Ara's POV
Darkness.
Not the comforting kind that lulled you to sleep, but a thick, oppressive blackness that clung to my skin like tar. My eyelids fluttered open, but it made no difference— the cell was a pit. The only light came from a flickering torch far down the corridor, casting jagged shadows through the rusted bars.
Then the smell hit me— mold, urine, rotten eggs and the metallic tang of old blood. My stomach lurched.
Where was I?
Memories slammed into me like a battering ram. The ambush. The fire. The needle.
The poison. The wolfsbane.
I tried to push myself up, but my arms trembled violently, collapsing beneath me. A wet cough tore through my chest, and this time, I didn’t need to see my hand to know it was coated in blood. The wolfsbane had seeded deeper in my v
