Forged Destiny [Book 7: Ch. 11]

The first thing I became aware of were the voices. Muffled, rushed, there was a man and a woman, but that was all I could figure out. The words didn't make much sense but sounded close.

"Hold him."

"Bleeding-"

"-sn't matter. Take – ven says – out."

"Safety-"

"Irrelevant. He can't die from it."

Other feeling came back slowly, not vision as my eyes felt heavy, but sensation. Something soft yet hard under me, a towel below my face, a burning pain in my back. An ache in my shoulder. Reality was a cruel mistress, made all the worse for the sweat that beaded my brow.

"He's waking up," someone said.

"Hold him down."

Hands settled on either side of my neck, pushing down on my shoulder blades. I instinctively started to struggle, recognising that this wasn't normal, and that the voices weren't those I knew and trusted.

My strength failed me. I couldn't break the flimsy grip.

"Hold him," a young woman said, in a voice lacking any femininity. "He's not going to like this."

I had a vague moment to wonder what it was I wouldn't like before I felt fingers brush over my right shoulder and grip something. The crossbow bolt in my back, the shaft. The moment her hand clenched it, the small shifting had the head grate against my bone. I gasped in pain and tried to pull away.

"I can prepare a salve to deaden the nerves in the area," the man holding me down whispered. "He wouldn't feel it."

"And delay even more? Raven's not going to like that. Fuck it. He'll take it like a man. Or he won't. What do I care?"

I knew immediately what she had in mind and tried to stop her. "W-Wait, no…" My voice was weak, the words mumbled into the towel under my face.

With no warning whatsoever, the woman gripped the shaft and tore it from me in one swift motion. I heard the sound of my skin giving way, heard the blood splatter, heard the man holding me gag at the no doubt gruesome sight.

And then, after a short pause… I felt it.

I screamed myself unconscious.

/-/

An indeterminable amount of time passed before I next awoke. There was no torture that time, though the pain from the last still worked its way through me. My body felt heavy and sluggish, limbs aching and muscles burning as I came to. There was something furry in my mouth, which I quickly realised was my tongue, parched and swollen. I coughed once, and it felt like my throat almost ruptured from it.

"Jaune!"

The voice was familiar, but it still took all the concentration I had to place it. "L-Lisa…?"

A rattle of metal. "Jaune, you're alive! Thank goodness. They wouldn't let anyone talk to you. Wouldn't let anyone close."

"Lisa," I begged, wishing for silence. My head was spinning.

"You're probably still out of it. They took the crossbow bolt out of you and bandaged you, but I heard you screaming. Oh my God, I heard you." Her voice trailed off at the end. "I-I don't know what's happening. No one will tell me anything."

Ignoring Lisa, I forced my eyes open, revealing a bad of straw under my face, the sharp ends pricking into my cheek. The room was dim, but still lit from a pair of torches to the left and right. It was a bare and stone room that I didn't have access to, thanks to the metal bars surrounding me.

I was in a cage.

My armour and equipment were gone, including my pouch and the Whisper Stone within. I'd been left in my tunic and trousers, with even my boots taken. The cage itself was about three feet by three, so small that I couldn't lay down flat, though I could, if I wanted to risk it, poke my legs between the bars. There was no room to stand, the space limiting me to sitting on my ass or kneeling at best.

Still, the bars were iron. I could melt my way out easily enough. Without thinking, I reached for one and began to Stoke the Forge.

Lisa shrieked.

—Forged Destiny [Book 7: Ch. 11]