by Raquel Lyon
“If you’re looking for Lambert,” he said, “you’re too late. They’ve taken him.”
Her head whipped around. “And you didn’t stop them?”
“Clearly you have never been in battle before. Sometimes it’s prudent to weigh up the odds and play the stealth card.”
She strode back, hands on hips. “The coward card, you mean.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You want confidence, Mr Strategist, then you’d better have a plan for getting him back.”
“He went through that door over there,” he said, cocking his chin at the mountainside.
“Fine,” Piper said. “Then we do, too.”
Chapter Thirty-One
THE ONLY THING PIPER wanted more than to run for the freedom of the fields was to have Lambert by her side as she did it. So, reluctantly turning away from the direction her head told her to go, she followed her heart and ran for the door. She flattened her back against the wall beside it, panting. “Rhea, you must have been through here before?”
“Many times,” Rhea said, “and each one not knowing if I would return. I never thought I would be entering again through choice.”
“You don’t have to come with us.”
Rhea clamped her lips together and breathed deeply through her nose. “We should stick together.”
“I think so, too.” Piper said. “So, when we go in, what are we looking at?”
“A corridor with many doors.”
“And what’s behind the doors?”
“I have only been in two of the rooms: the interrogation chamber and the central hall. Your brother could be in either... or neither.”
“Well, it’s a start, I suppose,” Piper said, reaching to test the handle and surprisingly finding it wasn’t locked. She glanced at Connor, and he nodded in readiness. The hinges grated as she pulled the door open, hiding behind it as if it were a shield as Connor dipped his head into the opening.
“Clear,” he said, waving a hand for them to follow.
Inside, candles burned high on the walls, lighting their way. Piper barged ahead to where the corridor rounded a corner. A guard was coming the other way, thankfully staring at his boots. Beating a hasty retreat, she pointed a warning, which Rhea ignored and strode straight past. Piper snagged her arm to try to stop her.
“Trust me,” Rhea whispered, shrugging her off and carrying on.
Piper hooked her head around the wall in time to see the guard look up and open his mouth to sound an alarm, but before he could call out, Rhea’s hand shot out.
“Novocum,” she said. The guard’s hand clutched at his throat; he’d been struck dumb. “Apstraho,” Rhea said, this time, and the guard froze to the spot. The only sign of movement was his eyes blinking in shock.
“Wow,” Piper said, walking up behind Rhea. “I’m glad you’re on our side. I’ve never seen anything less useless in my life.”
Rhea muttered her thanks and turned to Connor. “It is very likely there will be more guards. You need a better disguise, as do we, if we are going to stand any chance of getting very far.”
Connor stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged. “I thought I did quite well.”
Ignoring his protestations, Rhea wiggled her index finger in front of his face, instantly transforming him into a more realistic Voltignis before performing the same spell on Piper and herself. “That should suffice, I think, but my powers are depleted. It may not last long.”
Piper nodded her understanding and lifted her elongated arm to run her fingers over the cracks in her cheek, feeling rather relieved about Rhea’s last statement. She was sure that if there were a mirror handy, she would be disgusted by what she saw. “You’re really good.”
“It is easy when you know how.”
Piper pressed forward, pausing to offer the frozen guard as smug smile as she passed.
“Anything look familiar?” Connor asked Rhea. “Do know which room is which?”
Rhea’s head shook as she glanced along the corridor. “I am unsure. They all look the same.”
“Well, we have to start somewhere. Pick a door.”
Rhea reached for a handle and pushed. A sickly stench of rotting flesh blasted through the opening and assailed their nostrils. Connor’s hand flew to his nose and his other hand covered Rhea’s.
“Um, maybe not that one,” he said, swiftly closing the door. “Let’s see what’s in here.” He opened the next one, only to be met by the quickly turning head of a Voltignis man whose eyes bore into him, mouth agape. Conner lowered his head and promptly shut him away again.
“Perhaps this one?” Rhea said, walking a little further and stopping in front of a large double entrance. “I think I remember it now.”
The doors opened onto a cavernous space, circular in structure with a colourful, tiled floor. Candles of every shape and size adorned crevices in the bare stone walls and sat on tables covered with books set around the circumference, throwing a flickering light up to the high domed ceiling. On the far side of the room, a strange wooden structure had been erected, forming a cage around a shimmering orb of power. It took a second for Piper to recognise the figure hunched over in its core.
Lambert.
His head was bowed with his hair cascading around it like a curtain, and his arms hung limp at his sides, bound by chains leading through the orb to the wooden posts outside.
Fuelled by the sight of him shackled and helpless, Piper’s fire kindled.
One of the three guards surrounding the structure turned from his task of tightening the chains and shot them an angry glare. “You know better than to enter when assessments are being performed. Away with you.”
Conner stepped forward, unperturbed by the guard’s warning.
The guard’s lips screwed with anger. “Did you not hear me? Get out!” he shouted again as Connor strode on head down with Piper and Rhea following in his tread. “Final warning!” he bellowed, the veins in his face and arms cracking open, widening, deepening, and rippling with fire.
