The Lost Ruins, Chapter 8

Flickering candlelight, a reddish blanket, and a couch softer than anything she had felt since reaching Eisen were the first things that Elena noticed when she regained consciousness. The room she was in was nearly silent, and her vision was too fuzzy for her to make out anything other than vague shapes. She was lying on her side, but when she tried to roll onto her back, a spike of pain lanced through her head. She let out a groan.   “Oh, you’re awake. Be careful, don’t try to move too much.” The speaker’s voice was feminine and completely unfamiliar to Elena. Luckily, the tone did not sound threatening, as she doubted that she would be able to defend herself if the speaker was hostile.   Elena stopped trying to roll over and blinked several times, trying to clear her vision. As she did, the world slowly swam back into focus. Something cool and soft pressed gently against the back of her head. Once her vision had cleared, she was able to see the speaker, who sat on a chair just beside where Elena’s head rested on a pillow. The speaker was a young woman, perhaps a bit younger than Elena herself, with pale skin and light brown hair. She spoke Old Théan with a comforting Eisen accent, and was carefully applying a damp cloth to Elena’s head.   “You got hit pretty hard,” the woman said. “It’s lucky that we found you when we did.”   “Where am I?” Elena asked, feeling as though her tongue was thicker than it should have been. Luckily, the woman seemed to understand her anyway.   “You’re in my home.” She dropped the damp and slightly reddened cloth into a bowl and picked up a roll of bandages. “Let me tie this around your head.” She gently lifted Elena’s head off of the pillow just long enough to secure the bandage. Once she was done, she lowered her ward’s head back down and surveyed her work. “There. That looks better now.”   “Thank you.” Elena did not try to sit up, instead letting the ache in her head subside.   The woman smiled at her. “I’m Sonya.” She offered her hand to Elena, and she shook it. “How much do you remember about what happened to you?”   “I…” Elena frowned. She thought back, trying to mentally pierce the white pain that was the last thing that she remembered, and then…   “Marcus!” Elena practically shouted.   Sonya held out her hands towards Elena. “He’s fine. We found him too. He’s in another room. Once you’re feeling better, you can go see him.” A shadow fell over her face. “I don’t know what he went through, but he was worse off than you.”   “It’s… a long story.” Elena allowed herself to relax. Something was nagging at the back of her mind. Something important that she was forgetting. “How did you find us out there?”   “It wasn’t hard.” The shadow left Sonya’s face, replaced by a faint smile. “There were a lot of you making quite a scene. Oh, that reminds me. How many were you traveling with? We weren’t able to get too close to the fight until after it was over.”   “About twenty,” Elena said.   “Hmm.” Sonya glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll have to ask Renwick how many bodies he found.” She noticed the pained expression on Elena’s face, and quickly added, “I know that there were fewer than twenty, though! Some of your group survived and headed deeper into the forest.”   Deeper in the forest, Elena thought, away from the ruins. Away from the…   Suddenly, she remembered what she had been forgetting.   Elena flicked her eyes around the room, trying to see what she could determine from her prone position. The room was large and well furnished, if a bit run-down. In fact, it almost reminded her of one of the sitting rooms in Hunt manor back in Avalon. There was only one place in the middle of the Walder that would match that type of building.   The Waldemar Estate. Home of the vampirs.   Ice-cold fear gripped her heart. She felt certain that she was in more danger now than she had been during the entire rest of the journey combined.   “Are you feeling okay? You’ve gone a little pale,” Sonya asked kindly.   “No, I’m fine, just a bit weak is all.” Elena hoped that her tone did not give away her fear and sudden realization.   “Maybe some food would help!” Sonya turned to a table beside the couch and picked up a bowl. “Do you need some help sitting up?”   In response, Elena carefully pulled herself upright, paying careful attention to how she felt when she did. Mercifully, she felt no ill effects from the motion. She still put her hand to her head as though she was still feeling a bit dizzy. She took one look at the black porridge-like substance in the bowl that Sonya was offering her and decided not to trust it. She shut her mouth hard and moved her other hand to her stomach. “I think I’d better not. I don’t think that I’d be able to keep it down.”   For the briefest of instants, Sonya looked angry at the rejection, but she recovered from it quickly. “That’s probably for the best, then.” She set the bowl down on the table again. “I’ll just leave this here in case you feel like eating later.”   “Thank you again,” Elena said, somehow managing to thank the creature sitting before her without vomiting.   “You’re welcome.” Sonya stood up. “I’m going to go check on your friend. You should get some rest now. The sooner you get feeling better, the sooner we can help you find the rest of your group.” She crossed to the door and opened it. She left the room without saying anything further, shutting the door behind her with an audible snap.   