The Harbinger

by Candace Wondrak

  There was one race, though, who was unburdened by the toxicity of aether: the Dracon.

  But their kingdom was too far away. There were no Dracon in the Springsweet, nor in Alyna. The Court would know if there was. It couldn’t be the Dracon. It was all so coincidental, happening right when the Humans were here, as if it were carefully planned.

  Light dropped the broken clay jar, turning to see Faith crawl over the wall, shouting, “What’s going on?” She took a single step into the hazy, murky space before halting and coughing.

  What a stupid, idiotic thing to do, he thought, running to her as he covered his mouth. His head felt woozy; he felt dizzy and nauseous. He sought to bring her hand to her mouth, to shield her, to force her back over the wall and get help, but he stumbled when he reached her. His vision grew blurry. He didn’t have much time. He had to—

  “I don’t feel good,” Faith whispered before falling forward.

  Light caught her at the expense of using both arms, and his legs buckled. He breathed in one, last conscious time before his senses failed him. Faith’s head was on his chest, her reddish-brown hair splayed like a messy, unkempt crown. He wanted to move her off him, for he still did not like the Human, but he had no energy. As his eyes closed, he watched three hooded figures leap over the wall.

  The first thing Light heard when he came to was his own heartbeat. It thumped wildly in his chest, still frantic over the aether in the air. As he opened his eyes to the blackness of the night, he remembered everything that took place before he fell into unconsciousness.

  The gathering. The aether. The cloaked assailants.

  Light sat up, propping himself on his elbows, searching for the girl who’d fallen with him, on top of him. The one who thought herself so funny, the one with the illegal Victus, with the dot of silver in her nose. Faith was gone, nowhere near him. Head pounding, he stood and spun to view the gathering place. The fire was nothing but dull, cool embers, not even glowing a faint orange anymore. The other Elven were unharmed, though sick, as they slowly came to.

  The Humans—all of them—were nowhere in sight.

  This was not good.

  Stumbling toward the nearest exit of the wide open space, Light clutched onto the stone as he left the gathering area, coughing as he attempted to breathe in the clean air. Someone had done that on purpose, in order to take the Humans? Why?

  He looked up, noticing that guards from the palace were simply standing around, refusing to enter the gathering area. “What are you waiting for? We could certainly use your help,” Light told them in a voice that was not-so-kind.

  The guard nearest him gave a shake of the head. “There is still aether in the air.”

  Light growled. Of course the guards the Court chose were ones who’d rather stay safe and hide themselves away when there was trouble. He started to go, to find the footprints on the other side of the wall, to track them, get the Humans back—spirits help them if they didn’t—but the same guard called out to him.

  “Aye, where do you think you’re going? Every Elf must report to the Court.”

  The Court rarely met in the middle of the night. Whatever this was, it was big. Still, that didn’t make Light feel any better. There was nothing worse than wasting time when he could be tracking. The more time that passed was more time for the trail to grow cold, for prints to fade and weather to claim them, and it was more time that the fate of the Humans hung in the balance.

  But he didn’t have a choice.

  To say it didn’t go well would be an understatement. The Court had no idea what happened, and they demanded to know each and every detail Light could remember until he could say no more. Ophelia and the others could wait. He had to track the cloaked men.

  But Frey, the bastard, did not want him to go.

  Beneath that copper circlet, he was no better than Light. Both were not fond of Humans. The difference, it seemed, was that Light knew they had to save them or they risked starting a war, for surely there would be retaliation from the Middleworld if an entire class of Humans went missing and never returned.

  “We will not trade any Elven life for a Human’s,” Frey said, his voice light and airy, matching his white hair, so long it trailed down his back above his velvet and plush overcoat. “We must discover why they were taken first, and then if needed we may attempt rescue.”