His shouts attracted the attention of the other two guards, and they, too, focused on the advancing trio.
Piper risked a glance at Connor and tried to gauge whether his strategy consisted purely of bravado or if he actually had something more concrete in mind, but her thoughts were lost when she noticed his arms shrinking back to their normal length. She lifted her own. They too were shortening. Rhea’s glamour was already wearing off.
The first guard’s eyes widened as he realised their deceit. He raised his arms and shot a stream of fire at Connor, but with quick reflexes, Connor dived to the side and rolled over to avoid the hit. When he stood back up, his wolf let out a deafening roar which echoed around the vast chamber as he pounced on his attacker.
The other guards, stationary and silent until that moment, surged into action and threw out identical blazing spirals. Reacting on reflex, Piper countered, immediately blocking one of the guards’ shots with her fireballs. They met the spirals midstream, clashing and exploding upon impact and momentarily halting the guard’s advancement.
Pleased and rather surprised that her first effort at real-life defence had actually worked, her heart raced with adrenaline as she looked to her side for a virtual thumbs-up, but Rhea was too busy battling the third guard to notice her, bending his rays to swerve them towards the ceiling, where they wavered in curves over everyone’s heads. She was smiling at his frustration and appeared to have him under control—fortunate, considering Piper’s opponent was now pacing through the dwindling flames and drawing his arm back blindly to attack once more.
Anticipating more blasts of fire, Piper reacted quickly before his shot could launch and compelled his body into the air and over to the wall. He hit the rock with a thud and fell to the floor in a heap at the very moment Piper heard a yelp and an acrid smell of burnt hair wafted in the air. A few feet away, she saw Connor licking at the flames sprouting from his left leg. When the last one fizzled away, he sniffed the air
and bared his teeth as he turned to growl at the guard pinned underneath him.
From the corner of her eye, Piper noticed the Shield Maker step out from behind the orb, his head cocked to the side, and this time, she was sure. She crept around Rhea, who was now compelling her opponent to spin on the spot faster than a tornado, and edged closer to him as he took in the scene, clearly stunned, and ascertained the cause.
Behind her, she heard a shout. “Encircle them, Shield Maker.”
Piper stared into the eyes she knew so well and pleaded to the man behind them. Surely he wouldn’t side against his own daughter, would he? His arm rose and Piper let out a gasp, unable to believe he was about to carry out the order. Then, to her surprise, the corner of his lip curled and he winked at her before reeling round and casting his shield towards Piper’s no longer unconscious adversary.
A smile trembled over her lips as he turned back to face her. He looked nothing like she remembered. His face was drawn, his hair greyer, and his lips were set in a grim line. He didn’t seem pleased to see her. “It is you. I knew it,” she said. “In my heart, I knew it. You didn’t renew the shield when you should have, did you?” she said.
“You were supposed to escape. You can’t be here,” her father said gruffly.
“Neither can you. We did a spell to find you, and I saw you. You were reading scrolls, wearing fancy robes, not those rags.”
“You are mistaken. The man you saw was not me.”
“I specifically asked to see my father.”
“And you are positive you saw me?”
“I—”
He grabbed her shoulders, his eyes full of concern. “You need to get out of here. Go home. You shouldn’t have come.”
“Then why leave me clues so I could?”
“It is too soon.”
“What’s too soon?”
“Leave.”
“I intend to... eventually.” She looked up at Lambert. “But I’m not going anywhere without him. Can you get him out of there?”
“Why? Who is he to you?”
“He’s my brother.”
“You have no brother.”
“It’s okay, Dad. I know.” She paused before adding, “He’s your son.”
“My...?”
Connor limped up next to them, pulling Rhea by the hand. “Good fight, that. Enjoyed it a lot,” he said, hooking the Voltignis robe from his head as his gaze alternated between Piper and her father. “What’s up?”
“Dad, this is Connor. He’s a werewolf. Long story. Connor, my dad was just about to free Lambert, weren’t you?”
Her father was peering at Lambert as if he were an exhibit in a museum. “That boy... is Bertie?”
“Yes. Another long story. Hurry, please.”
As if awakened from a trance, Rodigan placed his hand on the orb’s surface, and Piper watched as it gradually dissipated from the top down. Then Rodigan limped up the steps attached to the side of the wooden structure and clicked his fingers in front of Lambert’s face as Piper focused on the chains binding him, and they snapped from his wrists.
Lambert’s head rose and his haunted eyes found Piper. He stared at her briefly before his eyes softened and he smiled weakly. “What took you so long?” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Two
PIPER RUSHED OVER to Lambert, the relief that he was okay radiating through her body. He took a step forward, but his legs gave way and he stumbled. His father caught him in his arms.
“I can manage,” Lambert said, pushing Rodigan to arm’s length before stumbling again.
“Steady, now. Give yourself a minute.” Rodigan’s grip tightened as he stared down at Lambert and smiled. “You look so much more like your mother than me.”
Confusion masked Lambert’s face and he glanced at Piper for confirmation. She nodded. “Father?” he said.