Elena counted silently to three hundred before she stood up to examine the room that she was in. The first thing that she noticed was that all of her weapons were gone, as was the satchel that was on the same strap as her quiver. Her digger’s coat was also nowhere to be found. She was still wearing the same teal-colored shirt and black pants that she had been wearing before, but the vial of Scourgebane that Nic had given her was gone. The vampirs had removed anything that would be useful in a house full of dangerous monsters. She did, however, have one thing left that she could use, but she wanted to be sure that she was alone before she tipped her hand.   It did not take long to inspect the rest of the room. It was not a large room, filled only with a couch and several chairs. Most of the upholstery was varying shades of red, and all of the light came from the candles spaced around the room. The room only had a single door and one wide window. When Elena made it to the window, she saw immediately that she would not be able to use it as an escape route. She was up on the second story, with a sheer drop underneath the window that ended early on a painful-looking spiked iron fence. Any attempt to go through the window would likely leave her impaled on the spikes. That left the door, though Elena was not surprised to discover it locked. After searching around the rest of the room for any signs of spy holes or other ways that she might be watched, Elena decided that she was likely being truly left alone.   Elena bent down and tugged off her left boot, pausing as another faint wave of pain washed across her head. Whatever she had been hit with had been wielded with more strength than was typical. Still, she felt well enough to continue, so she reached inside her boot and peeled back the sole. Concealed underneath the padding was a hollow that contained a very limited lockpick set. Marcus had always called her paranoid for carrying it around, but now she blessed Theus that it was still there.   Lockpicks in hand, Elena replaced her boot and knelt beside the door. She carefully inserted them into the lock, trying to remember how to pick the lock. It took her longer than she wanted it to, but her patience was eventually rewarded when she heard a faint click from the lock, and the door swung open. She was quick to catch the door, keeping it from opening more than an inch. She pocketed the lockpicks and peered through the crack. Nothing moved on the far side of the door. She waited, keeping a sharp watch for any sign that someone was entering the hall. When she was convinced that she was alone and would remain so, she slipped through the door and closed it silently behind her.   Now out in the hall, Elena had a decision to make. She turned her head, trying to decide which direction to go down. After a brief debate, she began to move quietly to the left. She wished that she knew where Marcus was so that she could get him out of the house, but she would have to do some exploring before she found him. It occurred to her that everything that Sonya said to her was a lie, and that Marcus was already dead, but she squashed those thoughts quickly. Marcus was not dead, and she was going to get him out of here. She swore it on her father’s grave.   When she got to the end of the hall, she carefully glanced around the corner. She quickly drew her head back and held her breath. A tall, dark-haired man stood not far from the corner, looking bored. After five heartbeats, Elena felt reasonably sure that the lack of sounds from his direction indicated that he had not seen her. Once again, she peeked around the corner and found him walking away from her current hiding place. The only other door that she could see in the new corridor was just ahead of the man. If he continued his path, then he would pass it in moments. Elena slipped out of her own corridor on cat’s paws, following the man in a crouch. She knew that she was playing a dangerous game, for if he turned, she would have no chance at hiding before he spotted her. She stayed as quiet as she could, praying that he wouldn’t notice her.   The man passed the door without stopping, making his way towards the bend in the hall that was farther away. Elena reached the door behind him and quietly opened it, slipping through before closing it behind her all but silently. She allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief that lasted until she had fully turned around to put her back to the door. Once she had completed her turn, she froze, noticing how exposed she was. The door that she had gone through was apparently a door that led to a large entrance hall that stretched over two floors. The second floor, where she was now, consisted of a balcony that wrapped all the way around the upper level of the entrance hall, with a branching grand staircase providing access to the ground floor. The area was well-lit, with a chandelier full of candles hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the hall and a glow from the bottom floor that she assumed came from a fireplace. Across the open space from her, a regal woman stood, leaning against the wrought iron railing, mercifully looking down at the lower level instead of over at where Elena was crouched. Quickly, the Avalon ducked sideways, hiding behind some kind of statue on a pedestal. Most of the statue had crumbled away, leaving only the vaguest of shapes behind, but the pedestal was plenty big enough to offer concealment for the moment.   