  “No,” Light argued, unafraid even though the last time he stood before them in this wide, open dome he’d lost his argument and his position, all because he’d made some stupid joke about Humans to a Fae merchant caravan. The spherical ceiling above him held clouds, though they would not rain, and numerous tiny dots in the faked night sky, along with a large, crater-filled moon. Two remnants of the Middleworld that the last messenger between worlds had seen and written sonnets about.

  The Elders sat on their tall thrones, carved from the same stone that the Springsweet’s buildings were crafted from. White, pointed shapes, one of which Ophelia rose from. She wore a long, flowering gown of pale ivory, sparkling even in the simulated night. The candelabras on the walls burned with a light humming, their flames a glittering, translucent white.

  “I agree with the hunter,” Ophelia spoke, glancing to both Frey and Bul’ara.

  Bul’ara herself looked bored beneath her jeweled crown, its shiny chains dripping down onto the smooth contours of her face. Her hair was black—unusual for an Elf—and massively curly, yet another oddity. “Whatever the decision is, I wish we would be done with it. I grow bored of all this talk. I want to know who did this as much as you do Frey, but my dear, I do think the quickest way to discovering that is to send a scouting party after them. Don’t you agree?”

  “Do not forget,” Frey said, narrowing his amber eyes at Light, “that he is a hunter no longer.”

  “Yes, but he knows the land, and this was set to be his last as a tutor to the Human classes. He has done well to overcome his racism,” Ophelia gave him far more credit than he deserved. “Let him prove himself more by saving those which he claimed to loathe with his entire being.” She looked at him hard, as if she knew something he didn’t. “I think he will do fine.”

  “You want him to lead the scouting party?” Frey harrumphed, shaking his elegant head. “I do not agree.”

  Bul’ara moved her fingers, the chains on them similar to the ones on her crown and face. “It is two against one, my dear. The ex-hunter will go.” She gave him a smile, though it was not warm in the slightest. “The party will be ready to disembark before dawn. Do not fail us, Weylon. Redeem your name in the Court.”

  Redeem his name?

  His name didn’t need to be redeemed.

  His name was Weylon Lightfoot, not Sunnytoes, and he would find the Humans. He’d save them, save Faith, and finally wash his hands of the smelly, stout race.

  If only that were true.

  Chapter Nine

  It was a difficult thing, opening her eyes. Faith struggled to lift her lids, as if they weighed ten tons each. When she saw the old block-shaped stones around her, she struggled even more to sit. She felt awful, sick. What happened? She moved a hand to her head, gingerly touching its side where a welt had formed. Her throat burned, and when a series of abrupt coughing filled the air behind her, she remembered. Going to the gathering wall, jumping it, finding Light through the purplish, hazy fog. Instantly feeling drowsy. Cara and the others were already passed out.

  Faith spun around on her butt, blinking multiple times until her vision and her head cleared enough that she could see and recognize the sight before her. Her fellow students, the girls at least, locked in the same room as her. All looked to be recovering from the same nausea that she felt; some held their heads and moaned.

  Cara crawled to her, hugging her. “Thank God. I didn’t see you—I thought…”

  “Are you all right?” Faith asked her friend.

  She nodded.

  Faith said nothing as she examined the small, cold, unwelcoming room they were huddled in. No furniture; j
ust walls of stone. This was no ordinary room, she realized. This was a jail cell, complete with metal bars as its only door and no windows.

  “Where the heck are we?” Cara muttered, the fright clear on her features. “We didn’t train for this. Do you think…”

  “Don’t even say it,” Faith said, stopping her. She knew what she was going to say. Do you think the rumors about missing Humans were true? No, she didn’t believe her kind was kidnapped and stolen across illegal portals. That was a conspiracy theory her grandma might believe, but she didn’t.

  Standing and swaying a bit, Faith carefully stepped around her fellow students, moving to the bars. To her untrained eye, they looked like plain iron. She poked an arm through, wrapping it around to the thick lock. The hole was larger than any lock on Earth had been for centuries. Maybe, with a Victus…

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Cara asked.

