakes and incredibly spicy sliced meat. She choked on the meat; he watched her impassively. “Don’t like spider meat?”
She choked again and almost vomited.
“I was joking,” he said. “It’s troll. Spiders don’t have meat.”
She pushed it to one side surreptitiously as his own food was brought in.
“What am I to call you?” she asked softly, when she was done.
He looked at her, fork half in his mouth. “What do you mean?” he asked with his mouth full.
“Am I to call you Lord Kilness?”
He smiled enigmatically. “That’s not my real name either, you know.”
“But what am I to call you?”
“You can continue to call me Michael.”
“Thank you.”
“And you, Lady Illinia, what is your real name?”
She shied away from him. “I cannot tell you…”
“Oh?” He shrugged. “Perhaps later, then.”
“I really can’t. For my husband’s sake.”
An expression that might have been anger crossed his face, but it was swiftly followed by impassiveness.
Another knock came at the door, and it opened before Michael had time to respond.
A beautiful black elf-woman entered, surrounded by female guards. Her hair was long and elaborately done; she radiated control and dangerousness. “Lord Kilness, how are you? How is your pet?”
“I am very well, Lady Belanthia. The ‘pet’ is in good condition.” He thought for a moment. “Pet… perhaps that is a better word than experiment.”
“Would you be persuaded to give her up for a short while? My people must inspect her.”
“Not today, thank you. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“No? Lord Kilness…”
“Lady Belanthia, you are the mistress of Harken Keep, but she is my property.”
“And your property is residing in my castle. It could be dangerous.”
He snorted. “Not likely. This is the least dangerous elf I ever met. Just look at her.”
Indeed, she was huddled on the floor, looking up at the Lady with frightened eyes. She was like no person she had ever met.
“Tomorrow, Kilness, you will send her to me.” The Lady turned and swept out again.
When they were all gone, she looked at him with fear. “What will happen?”
He grimaced. “You are mine, not theirs! I will send you when I wish it!”
She buried her face in her hands. “Is it that bad?”
He nodded. “You’ll break in an instant. I don’t want that. I’m in control.”
“Will you protect me?”
He glared down at her. “Protect you? Hells, no. Preserve you, perhaps.” She nodded.
“Now… I must leave. I have duties to perform here. You will stay here.”
“When will you be back?”
Waving a hand at her dismissively, he left.
She went back and curled up in the furthest corner of the bed, hiding under the white silk sheet.

Around midday, the door opened again, but she could hear – it was not him. She stayed very still.
“Little elf…” came a low hiss. She grew rigid with fear as whoever it was came closer and closer.
“There you are!” and the sheet was wrenched from the bed, leaving her exposed and vulnerable. It was one of the male guards, and in his hand was a long spiked knife.
She could make no more noise than a gasp; her vocal chords never worked very well except to sing, and even when frightened she could not scream. Nor could she move in this instant.
“That’s amazing,” said her enemy, watching her in fascination. “You really are one of those helpless children. How can you be the Twice-Born? You’re too weak to be let out of your cradle.” He licked the tip of the knife and seized her arm. “All the more fun to make you squirm…”
She could move then, her training with Valiensin finally kicking in. She twisted her arm away; she was in entirely the wrong place, half-lying, half-sitting at the back of the bed against the wall; there was no space to manoeuvre and the loose sheets made it difficult to move. But she wrenched her arm free and twisted away, getting halfway over the folding screen before he caught at the golden ring on her ankle. Her foot felt like it was almost yanked off, and the screen crumpled, sending her crashing back to the bed. Her arm was bruised, but she kicked out at her attacker repeatedly, catching him in the chest and groin.
He growled, and she scrambled away, fleeing to the other side of the room. She couldn’t run into the halls; that would be even more dangerous.
She grabbed a lighter chair and held it as a weapon. “Get out! Lord Kilness will be furious with you!”
“Lord Kilness won’t be able to do anything about it, little bird,” snarled the guard, advancing on her, brandishing the knife.
There was no nature magic in the room at all. Her only defence was the chair. If she could get the knife away from him…
When he got close enough, she swung the chair not at him, but at the knife. That seemed to take him a little by surprise, but she was clumsy and he dodged. She sidestepped his counterattack, her breath coming short and fast, and tried again, swinging down at his head this time.
He smashed the chair with his fist and threw it away. Now she half-crouched in a defensive stance, ignoring the ridiculousness of her clothing, and prepared to dodge.
She was not prepared enough, although there was little she could do when he was so much taller than her. He caught her arm, twisted her around so her arm was behind her back, and crushed her to the floor.
“Now you’re caught, little bird,” he said. “Let’s see how soft that skin is…” She felt searing pain along her arm and stifled a cry. “Oh, very soft. Look, there’s a scratch in that perfect skin! And another, and another!” Parallel streaks of blood were appearing across her skin, horizontal slashes along her upper arm. She was sobbing into the carpet. One more, and she screamed outright.
Someone howled, a bestial howl of rage, and her tormentor was dragged off her. Her arm snapped as he tried to hold on to it instinctively. She cried out in pain again as she turned to see what was going on.
Michael had the guard by the throat, his face a mask of fury. “What do you think you’re doing? That is mine and you are not to touch it.” The guard tried to gurgle a reply, his knife fallen to the floor.
