The Calling - Blood and Snow

21.

Faris is awoken by air splashed out of his lungs by blistering cold water, slapping the nerves like a thousand needles all piercing the skin at once.

"Wakey wakey priddy boy."

An unusual accent spits out.

Fur boots step across grey stone flooring towards a second bucket, lifted and thrown into the opposite cell. The wooden bucket is dropped as the footsteps slowly tap across the darkroom.

Dark walls of moss and stone fall into a floor of the same palate. From cells out of sight a humming stale stench of urine and excrement poison the frozen air. Rusted orange hides between jagged flakes of black painted iron bars and gates.

Faris watches disheartened as the chuckling and footsteps fade upwards through a wooden creaking staircase into the howling wind.

"My Lord."

Faris gasps.

Faris checks his pockets, realising his wedding gift has been taken but before he can react his eyes widen. In the cell opposite, wearing nothing but her soaked red sleeping dress sits Miya. Her wet face can b