Elena wondered how long it would be before someone noticed that she was gone from her room. If she was lucky, it would be a good while before anyone checked. From her place of concealment, she started to plan her new route through the house. Her current vantage point gave her a view of several other doors along the upper level that she could likely get to without being spotted if she was fast. She picked the one that was closest to where she was hidden, besides the one that she had just come through, and prepared to make a run for it. She was actually beginning to lean forward to start her run when it abruptly opened, and a familiar woman emerged. Elena overbalanced in her haste to stop her movement before it started, and fell over. Luckily, the carpet was still thick despite its age, and the sound of her falling to the ground was covered up by the sound of Sonya shutting the door behind her.   As Sonya passed, Elena crawled back to her hands and knees, looking to see where the vampir would go to. She hoped that it would not be on the ground level, as it would be virtually impossible for her to get down the stairs without being spotted. Her luck held, however, and Sonya made her way to the door just on the far side of the door that led back to Elena’s room. It would still mean crossing several feet of open space, but she thought she might be able to do it. She readied herself again to run, waiting until just after Sonya started to open the door. Once the door had begun to swing shut again, Elena left her hiding place and raced across the open space, towards the closing door. She reached it just after it had closed once more, and Elena took a second to listen, making sure that there were no voices on the far side of the door. When she detected none, she opened the door and slid through it.   She found herself in yet another corridor, though this one was much shorter and less brightly lit than the others. Only about one in every three candles were lit in this hallway. She arrived in the hall just in time to see another door swing closed. Sonya had to have gone into that door. Elena crept forward again, coming to a halt beside the door when she heard voices coming from inside. She pressed her ear against the door and was able to make out the conversation on the far side. It sounded like Sonya was talking to a single other person.   “Renwick! There you are.”   A male voice answered, presumably Renwick’s. “I’ve been here for several minutes now. How are our guests?” Renwick, too, spoke with an Eisen accent.   Sonya laughed, a far more light and tinkling noise than Elena would have expected to hear from her. “Oh, they’re all fine. Most are asleep. Draven and Valeria have already started draining some of them.”   Elena clenched her fists in rage.   “And do they know?”   “Only a few. Those have been dealt with already. Most still believe they are taking refuge here from our revenants.”   “Perfect. And what about the leaders? The ones that we captured directly?”   “Both still locked in their rooms. The man has already eaten the porridge, so he will be weak and at our mercy for some time. The woman, though… well, she complained that her head wound was making her nauseous or something like that. Still, she’s locked up, and…” Sonya’s voice changed, becoming almost a soft croon. “I tasted her while her head was still bleeding. She’s delicious. I haven’t tasted blood so good in years!”   Elena shuddered, and her skin crawled. To think that the vampirs had tasted her blood while she was unconscious…   “Don’t get ahead of yourself again, Sonya,” Renwick said sharply. “You know how dangerous that can be.”   “Of course I do! Do you think I don’t remember–”   Suddenly, Elena heard the sound of a door opening farther down the hall. She froze for an instant, then abandoned her eavesdropping and raced for the next closest door she could duck into. By a miracle, this door was unlocked as well, and she ducked into it mere seconds before someone entered the hall where she had been kneeling. The room she found herself in now was dark, illuminated only by a faint beam of moonlight falling through the window at the far end. There was no other exit. She did not allow her door to close, instead holding it a hair’s breadth open so that it would not make a sound when closing. She heard footsteps growing closer to her new hiding place, and her heart hammered faster. She was suddenly acutely aware of the pumping of her own blood just beneath the skin of her neck.   A shadow fell across the door she crouched behind. She held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping against hope that the vampir would not try the door.   Ten long seconds passed. Then fifteen. Finally, at twenty-five seconds, Elena opened one of her eyes again. The shadow had passed her door. She could no longer hear the sound of footsteps.   Elena finally allowed all of the tension in her body to release. She sagged to the floor, releasing her held breath. Her whole body shook faintly from the stress, but she quickly forced herself back together and looked around the room that she was in. The room looked to be originally a bedroom, but was apparently being used as a storage space. Several items of furniture sat stacked in the room, covered with cloths and dust. Smaller items lay against them, leaning as though placed there far more recently. As her eyes travelled over these items, she noted that none of them would be of much use to her. Most of them seemed to be nothing more than old serving trays or broken gardening equipment.   And then her eyes fell on the item closest to the door, and a grin broke across her face. It was the last thing that she had expected to find, but there it was like a blessing from the Almighty. Suddenly, she had a chance at escaping.   Leaning against the closest chair was her bow, and beside that, her full quiver of arrows, still attached to her satchel.