Chapter 114: Day one as a prisoner.

Ava woke up abruptly, gasping for breath, her lungs burning as if she’d just swallowed a gallon of fire. For one beautiful, fleeting second, she hoped that everything flashing through her mind_ the ambush, her mother’s death_ was just a horrible nightmare. But that second was short lived. Reality was too hard to escape. She clearly remembered being taken by the knights, just as she remembered her mother’s last words.

Then she tried to move, and her body immediately filed a formal complaint. "Ow, that hurts like a bitch," she groaned, every single muscle screaming in unison. It wasn’t just a headache, it felt like a stampede of armored-beasts had used her torso for a dance-off.

Worse yet, she felt a distinct draft. Looking down, Ava realized her Soul maiden red outfit completely gone. She was down to her basic cotton underwear.

"Great. Fantastic. Captured and under dressed," she muttered, her voice cracking. "What the f did they do to me?" She asked aloud.

As her eyes adjusted, the phantom sounds of her own panic faded, replaced by very real, very pathetic groans. Some came from below her. Some came from the sides. What they made clear to her was that she was not alone.

She rubbed her eyes, blinking away the sleep crust, and the horrifying reality snapped into sharp focus. Ava was locked inside a wire mesh cage like some beast. It looked exactly like the ones sellers used to transport edible animals to the market, only this one had a tiny, thin mattress on the floor and a rusted metal potty pan in the corner that was supposed to pass for a toilet.

It looked like a prison set up, or a kidnap dungeon one. She had been on two missions where they rescued kidnapped people from such dungeons. She never thought she would someday become some in need of rescue from such a place.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," Ava whispered.

She looked outward. The white room was seemingly endless, stretching into a dizzying gloom. Cages were stacked precariously on top of each other like a chaotic game of blocks, each one marked with a crude number. Most of the cages were empty, but the ones that weren’t held people.

Ava squinted, her heart doing a violent flip as she recognized a few faces in the dim light. "Wait... sister Jada? senior sister Eliza?"

These were the Soul Maidens. The academy had held a funeral for Jada three months ago! They told everyone she had succumbed to an illness and passed away peacefully.

"Dead, my foot," Ava hissed, anger bubbling through her aches. "They’re right here. They sent them beyond the veil like me."

It didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together. The Divine soul maiden_ the supposedly righteous protector of the Soul maidens_ had sent them here and when they vanished, she did not send a rescue team but announced their death instead.

Panic overtook her mind. She lunged forward, grabbing the thick wire mesh, and began to slam her weight against it. "Hey! Let me out! Let me out of this stupid chicken coop!"

"Hey! Shut your trap if you want to keep your head!" a sharp whisper cut through the dark from the cage to her left.

Ava paused, turning to see a disheveled girl glaring at her. "Excuse me?"

"Shh! she said shush!" Jada hissed, eyes wide with terror. "If you become troublesome, the knights don’t punish you_ they throw you to the night reapers who feast on your soul little by little. It could take a day or ten years. Sit down and shut up!"

Before Ava could snap back a witty retort about her right to complain, a heavy, grinding groan echoed through the room. The iron doors were swinging open somewhere in the distance. The soft moans of discomfort in the room instantly died down to an absolute, terrified silence.

Footsteps approached_ heavy, metallic, and completely devoid of mercy. Two knights in marched down the narrow aisle between the cage stacks, dragging a limp figure between them.

When they stopped right in the aisle, Ava got a clear look at the new prisoner’s face.

"Lily?" Ava gasped under her breath.

It was Lily Bang: she had left with the trail master. Right now, she looked like a broken rag doll. This had to mean that their group had been caught as well.

One of the knights unlocked a cage directly opposite Ava’s, hoisted Lily up by her waist, and literally tossed her inside like a sack of potatoes. Lily hit the thin mattress with a dull thud, remaining completely unconscious. The gate slammed shut, the heavy lock clicking into place with a sound that felt incredibly final.

The knights didn’t say a word. They just turned on their heels and marched back into the shadows, the distant iron doors booming shut behind them.

Ava let out a long, ragged sigh. She looked up, but she couldn’t even see the ceiling, there were just rows upon rows of cages fading into the upper darkness.

"Well, Lily," Ava whispered to the sleeping girl across from her, pitching her lips in a bitter grimace. "At least we won’t have to participate in the annual Soul maiden beast tournament."

Realizing that throwing a tantrum would only get her turned into beast food, Ava forced herself to calm down. If she wanted to survive, she needed to be smart. She needed to study the knights, figure out the daily routines, find out when they brought food, and locate the exits.

She slowly leaned her aching back against the cold wire mesh, her fingers instinctively drifting up to her neck. By some miracle, the knights had left her mother’s pendant_ a small, unassuming piece of jade hanging around her neck. Her fingers stroked the cool stone, a sudden, fierce warmth blooming in her chest.

A tear, hot and bitter, rolled down her cheek, but she aggressively wiped it away with the back of her hand.

"Enjoy your authority while it lasts," Ava whispered into the dark, her eyes flashing with a dangerous, quiet vow. "Because when I get out of here, a lot of people are going to pay for my mother’s death.’ When I get out of here, I’m going to bring absolute havoc to that Island. I will burn Julia to ash and pull Trinity off her high throne." She twirled the jade pendant. "Wait me for Trinity. Wait for me to return."