The only thing Ione recognized when she first awoke where the white flowers coated in her own blood, all piled in a small bowl on the nightstand beside her. From the dark wood of the ornate ceiling above to the thick sheets that overlapped her in the large bed, everything else was new. Everything ached. She looked around the room, her mind swimming in a dense fog of distorted memories.

She’d been taken. One moment, she was returning home from the market; the next, she regained consciousness, hands bound, in the back of an old, beaten wagon. Two men’s voices sounded ahead of her, both low and covetous:

“But someone might fetch more.”

“Who’d fetch more than a count?”

“Well, I don’t know, but you’ve seen how much those diamond-eyes are going for. We’ll be cheated if we’re not smart about it.”

“We’ll be gutted if we get too smart about it.”

They must’ve drugged her. Her head felt like it would nearly burst, but at least the slow return of her senses forced Ione to keep quiet until she could swallow her fear.

“I don’t like being this far over to the North…”

“It’s not like we had much choice. Just bear with it.”

Their words were soon drowned out by her own hazy thoughts of escape. Trembling, she fumbled with the ropes at her wrists. In her dread, the nearly mute sound of the cords raking against her skin seemed much louder. Her heart leapt to her throat and she looked up from the floor toward her captives.

Nothing. They hadn’t noticed.

Ione took a quiet, shaky breath. She tugged her wrists again. No luck…

The wagon was cluttered. After what felt like an eternity groping in the dark, she’d managed to find some sharp piece among the litter—something like a large nail sticking up from the floorboards—and finally cut her way through the ropes. The cords binding her feet went next. Then, for a moment, all she could do was sit in silence.     

There was a thick scent of pine and rainwater. Past the old curtain that covered the back of the wagon, Ione could make out the blur of trees. The sound of sloshing mud accompanied the horses’ steady gate.

They were far from any civilization. There was nowhere to run to for help.

Nevertheless, she didn’t want to find out where they were planning to take her. Ione only hesitated a minute longer before quietly rising onto her feet. Then she jumped, landing hard on a wooded path and darting into the forest’s depths.

The dreadful, stunned shouts from her captors followed immediately after. The heavy trod of boots gave chase. Blindly racing on, all she could hope to do was lose them in the wilderness.

Gnarled briars clawed at her skirts. Her head still reeled from the drugs. Cold air soon tore at her lungs. All the while, the fast footfalls behind her kept their rapid pace.

Ione wasn’t sure how long the chase continued before the ground abruptly dipped beneath her, sloping at a harsh angle. She tripped; wet, fallen leaves erupting in a haze as she careened downward.

A tree caught her mid-fall. Nevertheless, in the few seconds it took for her to recover from the impact, one of the men caught up with her. His fingers dug into her arm before she could pull herself away. She screamed and madly fought against him.

There was a second drop near their feet worse than the first. Ione kicked out with one leg, the other faltering thanks to the slick earth. Gravity dragged the two the rest of the way down, rocks and tree limbs beating against their bodies until they landed on flat ground at last.

By then, everything hurt too much for her to move. Warm blood seeped down her cold face from a cut on her forehead. Brilliantly white flowers tickled her nose as her conscious gradually faded once more. The man who had grabbed her laid not far from her side, perfectly still.

A shiver ran up Ione’s spine at the memory. However, a more worrisome thought consumed her: There was still her other abductor.

Her body screaming in protest, the young woman pushed herself out of the bed only to collapse on the floor. Even that much effort to move drained her. There was a stabbing pain in her abdomen and one of her legs was now wrapped in a splint. Ione bit her lip, panic rising. She had to get out of this foreign place.

In her desperate crawl to the bedroom door, she came across a full-length mirror and paused. It was almost hard to recognize the person looking back at her. A simple blouse and skirt had been replaced with a lacey, oversized nightgown that hung off her thin shoulders. Bruises and bandages covered her fair skin. She looked somewhat emaciated.

What drew her most to her own reflection though was the sight of her eyes, the root of all of the danger. They were as pale and clear as the stone they were named for, shimmering like true diamonds against the dark circles beneath them.

The door was suddenly thrown open. Ione flinched, but the face peering down at her wasn’t that of one of her kidnappers, but of a somewhat plump, middle-aged woman dressed in a maid’s uniform. The latter blinked in mute surprise, then turned flustered. She yelled to someone in the hall behind her, “Fetch the doctor! She’s awake!”

Seeing the concern in the other’s gaze, part of the tension in Ione’s body gave. She stared, uncertain.

 The maid knelt in front of her, looping an arm underneath one of her own and gently tugging at her waist. “Come, dear, you can’t stay on the floor. Let’s get you back to bed.”

That warm regard from a stranger, after all she’d been through, finally broke her. Relief flooded her chest and manifested into dry tears. Ione leaned forward, bracing herself against the other woman as the first choked sob left her.