by Stacy Reid
“They are prisoners of war.”
She nodded, knowing it was merely the way of the world and hating she could not help them. Whenever she had entered the dungeon on the emperor’s order, it had been in the upper levels and had been shielded from the captives. She hadn’t been able to feel their pain and despair so keenly. It would be impossible to try and escape with so many weak and helpless. The empire was so vast and powerful, and they were so few. “We should leave.”
Then she turned and made her way back to the girl. It would have been easier to continue without coming back to inform her they could not offer any hope of rescue. “We cannot take you with us.”
A whimper slipped from Shilah at the despair that swamped the girl senses, and she stood there, trembling with her shields open, refusing to protect herself from the pain of the child. Shilah read her thoughts and flinched. Shoring her resolve, she allowed herself to feel every rape, every single torture, mental and physical that had been done to the young girl as if it had been done to her. Tears trickled down her cheeks, the heavy sorrow pressing in on her chest. She swamped the girl with thoughts of warmth and reassurance, a promise that she would be safe, and reunited with her family if they lived.
Kamu and Thyon stepped forward. “We are not at our peak strength, but we can fight. They will fight too. I am sure of it.”
His words echoed empty, for they all knew the prisoners were too frail and broken to do much more than scrabble behind them as they fled. There was no strength to lend to any fight that could come their way. They were unequivocally a hindrance.
“I will be merciful and kill them,” Lachlan said dispassionately.
“All of them?” Kala gasped rushing toward the cage and staring at the young girl. “You would murder them?”
The girl stared at him, and her thoughts blasted to Shilah.
“She would prefer it,” she said. “She would prefer death to the ways she had suffered, and she is certain everyone else would too.”
“As you wish.”
He stepped into the shadows of the cage and gripped the head of the child. Kala spun around, unable to look at an act that should be one of mercy but was so terrible in its cruelty. The girl closed her eyes, seemingly accepting death, but Shilah read her fears of the unknown, the pain of never marrying or fulfilling all the hopes and dreams she had for her life.
“Stop! I do not wish it,” she gasped, uncaring that her voice was rough with unshed tears. “If I cannot find a way to save four hundred people how can I save Dxyriah which has six million souls relying on me?”
“I do not like your distress, mate.”
She swallowed back the tears, not wanting her compassion to be seen as weakness. Shilah did not want to analyze why, but it was important to her that he saw her strength.
He stepped back from the girl who had been seized with trembling. Her small frame convulsing and her fear beating at Shilah.
“All is well. You will not die today, I swear it.”
“He is a Darkan.” The girl’s fear grew even stronger, the stink of it almost overwhelming to Shilah’s sensitive senses. She sought the words to reassure her, knowing she had a history of revulsion for his kind to contend with.
“I’m his mate. And I…he would not ever do anything to hurt me I believe. And he knows I want to save you. So, you do not have to fear.”
She felt him then, a dark hovering shadow in her mind and knew he listened in on the conversation. How odd she did not mind him there. Taking a bracing breath, Shilah spoke aloud, “Lachlan Ravenswood, can you open everyone’s cage?”
Her sister and the guard behind her froze.
“They do not face death?” Kala asked, glancing around as if she expected to be heard by someone else.
“No. I…I would prefer we attempted a rescue. I will connect with their minds and speak with them collectively and calm them. I know many might die, but dozens will also live.”
Kamu stepped closer. “You are able to speak in their minds collectively? Are you that strong of a telepath?”
She lifted her chin. “I am an Imperial telepath,” she said, uncaring of the arrogance in her tone. “I’ll communicate their imminent rescue, and how imperative it is they move with stealth and follow all instructions. I will also implant the urgency of wanting to leave into their minds and their loyalty to each other as we flee.”
Admiration and approval glowed in his eyes. She faced her mate. No. Lachlan Ravenswood. She needed to think of him by his name and not the abstract yet so possessive term she had yet to understand. “I believe it will be best if you stayed in the shadows at all times, Lachlan Ravenswood. The knowledge a Darkan is with us will be counterproductive to our fleeing.”
His mouth didn’t smile, but a hint of amusement crept into the dark abyss in his eyes.
“The four of us will stay in the shadows.”
Her heart stuttered, and her eyes searched the shadows, flaring her senses, unable to detect any other aura. “You’ve rescued your people already?”
His head canted left in acknowledgment. Then shadows covered him, and he vanished, but she knew he lingered.
Shilah opened her telepathy, touching the thoughts of all four hundred and thirty-seven captive souls in the dungeon. “I am Princess Shilah, ruler of Dxyriah, kingdom of Serange,” she said softly.
She felt them, each individual’s shock, agitation, wariness, and curiosity as her voice touched their minds. There was little fear. And she sensed that almost all had given up hope and quietly waited to die.
“I’m here in the dungeons with you, also a prisoner of the empire. I am a telepath, and I speak to you all at the same time,” she said, ensuring she projected into her sister, Kamu, and Thyon’s minds as well. She’d found the Darkans’ pathway and went only surface deep so they could hear her, but not that she was tainted by the malevolence of whatever beast they possessed. “I am outside of my cage.”