The blue-skinned man bared his teeth. “Get out. I will have you dealt with.” He flung the guard down and picked up the knife. “Unless you want to see how cruel I can be with those who displease me.”
The guard was crawling to the door; Michael took a quick glance at Illinia’s slashed and broken arm, and pounced like a cat. The guard shrieked as his arm was sliced as hers had been, and the other arm too. Then Michael grabbed the guard by his long white hair and pulled his head back, ready to kill him.
“What is the meaning of this noise?” asked the Lady, standing erect in the doorway, one hand on her hip.
Michael let go of the guard’s hair casually; the guard was whimpering. “Your servant was having fun with a toy that does not belong to him. I was only dealing out just punishment.”
She stared at him evenly. “Lord Kilness, isn’t brawling a little beneath you?
He smiled tightly. “I am but a lowly captain in the military. Brawling is my job.”
She nodded. “Very well. I will have this dealt with for you.”
He stood up and dusted his bloody hands off, wiping them carelessly on the velvet jacket. “That would please me.”
“Does it really matter what pleases you, Lord Kilness?” She left before he had time to answer. Her guards came and removed the injured one.
Michael turned to Illinia. “That…” He swore in a language she didn’t understand. “Come here.”
She tried to get up, but her legs wouldn’t work. He clucked, came to her, and picked her up, though none too gently, and she gasped as her arm was jostled.
“What’s the matter?”
“M-my arm is broken…”
“Now that I did not know. I shall send for bandages.” He set her down in the armchair, more carefully. “How dare they. You are not theirs.”
“I’m not yours, either,” she pointed out. “I am under your prote- preservation, but I do not belong to you as an object.”
His face darkened a little. “You had better change your mind about that one while you are here.” He turned away and went to the door, giving orders to someone outside.
He tended her arm himself. “At least he was smart enough to not use poison.” She smiled weakly, remembering Mira’s little song. It seemed so long ago that she had heard it. How long had it been? Not more than a couple months.
His task done, he looked her in the eye from where he squatted beside the armchair. “Now, you will be safe from them for a while, because there is no way they will be able to enjoy torturing you when your injuries are this bad. You would pass out too soon.”
She gave him a look askance, wondering why he would even tell her that, but then shuddered as she heard a long hideous wail from outside somewhere.
“Oh, that would be the one who attacked you,” Michael said. “Want to see?”
“No!”
“Come,” and he relentlessly led her to the window. “This is part of your education. This is what the world is like.”
“Only your world!”
He pushed her in front of the window and she recoiled in horror. “This is the world sooner or later. Perhaps not so dramatically, but the world chews up its inhabitants and spits them back out into darkness. Only by following order while fighting for oneself can one hope to survive.”
Illinia thought of Valiensin, of Tharash, of Kellan, semi-chaotic, all of them, and yet good, true people. “I don’t believe you. Not even with this.”
She heard a tiny growl from his throat. “You will. Whatever sheltered life you led before coming here, it is definitely the exception to the norm. You should not have ventured out here if you wanted to believe in light and love and rainbows.”
She turned to him, away from the terrible sight outside, and smiled in her child-like way, through pain, through horror, through tears. “Rainbows exist. They don’t need my belief to exist. But neither do the other things. They exist whether you believe in them or not. My world is richer for my knowing they are there, for believing in them even at this cost.”
He gave her an impatient little shove and turned away. “I’m going to read. Go sit somewhere and shut up.”
This became her life as the snow fell outside; he found slightly more comfortable clothes for her, and she was confined to his room, attendant on his whim. The slashes on her arm healed but left white scars that she felt ashamed of. The Lady of the Keep sometimes visited, and Illinia hated it when she did, because she treated the small elf like some kind of exotic rat – interesting, but distasteful and hardly worth notice. Although Illinia was grateful for the ‘hardly worth notice’ part.
Michael was not always with her, but at least she was left alone when he was not there. He seemed to fit in depressingly well with the fierce mood of the tower, and sometimes came back covered in blood. She never dared to ask, although sometimes he told her. Although she was under his protection, and he was feared in the keep, he did not have enough authority to guarantee her safety. She wondered if that was why he became increasingly irritable and taciturn as the winter went on.
There were times when he seemed angry with her for no reason, and she was afraid of those times. But she remembered her husband at night and did not lose hope that someday she would be free of the castle and able to search for him again. Perhaps he would come to rescue her, although she would be sorry if he did that, for it would be so dangerous for him.
As midwinter passed, things changed again. Illinia didn’t like to think about that time afterwards; it was a time shrouded in fear, coldness, and long nights, all blending together. Michael was both kind and cruel, and she finally felt what it was to be betrayed. But she clung to two thoughts: she would see her husband again while she lived, and she would not hate Michael. She could not be shaken on those two things.
And it was good that she had those to cling to, while her small body was wracked with pain and her mind was numbed with horror and fear. And sometimes her captor-guardian would look at her with pity, even remorse, and hope would always spring up in her heart that he would be more gentle to her. But the place was poison to their relationship even as it was poison to her mind, and she was losing him.
There was no escape for her. With no food, weapons, or practical clothes, she could hardly leave. The wall outside his window was sheer, and the inside of the keep was filled with her enemies who would not hesitate to torment and kill her if she set foot outside his room.
Then one day, the great bell at the top of the keep rang. They were under attack.

Chapter 11