Chapter 1: Part 1

The battle-mage grabbed my hair and yanked my head back hard, forcing me to look at Queen Kassandria gloating on the dais of my parents thrones. With my hands chained behind me and kneeling on the stone floor, the action caused already bruised and torn muscles to protest in agony, but I would not give the Drow Queen the satisfaction of seeing my pain. Not being able to control my screams during the rape and abuse was, for me, enough humiliation without adding to her contempt by this new assault.
               At a signal from her, the mage tightened his grip on my hair, bringing me off my knees and putting my weight on my chained ankles.  Kassandria strode toward me, grabbed my chin in her mailed fist and held my gaze.  Even through my blood filled eyes, she could see my defiance as she demanded again to know the where my sister would have fled to.  I remained mute.
               As she lifted her arm to backhand me, a commotion at the doors of the throne room got her attention, and, as her eyes went wide in shock, she staggered back.  The mage holding my hair suddenly found his severed hand would no longer obey his command, his blood adding to my own covering of blood and filth.  I dropped, trying to keep from falling over, and failing, as the chains and cuffs holding my ankles and wrists suddenly loosened, consumed by mage-fire.  Several of Kassandria’s warriors and mages fell to the well aimed knives, arrows and mage-fire that flew from the galleries and doors.
               My brother, Inkerion, quickly strode to the dais, grabbed Kassandria’s wrist and twisted it behind her, forcing her to her knees.  One of his generals helped me to my feet, threw a cloak over me and subtly offered support for my battered body.  Before I could do anything, Inkerion looked at me an growled “Out!”
               I stood as straight as I could, gathered all of my imperious dignity and replied, “I am now Queen!  I have a right, and a duty, to be here to see our enemy chastised!”
               He looked at the Drow supporting me and roared “NOW!”
               Before I could move, the general, Kyvalen by name, tightened his supporting grip on me and steered me out of the throne room.  Unfortunately, my body betrayed my will and I was taken from the scene, the doors slamming shut behind us.
               “Highness, you do not want or need to witness what is about to happen.”
               “I do.  It is my responsibility to my people.  And to my family.”
               “Pardon my bluntness, Highness, but your primary responsibility right now is to heal from the torments you have been put through these last days.  Inkerion will take care of our enemies and send a message to their clans.  And the Council.”

               He and his squad were leading me out of the ruins of the upper city, past bodies of my people who were unable to escape the attack.  I was heartsick at seeing the wanton destruction visited upon them by someone whose main quarrel was with my sib’s and my station and heritage.  My tormented body further betrayed me by stumbling over the ground.  Kyvalen picked me up and carried me as I started to fade in and out of consciousness.
               We reached the healer’s compound in the lower city and he quickly told Jaou what was happening in the upper city.  Once Kyvalen was satisfied that I would be cared for, he left a picked group of his soldiers to guard me and headed back to the palace.  Jaou and his assistants thoroughly examined me and cleaned my injuries, drugging me to ease the pain.
               Over the next few days, I drifted between semi-awareness and nightmares.  Jaou kept me as drugged as he dared, but he could do nothing to ease the memories of abuse, torture and rape I had received from the not-so-tender mercies of Kassandria and her soldiers.  Inkerion visited me as often as he could, gently ignoring my questions about the events of the last several days when I was more lucid and holding my hands when the nightmares and memories seized me.
               The nightmares and memories fused together into a confused web that, even today, separating one from the other was impossible.  Did I really watch helplessly as Aleki’s twins, playmates of Althea, had their skin peeled off them in strips while they still lived?  My magic, my will, was locked down by the devices that circled my wrists, ankles and throat.  I had a very little bit of the mind-magic my father had taught me at my command.  As best I could, I tried to relieve their pain, wanting, but unable, to take it into myself and ease their spirits.  As I watched their connection to the life force stretch and thin, I offered each of them assistance in releasing their bonds of life, a task no Mage should ever do.
                Other scenes of depravation wandered through my mind.  Kassandria’s spiked, mailed fist thrusting in and out of my nether regions, time and time again, until the tender flesh of my sex was cut to shreds.  Passing out from pain and blood loss providing my only relief.  The barbed cat-o-nine-tails striking my skin until it was nearly as shredded as my abused private regions.  The screams of palace servants and courtiers mingling with my own in the throne room, my parent’s dead eyes staring at me from their severed heads on the dais.
               Six days and nights this continued, the bodies of the dead being dragged out and sometimes replaced by newer victims, more often not.  Chained naked to an upright platform placed near the thrones, I saw, when I was lucid, everything that was being done to my people, vowing that I would take my revenge in ways that would make this seem mild.
               Recovery in Jaou’s hospital was much longer and nearly as painful as the original abuse.  The medicated tampons that were placed in my vagina and anus also had a numbing property to them, but there was always an undercurrent of pain.  Very few places on my body were not in pain.
               I woke once to one of Jaou’s assistants whispering to another that it was a wonder I had no broken bones.  Another time I heard Jaou tell Inkerion that it might be years before I could enjoy the sexual act, the abuse having damaged nerve endings.  These moments of semi-clarity were later confirmed by Inkerion.
               When Jaou gave Inkerion the news that my health had improved enough for travel if caution was taken, I was bundled in a cart escorted by several of our house guard.  The High Council had declared us the aggressors even though we were attacked in our own halls, and if we did not flee into exile our lives would be forfeit.  Inkerion lagged behind in case the Council tried to go after me.
               During normal times, the trek to the eye was only the matter of a few hours.  With the precautions my escort maintained, those who traveled with me, hale and wounded alike, reached the portal after nearly a day’s travel.  The eye was guarded by several of our warriors and I roused enough to see testimony of their loyalty in mounds of bodies wearing the colors of several enemy clans.
               With the help of my chamberlain, Aleki, and Kyvalen, whom Inkerion placed in command of my escort, I talked with many of my people before they fled through the eye and scattered into exile.  I reassured them that Clan Inkerion would recover from this treachery.