Rising

  ***

  Sara smelled the prison long before she saw it. The stench overwhelmed her. The only thing she could compare it to would be the carnival latrines she’d seen as a child. Add to that oozing, rotted meat and multiply it times a thousand and it might come close to the smell.

  Sara’s eyes widened when she saw the prison. It was enormous, dark, and foreboding. She’d never seen such a stark structure in her life. Wooden spikes stuck out of the ground like porcupine quills surrounding the outer perimeter of the prison. Skulls balanced on many of the sharp points. One of them was obscured by frenzied fish. Sara was sure that she wouldn’t want to see what was in the midst of the ravaging fish. She doubted it would be pretty.

  “Scary, isn’t it? Just wait ‘til you get inside.” Gael’s whispered voice chilled her as they approached the terrifying prison.

  “Sara, when I remove my hand from your mouth, you will not scream. If you do, Xanthus will die. If you try to contact anyone outside of the prison, try to escape the prison, or do anything at all to displease me, Xanthus dies. Do you understand? His life is in your hands. You decide if his head is the next one impaled on these spikes.”

  Sara began to tremble as the full weight of their situation sunk in. She kept her eyes on Xanthus. He looked calm, like he had everything under control. Maybe he had a plan for their escape. She just hoped the plan didn’t end up getting him killed.

  The guards moved to open the heavy entrance doors. Inside, the dark hallway gaped open like the entrance to hell. Sara sobbed as they entered. She could see Xanthus’s calm façade burn away. He struggled against the guards when they led him away from her. He snarled angry, desperate words.

  A guard answered with his own rage as he struck him across the face and shouted at him.

  Sara gasped as the cruel guard slammed the blunt handle of his spear into Xanthus’s back. She wanted to scream at the guard to tell them not to hurt Xanthus. But she remembered, all too well, what Gael had threatened and held her tongue.

  “I wouldn’t cause any trouble, if I were you.” Gael sneered as he spoke to Xanthus. “If you give them any difficulty at all, or if there happens to be any commotion anywhere around you, the guards will alert the warden and he’ll kill the half-human immediately.”

  Sara felt the last shreds of hope peel away with those words.

  As soon as Xanthus was gone, Gael pulled Sara up so they were nose to nose. “Enjoy your last day alive, human. Mark my words. You will die soon and I will be the one to deliver the fatal blow. You will yet die by my hand, mermaid,” Gael said, and then shoved her into the hands of the guard.

  Sara’s mind flickered to a thought. Wasn’t Xanthus supposed to take her punishment? She clenched her mouth shut, unwilling to remind them and risk Xanthus receiving her punishment. He would probably die anyway for all the soldiers he killed today. And if he died, she wouldn’t want to live. She’d welcome death.

  A moaning cry escaped her lips as she trembled in fear. Xanthus had told her of the danger she’d face if she were found. But she’d never really thought it possible. Things like this just didn’t happen to good, American girls. But here she was, living a reality worse than her most terrifying nightmares.

  Sara looked around at the dark, rocky hallway. Green algae swayed like dead, rotting fingers pointing her toward her death.

  The guard pulled her along, avoiding her gaze. She had no idea where she was going or what would happen to her. Were they going to torture her before she was executed? She hoped not. She hoped she lived long enough to escape, and even more, she hoped they wouldn’t harm Xanthus. Of all the things they could do, that would be the worst.

  They snaked their way through winding hallways. The guard stopped as he came upon a door guarded by one small soldier. Well, he was small for a Dagonian. The guard holding her arm spoke to the other guard, who nodded, left for a moment, and then brought back a chain with shackles. He snapped one of the shackles around her fin and then pushed her through the door. A blast of putrid air hit her face as she fell. Her body hit the dry, silted ground several feet below. She coughed as she breathed in the dust her fall had stirred.

  The guard remained within the wall of water as his hand reached inside to clamp the other end of the shackle to an iron ring mounted to the wall. Then he shut the door. Sara was chained to the wall inside a dry cell. She lifted her hands off the floor to see them caked with mud. A giggle escaped her lips. So this is the torture they had planned for her? Tears streamed down her face as her giggles turned to sobs.

  A familiar voice called out from within the room. “Well, look who’s come to join us.”