“Oh, my son,” Rodigan said, pulling Lambert into a tight hug. “I have missed you.”
“I do not understand... How...?”
“All those lost years...”
Conner coughed. “Yes. Yes. Very touching, but how about postponing the family reunion so we can get out of here? We’re sort of on a deadline.”
Lambert pulled his bottom lip through his teeth as if attempting to bite back his questions, his eyes constantly shifting from person to person. He nodded his understanding.
Piper did not possess the same patience. She wanted to ask her father so much about what had happened to him: why he’d left, why he wasn’t with Mischa, how he’d ended up working for the Voltignis, and most of all, why he’d disowned her at the pit side and wasn’t greeting her with a similar tender embrace. She knew Connor was right, of course, and that getting to safety should be their main priority, but her questions couldn’t wait. She deserved an explanation.
She laid a hand on her father’s arm. “Dad?”
Her touch jolted him to the present, and he pulled away from Lambert. “Go,” he said before she got the chance to utter another word. “Please. I’ll cover up the mess here.” He rubbed his ear as his gaze rolled over the guards’ bodies before meeting hers. “Assessments can be long. It should be a while before they are missed, and I can buy a little extra time.”
Piper screwed up her mouth and shook her head. “No. Come with us.”
“Please, Piper. You and Bertie have to get to safety. I will have failed in my duty if you do not escape.”
“What duty?”
“Is it not a father’s job to protect his children?”
“Are you my father?”
His brow scrunched. “How can you ask such a question?”
“Why did you tell that guard you had no daughter?”
“To protect you.”
“What about telling me I had no brother?”
Rodigan stared at Lambert as if afraid to meet her eye, but remained silent.
“Do you swear on my life that I’m your daughter?” she persisted, determined to get an answer from him.
His head turned back slowly. “I raised you, didn’t I?”
“But are you my real father?”
He closed his eyes briefly and let out a long sigh. “Piper, you have to understand—”
“Just tell me.”
“We are not related by blood, no, but I have always loved you as my own.”
“So you’re not my dad?” Piper felt like she’d swallowed an ice cube whole and was choking on it. His answer was not the one she’d expected, or wanted, but his admission wasn’t as much of a surprise as she’d thought it would be. All her other questions faded into insignificance. “Then who is?” she asked shakily.
“It is not my place to tell you.”
“Whose place is it?”
“Your mother’s.”
“Well, that’s useful. How am I supposed to ask my mother? She left us, remember?”
“You will see her again.”
“Dad, you’ve got to stop clinging to the idea that she’ll come back. It’s not healthy,” she said. Then another thought edged into her mind. “Was she even my real mother?”
“Yes. She was and still is your mother, and it is for her safety as well as your own that I can say no more. You must leave this realm. Go home. You are safe there. You are not safe here.”
“After what’s happened so far, I’ve already gathered that.”
“In the Sixth. You are not safe in this dimension. There are greater dangers than the Voltignis. They are a very misunderstood race. If you have ever loved me as much as I have you, please promise me to flee. Return to the Third and don’t look back.”
“I will. I promise. Just as soon as Lambert is safely home.” She was about to tell him why it was of such importance that he go with Lambert when a noise like an explosion sounded nearby, rapidly followed by another.
“What was that?” she shouted.
Any replies were lost as another thunderous crash shook the floor and rocks began to peel away from the walls and drop from the ceiling.
Piper yan
ked on her father’s arm. “We need to move before this whole place caves in,” she said, dragging him from the platform.
His knee buckled. “Leave me,” he said. “My leg will only slow you down.”
“Are you crazy? It doesn’t matter that you didn’t conceive me; you’re still my dad.” Her words surprised her, but she knew them to be true. She couldn’t just forget all the times he had played piggyback with her, the evenings he’d helped her study, how he’d taught her to ride a bike and had tended to her scraped knees when she fell off it. “I’ve waited months to see you again. I’m not letting you out of my sight,” she said, looping his arm over her shoulder and dragging him towards the doors.
They were almost there when a huge chunk of rock rumbled and dislodged from the ceiling. Piper’s eyes shot up and she managed to halt it in its tracks, but it was too heavy for her to hold, and she barely had time to pull her father out of harm’s way before it fell, unfortunately landing in front of the doors and blocking their exit.
“Are you kidding me?” Piper exclaimed.
“Through here,” Rhea shouted, pointing to an archway.
Piper’s head whipped around and she hurried to the opening the others had already entered.
Dodging the rocks and stones raining down upon them, they ran for cover through the darkened passageway. Out in the light, all became clear.
The sky was filled with a mixture of flying machines and the creatures Piper had hoped she would never have to lay eyes on again, this time sporting riders. Streaks of burning light flashed in criss-crosses though the air, the flames colliding with spirals of energy, rippling as if they were made of water, and spiked bolts of magical power.
Cowering behind a wall, Lambert looked up with a puzzled expression. “It is our army,” he said in a tone that indicated disbelief. “Something must have changed in my absence. I have never known them to attack before.”
