by Jada Fisher
But she wasn’t looking at me. No, her head was turned in the same direction mine had been, her black eyes so large that there was hardly any of the white left. Her other hand stretched out, curling until a single finger pointing where I had been drawn to.
“You feel it too?” I asked, my heart fluttering in my chest.
She didn’t answer, because of course, but she did point again with more emphasis. If that wasn’t a sign, I didn’t know what was.
“Wait here,” I said, trying to gesture enough to get the point across. I wasn’t sure if she got it, but she did let my arm go so I could shuffle forward.
I went carefully but as quickly as I could, jumping to spots in the floor that seemed solid, always trying to keep my hand on something that could catch me if it all suddenly gave way.
“Davie! What are you doing? We’ve got maybe another minute before—”
“Just give me a second,” I said sharply, my eyes zeroing in on what was in front of me.
Finally, I reached the wall, the pulsing point at the back of my head. The place that I could still feel Sokhanya staring at. But now that I was right in front of it, glowstick in hand, it just looked like…
A pile a crap, if I was honest.
But two seers wouldn’t be drawn to nothing, which meant there had to be something there.
Crashing to my knees, I started to dig through the rot, mold, and filth. Some of it was wood debris that came away in large chunks, some of it was so squishy and soft that my stomach roiled. But I pushed that all to the side, completely ignoring it, until my fingers finally felt something solid.
That thrumming in my head reached its loudest point and I gripped the something, hauling it up into the light of my glowstick. It was a book, its leather cover stained from who-knew-how-long of filth and the edges of its pages dark and stormy yellow. I heard Sokhanya let out a strange, breathy sound behind me, which I guessed was her version of a shout of triumph, and I turned back to the rest of our little crew.
“I got it!” I said, holding it above my head.
Just in time for a massive explosion to sound above us, shaking the entire castle down to exactly where we were.
“Uh-oh.”
11
Light as a Feather
The effects of the blast were immediate. Almost all of us were thrown off our feet, scrambling for purchase as dirt and dust rained down from the ceiling. I hit the ground hard, my shoulder smacking into a toppled pillar, and I tried to roll off it with a groan.
Small fingers wrapped in my hair and yanked me to a stop, however. I let out a surprised shout but eased my protest when I realized I had just been about to roll myself right into a hole in the floor where jagged struts were waiting at the bottom.
Pushing myself away, I twisted to see it was Sokhanya’s hand tangled in my hair. Now that it was clear that I was safe, she quickly jerked it away.
“Thanks,” I said, pushing myself to my shaky legs.
She nodded once, getting to her feet too. Once we were both stable, I looked to where Mal and Krisjian had been to see the smaller woman trying to lift what looked like an old armor rack off the youngest seer.
“I told you we had to get out of here!” Mal shouted over another thunderous rumble. The ceiling collapsed a few feet behind us, as if to punctuate her frustration. “A little help here?!”
“Uh, yeah! Coming!”
I rushed to her—well, as much as one could rush when half the floor wasn’t trustworthy—but I didn’t even make it halfway there when there was a crashing sound above us and suddenly, something burst through the ceiling and crashed into the ground in front of me.
I gasped and jumped back, losing my footing again and landing right on my rear. Shock and terror gripped me as the shape in front of me quickly began to shrink, filling the entire space with heated mist.
“Insufferable!” was the first garbled word I heard out of an inhuman mouth. I barely drew my legs out of the way just in time for an overly large paw tipped in dark claws to slam into the ground where I had just been.
I tried my best to call a shield up, to protect Sokhanya and I from the form creeping toward us that was more dragon than man.
The way I figured it, we had one advantage, and that was that a full dragon couldn’t fit in the basement, and even if it could, the floor couldn’t support it. So if one of them wanted to come down and fight us, they would have to do it in their human form.
But then the mist cleared and I saw Baelfyre there, wings unfurled from his back, jaw extended with jagged teeth, and long claws on his blackened hands.
Okay…so, mostly human form.
He let out another unintelligible sound that I guessed probably had something to do with my character as a woman, but I didn’t pay much mind. That familiar surge of adrenaline was going through me, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my heart go double-time in my chest.
His hand came down to strike me, and I was acutely aware of everything at once—Mal still struggling to hold up the armor rack enough for Krisjian to crawl out from under it, the sound of Sokhayna scrambling back, the creaking of all the weak spots around us.
I crossed my arms in front of me and threw up what energy I could. There was a spark within me, and then that clawed hand bounced off the air between us, rattling my teeth.
He took a step toward me again, snarling, and I knew that I couldn’t play defensively. I had to be proactive. We had minutes before the basement either collapsed entirely or we were overwhelmed with anti-humanists. That wasn’t a situation I wanted to be in, and one we wouldn’t even be in if it weren’t for the book in my hand.
