Shades of Grey

ACAVIA— MAY 1843

What happened next came in brief flashes. As I tried to fight for consciousness, I instead saw flashes of what was happening around me. The sentry had tied my limbs and was dragging me through their enormous cave city: a dank and dirty place from what I could tell. I next heard him talking to someone he addressed as ‘Chagache’ which I remembered from my brief Treptik lessons with Lord Barton meant ‘Chief’. I next felt several gruff hands reach for my belongings and rip them from my person before shoving a white garment over my head. The next flash was the chief, a terribly ugly Treptik dressed in rags and cloth, with his hand over my mark.

“Ugachmei…” he hissed, using the Treptik word for Hunter. He then uttered another phrase and I felt a surge of electric energy surge through me, jolting me out of my unconscious state and into waking.

My wrists were bound with thick rope above my head, still held stiffly by the sentry Treptik, and a horde of Treptik guards stared at me, cocking their heads in primitive curiosity.

“Who are you?” he spat in Treptik. I took a breath, calling on my knowledge of the Treptik language.

“I am a Hunter, but I am not here for you. I am passing through on my way to Vikka.”

The chief raised his eyebrows.

“What you want in Vikka?”

I frowned.

“That is no business of yours.”

He brought the butt of his staff across my jaw, catching me off guard.

“You do not pass by Acavia. Why you really here?”

I spat out a stream of blood by his feet.

“It is no business of yours,” I repeated.

The chief strode towards me again. He gave me a terrifying sneer of frustration as he uttered one phrase in sickening, sporadic English.

“You belong to Treptiks now.”

Several Treptik guards immediately forced me against the wall and fastened cuffs around my wrists and neck. They then led me to the right and threw me into a stone cell, proceeding to fasten chains to the cuffs on my limbs. The Treptik chief stared unblinkingly at me.

“Stay night here, join other slaves tomorrow. Your Fairy under close watch by many guards. You never see her again.”

As the chief left the room, laughing to himself, I listened for Forma.

“Forma, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, why?” she replied in confusion.

“I was just captured. The chief said he had you under his watch…oh damn him…” The realisation hit me as I said it: it was common knowledge that Hunters had Maisling partners. He had lied to me.

“I’m in disguise as a guard. He couldn’t catch me if he tried.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Good. Ensure that he doesn’t.”