Darkness greeted her when she opened her eyes. It was almost enough to make sure she really had her eyes open. Canelis raised her hands to her face to make sure her fingers were still complete and working properly. Relief flooded in her system when she found them to be in good condition.

Then, memories washed over her addled mind. The stocks. The black-clad figure running inside the wall. After that, it's just a wall of black. A frown drowned out any comfort she had in her veins. Was she...was she just kidnapped? How pathetic. First chance she got at a real assignment, she gets kidnapped. What kind of a soldier was she?

And leaving her sword—the only thing that could protect her—in her baggage where random pixies could be in charge. That's the most idiotic thing she'd ever done since leaving the fortress. How much more was she going to do now that she's in a dingy cave? She's probably not even in Peltra anymore.

She exhaled through her mouth, straightening from being spread on her back against a cold floor. She tapped her foot against it, all the while feeling grateful they hadn't touched her or her clothes. Stone. Dusty, too, from the amount of hissing made by the disturbed particles as they fell back down to the ground.

The air was thick to breathe but wasn't hot enough to make her start sweating. In fact, there seemed to be a haze of chill laced around the atmosphere but Canelis couldn't pinpoint what exactly it was.

She craned her neck up, her eyes adjusting to the darkness well enough to make out a flat ceiling, smoothened walls, and virtually no windows to tell her what time it was outside. A room. Cubical, by the look and feel of the walls. Then, her gaze landed on the wall behind her. This time, she noticed metal rails, each spaced out in thin intervals.

Her gut twisted. A cell. She was in prison.

Canelis rushed towards the grates and wrapped her fingers around the cold metal. How dare they stick her in a cage like an animal? She hasn't done anything wrong to these people. She hadn't killed anyone yet, had she? What did they have against her?

How much time had passed since she was taken? The Marshal would be so worried. After all, she had let an envoy from Yin-Alora vanish from under her nose. The Riogener wouldn't take it lightly. He would have someone to punish for this incident.

If not the Marshal, it might be the soldiers who accompanied her. They had let Canelis wander off on her own and did nothing to protect her. They might even be instructed to look for her before everything falls into disarray. Worse, they might go to certain places where they might be hurt or killed.

And if not the soldiers, it might be the actual perpetrators of this kidnapping. Whoever was responsible, the Riogener was sure to find them and make them pay. It might result to an all-out war, if they were fairies from other territories. There's bound to be more people going to be hurt if Canelis didn't fix her mess right here, right now.

In short, she's got to get out of here.

She patted the pockets of her trousers and the hidden slots on the sides of her boots for her blades or anything sharp. There was nothing. Her heart sank. They took everything?

The next few minutes were spent with Canelis digging every crook and cranny of her uniform, trying to find anything that could help her pop the hatch keeping her locked up in this cell. She came up with nothing. How had they even figured out where to look? Only a pixie in the Army would know about the small pocket stitched at the hem of one's sleeve used to conceal all kinds of small objects like pins, bunches of twine, and yes, blades.

Canelis sank her teeth against her lip. So she's dealing with pixies here. Or at least, their ranks have pixies. There's only one possibility where that could happen and she didn't like it.

Renegades.

A bitter laugh escaped her lips as she sat back in her haunches. Of course, it's them. Damned defectors who didn't want to serve their people. So, they're taking it out on Canelis? For whatever reason? Had they heard of the Riogener promoting her to her position and feeling repulsed by it? Ws she being used to send Yin-Alora a message?

She stared down at her hands. Time to use magic, then, if she was to get out of here. She'd burn down these metal rails if needed be. Yin-Alora could be gearing up for bloodshed right now. She didn't have the muxury to become a damsel in distress. Get out of this cell. Clean up her mess. Return home to her lovely succulents. That should be the order of how things were going to happen from this point on.

Her magic flared to the surface at the second she called it. Then, flexing her fingers the same way she learned from her tutors, she bent one ray of dim light and directed it at the first grate she found. She waited. And waited.

Nothing happened.

A harsh curse from her lips echoed in the darkness behind her. Perhaps, the light was not bright enough? She glanced at the ceiling. The absence of windows had never felt so apparent now. Whoever these people were, they knew how to render a pixie useless, even in casting magic. Still, she's got to try.

She made to bend another ray when a set of footsteps scratched from the other side of the cell. "I think you know it would be of no use," a masculine voice rang in the dim corridor. She turned to find a boy approaching the metal rails. "I would stay put and not do anything, if I were you."

Canelis didn't speak. Instead, she watched the boy warily. His lean frame told her he wouldn't be any stronger than the troopers she used to coach back in the Army as a lieutenant. Dark hair fell to his eyes, almost covering half of his pale face. It was sheared at the back, giving Canelis a perfect view of the bright yellow scarf he tied around his neck.

His tunic sagged from his shoulders like it was several sizes too big. The trouser legs were also tucked inside themselves to fit his height. His feet were also tucked into shin-length boots. From the look of how the worn leather bit against his skin, it was too small for him.

Apart from his strange, mismatched clothes, a breast plate made of tanned leather hung over his tunic. Arm greaves as well as knee guards were tied around their respective body parts with nothing but a strip of braided twine. He carried no visible weapons but Canelis wasn't going to put it past him to have something hidden on his sleeves, literally.

When he bent down to place a wooden tray on the floor, she spied pointd ears jutting from the side of his head. So, humans and half-bloods were out of the equation. That only left fairies. Which kind of fairy was he, then?

Before she could ask, though, the boy straightened and slid the tray closer to Canelis. "I brought you food. Eat that before it gets cold," he said. "It can get quite chilly, especially during the night so you need to have something to burn."

"Where am I?" Canelis interjected, her tone flat and her voice raspy for not having been used for quite a long time.

The boy paused. He seemed to be in a hurry to get away from her. "Ok-Sa," he replied. His tone carried no care about the fact he just stated.

Canelis knitted her eyebrows. "Ok-Sa?" she echoed. "What about the plague?"

No emotion betrayed the boy's face. He rolled his shoulders in a relaxed gesture. "It came from the sea," he said. "We've been successful in holding it off with quilderfen bones."

"What bones?" Canelis tilted her head to one side as if she didn't hear it the first time.

The boy stared at her, his unholy dark eyes studying her as much as she was studying him. He didn't bother repeating what he said, that much was clear when he smoothed his hair away form his forehead with a sigh. "Just eat your food," he said. "I'll be back to deliver your next meal."

"What do you renegades plan to do with me?" Canelis lunged to the grails and did her best to sound intimidating with a growl. Being behind bars, she doubted she succeeded.

A small smile crept to the boy's lips. "So you figured that out," he said under his breath. "Good job."

Then, without answering Canelis's most important question, he turned and walked away. He didn't look back even as Canelis banged her hand against the grails, eliciting a stringent noise echoing in the dim light. Within a few seconds, he was out of view, the darkness of the horizon swallowing his figure.

Canelis slumped against the rails, energy leaving her limbs just like that. She cast a look at the food tray the boy gave her and felt even more misery flood into her system.

She doesn't even eat bread.