  “The Elven will come,” another girl—Laura, Faith thought her name was—spoke up. “They have to.”

  Faith stopped herself from laughing. The Elven had amazingly long lifespans in comparison to Humans, but they were not invincible. They could be cut down and killed like anything else. It made them wary of marching headfirst into danger. She definitely couldn’t see them sending a brigade of Elven warriors to free them. No, they couldn’t rely on the Elven. They couldn’t just sit there and wait to be saved.

  This was the twenty-first century. Sisters would do it for themselves.

  “No, we’re going to get out.” Faith was met with almost a dozen skeptical stares. “We’re trained. We all know the basics.”

  The same girl argued, “But we have no weapons. What if we come across someone?”

  “We stick together.” Faith met Cara’s eyes as she pulled up her sleeve to reveal her leather band. “And as for weapons…” She undid one strap and then worked to do the same on her other wrist. The leather wristbands went into her back pocket before she flashed her Victi to her classmates.

  A few gasps, a lot of wide eyes.

  The girl brought up a good point, “We don’t even know the layout of this place. We were all unconscious when they brought us here. What if we just end up deeper inside?”

  Faith went to her, pushing past the mini-crowd as they all got to their feet. “If you’re scared, maybe you’re going into the wrong profession,” she told the girl. “You can stay here if you want. I won’t force you to come with me. But I am going.”

  The first step was getting the girls to safety. None of them had Victi yet, and while they knew the basics of hand-to-hand combat, if they used that gaseous stuff again, they’d be out anyways. The next step was to find the guys. They were separated, and by the silence of the surrounding cells, Faith didn’t think they were nearby.

  No one else argued with her. No one else dared. They knew she was right, and Faith hoped and prayed that nothing bad would happen when they traversed through the fantasy-like dungeon. She moved back to the bars, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. The sickness she felt had mostly faded. Whatever effect that gas had, it didn’t last too long. Though, it was night time when it happened, so she supposed she’d really find out once they got outside.

  Just like a videogame, Faith told herself. Pick the lock, find the way out. Doors were bound to be blocked off. If they ran across anyone, they’d hide and sneak around, fight as a last resort. Videogames made it look easy. How hard could it possibly be in real life?

  Well, maybe she shouldn’t have thought that. That was begging bad luck to come knocking.

  Faith stuck her arm out of the cell, waving it around and snapping her fingers together. She waited a while to see if anyone or anything was nearby, like a guard or something. Wasn’t there always? But there wasn’t. What kind of show were they running here?

  Once she was satisfied that they were alone, Faith ran her hand down her right Victus, the dagger forming instantly, hardened steel in her palm. She reached around the lock, digging the dagger’s point into the hole, jiggling it for a bit. She’d picked locks on those cheap fluffy diaries when she was young, and sometimes she accidentally locked herself out of her room, so she’d picked that with a kitchen knife quite a few times. Never any real skill involved, though. Just something sharp into the mechanism. This, thankfully, was similar. They were fortunate that the Second was not as advanced in locks as Earth was. If it’d been a real lock, they’d be screwed.

  Within a minute, the lock clicked open, and Faith started to push the door. It creaked as it opened, so Faith only pushed as far as she needed to slip out. She threw a glance down the hall. At least they were in a dead-end hall. There was only one way to go from here.

  The girls came out one by one, led by Cara. As Faith glanced into the adjacent cells, she found they were empty and full of cobwebs and dust. Where in the Second were the guys?

  “All right,” Faith whispered once the girls were all out. “Behind me. We stick together.” She activated her second Victus, gripping a dagger in each hand.

  They started moving.

  Faith led them to a winding set of stairs. Maybe there was another dungeon block on the other side of the fortress. Maybe the guys were there. Or, she thought dejectedly, maybe the guys were never brought here at all. It could very well be that they were taken somewhere different. If one needed muscle or workers, the guys would be the right choice. If one needed sacrifices or bodies to pump out babies, well, the same could be said for the women. There were only a few reasons why they’d be separated by gender.