As if a hive, each mind paused at that implication, taking it apart and testing it. Hope and despair in equal measure flooded her senses. Then questions and confusion came. She carefully sorted through their thoughts, picking up the most insistent worry they had.
“Yes. I am in the tunnel of the lower floors. If you wish it, you will be transported from your cages into the corridor, and we will all attempt a rescue. Most of you are weak and hurt, so we must help each other. Some of you might die, or all of us might die if we are discovered. The battle will be fierce if we are found, and the empire will not show mercy. If you wish to come with me on this escape mission, step from your cage when it opens. If you wish for the relief of death instead…”
She took a deep breath, hating to offer it, but already sensing there were those so broken they had no will to live. “If you long for death instead, it will be rendered. I also offer another option. I am a telepath, and I have the power to remove the pain and the memories of your time here. If you so wish it, it shall be done.”
10
Shilah held her breath waiting for those who would accept death and those who would fight to live. She felt a wave of profound relief that battered her senses, and then the resolve of those who wanted to die. One hundred and eighteen souls wished to perish. A peculiar agony clawed through her as she arrowed in on their thoughts. She flinched at their silent screams, trying not to weep at the terrible cruelty done to them.
“I can wipe the memories away and replace them with good ones. This experience will not even be a shadow in your thoughts.”
She offered this lifeline, wanting to weep at the torment they had endured. Beating and tortures so inhumane she could only brush against the surface of their memories. Reaching for Lachlan she showed him those who wanted to escape and connected to him on such a profound level, she saw as he used the shadows and transported each prisoner from their cage into the corridors of the tunnels. His speed as he wielded his natural element of darkness and shadow was a force to behold, and she found herself reluctantly impressed by his strength. They
did not even have the presence of mind to be shocked by being out of their cages without their bars opening. A few minds struggled to understand, but she could already sense the renewed purpose filling their hearts from being out of their cells.
Trusting Lachlan to do his part of the job, Shilah turned her thoughts to those who did not desire rescue. “Please,” she attempted once more, speaking into their minds, searching for that part of their will that wished to survive. “I can remove these terrible memories. They will not haunt you, or shape you, and I can replace them with good ones.”
It would take an enormous amount of energy to build new memories for so many people in the little time they had to escape, but she needed to try. Shilah bit her lips hard when no one took her offer. Instead, their resolve to die and escape the shame and degradation flooded her senses, and her throat closed.
She connected deeply into their minds, holding onto their thread of life, uncaring tears streamed down her face. Her lips parted, and yet the command for them to sleep eternally would not spill from her mind to theirs. A harsh breath escaped her, and Kala and Kamu pressed closer, an unexpected wall of silent support. Thyon she saw was carefully removing the stitches from Raven’s mouth, murmuring soothingly each time she flinched and whimpered.
There was a stirring in her mind, and then Lachlan spoke, “I will kill them for you.”
“No!”
“Then why do you hesitate? Time is of the essence.”
In his voice and heart, she sensed no hesitation. Death was such a natural part of him, and she recoiled from the awareness. “I…I am not a murderer.”
Suddenly he was there, a whisper of breath across her nape. Shilah did not scream when darkness coated her senses, and he took her into a world of murkiness, where everyone disappeared, and everything seemed as if they were in another dimension. With a gasp she stepped forward, reaching out to touch her sister who was glancing around frantically searching for her. And Shilah understood then she was in the shadow space, a world within their dimension that no one else could see or hear…unless they were a Darkan.
His arms clasped her hips firmly from behind. His strength was enormous, nearly crushing her bones. Instantly he relaxed his grip, rubbing the spot above her hips soothingly. Swallowing down her nerves, she twisted in the cage of his arms and faced him. The world he cocooned them in wasn’t pitch black, but shades of silver and grayscale, and she knew he was the one to control how deep the shadows went. The shadows painted him in a silver shade as if moonbeams kissed his skin. He was so savagely beautiful, a blend of elegance and untamed beast. Something quickened inside her, and she wetted her lower lip, hating the sudden dryness. “Why did you bring me here, Lachlan Ravenswood?”
He used a single finger and lifted her chin. His touch was possessive, even intimate. Her eyes collided with his.
“Taking their lives would be an act of Mercy.”
“I can take the memories of their torture,” she desperately argued, hating the uncertainty that rioted through her at stealing their choices. They wanted to go to the beyond abyss, and she was thinking to deny them even that after countless months and years of cruelty.
“I am no better than the emperor, they have hungered for death and even that peace they were denied,” she whispered to Lachlan, unable to understand why it was he she reached out to and not her sister. “Thinking to take away their choice is despicable, but I have the power to save them…and just perhaps they could go on living.”
His unblinking eyes on her were those of a waiting predator. There was no judgment or censure, and it occurred to her then how much a man like Lachlan would not be guided by what was deemed right or wrong. What did he act on? What was his guiding force? And how strangely curious she wanted to know more about the dark, mystifying creature before her.
