Chapter 16

Neivayka woke up slowly, feeling as if she had been drug behind a car for a mile. Her hand felt as if it was swollen three times its size, and her head was pounding. For a disorienting moment, she couldn’t remember what had happened. She forced her eyes open expecting to see the scantily furnished confines of her rooms. Instead, the light of a roaring fire almost blinded her dry, aching eyes. She jumped away from the flames fighting to focus her sight once again, yet a hard jerk on her wrists stopped her mindless flight. A rough rope was wound tightly around both of her wrists, with one end tethering her to a tree just a few feet away. At the sight of the twisted fibers, everything came back to her in a flash. She began yanking on the binding even harder, hoping to find some weakness that would allow her to go free. She couldn’t bend her hands far enough to untie the knot. She put the rope to her mouth and began gnawing on it like a mouse.