  The stone stairwell was not that high, though it did lead to another long hall that looked remarkably like the one they just came from. No pictures on the walls, no candles or windows. It was long, dank, dark and cold, a hall straight out of her nightmares.

  Her feet drew her along, her fellow students behind her, eyes front. Faith was stunned to feel a nervousness deep within her bones. Was this not what she wanted? Was this not what she trained for? Sure, she didn’t think she’d ever get the opportunity to escape a freaking dungeon, but life rarely went how she thought it would. This was a once in a lifetime thing; she only hoped they all lived through it. Both a selfless and selfish wish at once.

  Faith wasn’t ready to die here.

  They passed numerous closed doors. What magical secrets they held she couldn’t begin to guess. She didn’t want to, for there were other things on her mind, like getting the heck out of here. She couldn’t rely on Sunnytoes or anyone else.

  She inched around the first corner after the ten-minute jaunt down the hall, instantly seeing two guards heading in their direction. What they were, she didn’t know. They wore black armor, fit with full helmets, the metal shaped into horns. Were they…Dracon? They were the only race of the Second that Faith knew had horns.

  Were the Dracon responsible for this?

  She leapt backward, ramming herself into Cara. “Turn back,” she whispered urgently. “We have two guards coming.”

  The girls hurried back down the same hall they spent so long following. Faith gestured toward a cracked wooden door and the girls slipped through, hiding in the room with bated breath, waiting for the guards to pass. Fighting, using her Victi, would be a last resort. Unless she was confident enough that she could handle both guards and not let them alert anyone else of their escape, it was pointless.

  As Cara peeked through the crack between the door and the hinges on the stone wall, Faith surveyed the room. Fifteen-foot-high ceilings, cobwebs hanging off the chandeliers and sconces on the walls, none of them lit. Almost every inch of the room was full of crates. Faith moved to the nearest crate that hung open and found a bunch of straw…and in that straw sat half a dozen round vials of some kind of purple liquid. Victi seeping into her skin, she went to lift one up.

  Laura moved to her side, whispering, “Those vials remind me—something like them were thrown into the gathering. The liquid turns into gas when it’s on fire.”

  Faith hurriedly put it down. “Like a gren
ade…or a bomb.” If they got enough of these, they could easily overtake the Elves and Springsweet, even all of Alyna. And it worked on Humans just as well.

  This room couldn’t be left standing.

  Moving to her side, Cara muttered, “They passed. I think they’re going to the dungeon to check on us. We need to move.” Her normally bright, gleeful blue eyes were fraught with worry and concern, and as they fixated on something farther in the room, the heaviness that surrounded them lifted somewhat. “Guys, there’s a window!” She hurried over, climbing atop a few of the crates to reach it.

  A window? Why didn’t Faith notice it?

  “We’re only a story up. We should be able to jump.” Cara met Faith’s gaze. “They might hear us break the window, though.”

  Faith only had one response to that: “Then we move fast and hope no one’s outside.”

  Cara crawled backwards a bit, moving her legs to the window, giving her boots a harsh, quick kick. The single-pane glass shattered and after she made sure no one would get cut on the remaining jagged pieces, she was the first one out.

  One by one the girls leapt out, into the bright unknown light of day. A few hours at the least had passed since the gathering. What they would find was anyone’s guess. Faith was about to crawl up when she heard the door to the room fly open, wood battering the wall. Just able to see the blue sky above, she glanced to the two guards who had found her a moment too soon, and then back at the window.

  “Go,” she shouted. “Go!”

  Faith wasn’t the type of girl to play the hero. It was a role she didn’t like, one she did not need. She was no hero. She was just a girl, Human in every single way, prone to mistakes and with a love of adventure. But she had her moments of clarity. If she leapt through the window and joined her group, the two guards would follow her and overtake them. Better to stop them here and now, right?