The shadow space melted away, and Shilah slowly walked along the corridor, touching each of the minds who wished to die. Pushing away the discomfort she started to plant the first memory in a male captive. The mind pushed against her intrusion and a wail of anguish vibrated through her as the man realized she was taking his choice. She burrowed deep inside his mind, and a raw gasp escaped her. The threads connecting his thoughts and life forces were a twisted, tangled mess, pulsing with a dark red aura of agony. She could find no white thread of good memories to study and supplant with the dark ones, it was as if his soul was fractured, and nothing remained but the need to end his torment.
The dark memories crowded her thoughts, ugly and brutal, his pain rising inside to swamp her senses. She eagerly clasped onto a memory she found, of him walking with a small boy atop his shoulders, and a woman beside him, laughing lovingly up at him. Shilah took that memory and pushed it at the forefront of his thoughts, trying to use it to bury the terrible agony writhing inside them. His mind was too broken to accept her illusion.
Her heart squeezed, and sorrow made her bones ache. She murmured, “Sleep.” And with precision snapped his thread of life, taking him to the afterlife with a pleasant memory his last.
A fine trembling seized her frame after the same thing happened with at least six more prisoners. They truly had no will to live, and the work it would take to draw them from the abyss would be unrelenting. But she worked, trying to find at least one soul from the one hundred and eighteen who wished to die. In their thoughts, she could find no hope. There was only pain. Terrible, endless pain. And in her heart, a rage started to brew as she hated the empire could do this to anyone. After the fifty-seventh command to sleep eternally, her trembling increased and her resolve swayed.
Immediately, a hand touched the nape of her neck, drew her close, and her back was pressed against a wall of heated muscled hardness. The reassurance was only fleeting, for a second later he was gone. She sensed the intent in him, a relentless hunger to slaughter that grew until it became his entire world.
“Please no!” she cried out to him, but then it was too late.
She felt their threads snapping as he took their lives by slicing their throats with claws. He tried to close himself off from her, the need to protect her paramount in him, and she also felt his need to offer them a clean death. For her. Her mind frantically touched those who did not die instantly, and her breath caught at the relief she felt in those who lay bleeding out at the notion death had come for them. And somehow, that awareness allowed them to call upon the good memories they wanted to take with them to the afterlife.
Shilah slowly disconnected from their minds without offering the quick and painless absolution of eternal sleep. Seconds later she belatedly realized she was clasped in Lachlan’s arms and in the shadow space. And in that shadow realm, she could feel at least three more people. Darkans. She hazily glanced over his shoulders to see her sister, Kamu, Thyon, and Raven running stealthily in the distance. As they ran through the endless corridors of the tunnels, more and more prisoners joined them, some keeping pace, others hobbling behind, determination burning the aura around them in a wash of bright blue.
Shilah shifted in his arms and peered up at Lachlan. “You can put me down now. I can keep up.”
He ignored her, moving so seamlessly it was as if he skimmed the ground above which he ran. She narrowed her eyes. “Lachlan Ravenswood—”
“You will preserve your strength for the coming battle.”
She tensed and peered down the endless corridors in which they ran. “Tell me of this battle?”
“In the corridor above, more than a thousand warriors are waiting for you. And more are filing in as we speak. They will attack in a wave with one goal in mind. To retrieve you, my princess.”
My princess.
Flaring her senses, she tried to find the auras. “I sense no one.”
His lips curved ever so slightly and the bloodthirst in his expression sent her heart into a hammer. “I can feel their anger and need to kill. The empire knows we are escaping. The weakest path of the dungeons is the cave wall ahead. I cannot feel an enchantment, but miles of compressed rocks are be
tween us and freedom. And beyond those walls of rocks, a force will be waiting.”
“How many?” she asked softly.
“Thousands. You are a prize they do not wish to lose.”
She flinched and glanced back at the dozens of people trailing behind, their aura shining brighter with each step. Those who were stronger helped those who stumbled. Kamu had a young girl on his back, her legs hooked at his waist as he ran with her. They were in no place to battle a few much less the thousands warriors ahead, and then to face the army waiting beyond. Her throat closed. Their escape would only be a temporary relief.
Their unique pathway opened. “There is a witch, Amirah, can you connect to her telepathically?”
She didn’t question why he chose this method to communicate, instinctively responding, “Yes. I can find her.” Shilah pressed the tip of her finger at the spot the witch had drawn the symbol. “She touched you here, and I can still sense the echoes of her aura. I only need to follow it.”
“Tell her to work on a spell that could possibly dampen the enchantment around the dungeons. I tried using the shadows to escape and could not. Though I cannot sense the enchantment something is preventing me. Tell her to dampen anything that could counter darkness. Inform the witch my vow to take her from the empire stands, and she must prepare.”
Shilah nodded, and delved into her mind, opening her psychic senses wide and pulsing with a blue halo. It was then she sensed the aura of the warriors waiting with such deadly intent. Pushing back the need to caution him to not run toward the danger, she centered her thoughts on finding the witch following the twisting white thread that glowed with powerful vitality until she located her.
She politely knocked on the witch’s mental barrier, not knowing the full range of her powers and not wanting to start a fight. The echoes of the witch’s hesitation vibrated down the thread, then the connection opened.
“This is Princess Shilah.”
A profound surge of relief filled Shilha’s mind.