I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that it was important. It had to be. But I supposed the question was: was it important enough to be worth the trouble I had just gotten us into?
I hoped so.
Clamping down on that energy within me, I shoved it outward, like a wall. As I hoped, it collided with Baelfyre, driving him back toward a part of the floor that I could already see buckling.
To his credit, he dug his feet in, resisting me, making me work for it. I furrowed my brow and pushed harder, pulling everything I could out of myself even though I was exhausted and strung out on everything that had happened over the past day and a half.
I should have known better than to put all my eggs in one basket.
I heard something crashing behind me, of ancient wood and stone giving way, but I didn’t have time to react. Didn’t have time to process what was going on. Because the next thing I knew, something thumped behind me, and a hand gripped my shoulder.
Nails bit into my skin, and I was bodily picked up. I didn’t even have time to scream before this person threw me, slamming me into one of the decrepit walls.
I hit hard, my head spinning, and fell to the ground with a thump. My stomach roiled at the pain, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I had drifted from calculated risk to really far over my head. I hadn’t counted on being so battered in my little rescue mission, and now I felt like one more good hit would have me tumbling to pieces.
I righted myself, trying to call up another shield, but it was none other than the prince who was on me, dressed in half-armor that was reminiscent of what I had seen in the other dimension. He gripped my neck, pulling me up until my toes were just barely touching the ground.
The raw patch on my collarbone smarted—understatement of the year—and my lungs instantly began to burn. I tried to reach for his face, maybe to poke his eyes, or snag a nostril, or scratch that stupidly perfect visage of his, but I couldn’t quite reach.
“Clever, clever little girl,” he snarled, lips drawn back from his teeth, incisors sharp and long. “You almost played us for fools.” His grip tightened, and I swore I heard my neck creak. The edges of my vision were growing dark, and I felt the shield that I had been holding Baelfyre at bay with pop into nothingness.
I hoped the others were running. I had promised Bronn that I would never purposefully sacrific
e myself again, but surely, they would tell him that I had really tried. That I had been literally up against a wall with no other choice.
With the last bit of energy I had, I stared the prince down. I wasn’t going to let him have my fear on top of it.
“You’re going to be more useful to us than you know,” he growled, his other hand coming up to join his first. I punched at it, tried to grab his wrists, but I had no effect. “Once you’re obedient.”
I wanted to snarl at him that that would never happen, but I didn’t. If only because I couldn’t draw in any air or make any sounds other than a pained sputtering. The world started to slip away from me, and I realized that it wasn’t death I was facing, but imprisonment. They wouldn’t do the courtesy of killing me. No, they couldn’t do me that justice.
But then the hand suddenly fell away and I dropped to the ground, coughing. Everything was tinged red, but when I looked up, I saw the prince was stumbling back. Sokhayna was on his back with one arm around his throat.
“Vicious little thing, aren’t you?” he laughed, reaching back for her. Sokhanya didn’t hear that, of course, but I got the feeling she didn’t have to. She let out a truly animalistic, breathy exhalation then raised her other hand high above her head.
I barely saw the flash of something rusted and sharp before she stabbed it into the dragon’s neck, driving it as deep as she could before pulling it out and plunging it in again.
It was a truly stunning display of violence, even for me. There was blood and screaming, and I was sure some of it was from me, but all I could do was scramble to my feet as she continued her attack.
“My liege!” Baelfyre cried, rushing forward. He grabbed Sokhanya by the scruff of her neck, yanking her off the prince. I finally got a good hand on what she was holding as it clattered to the floor.
A long, intricate letter opener, jewels in the handle and a filigree peacock feather welded to the end of it.
You build your throne on spikes and teeth, but it will be a feather that brings you down.
I tried to shove myself off the wall, to help the tiny seer, but my head was still spinning, and I felt like death. Too much was happening all at once, and I felt like I couldn’t keep up.
The prince swayed for a moment, his hand on his throat, looking just as unsteady as I probably did. He took a lumbering step forward, reaching for me, before collapsing right onto his face, red leaking out all around him.
“Y-you killed him!” Baelfyre screamed, sounding truly unhinged as he throttled Sokhanya. “Our prince! You—”
He didn’t finish, but that was probably because the tiny seer managed to twist enough to get a hand on the dragon. I felt the snap and buckle of our magic rush out of her as she exhaled a pointed, hissing breath, and the dragon was blown back in a wave of blue.
I had to shield my eyes from it for a moment, it was so blindingly bright, but I looked back just as Baelfyre hit the ground.
He didn’t get up, didn’t even move, but that was probably because he was entirely encased in crystal, much like how Mickey had protected herself and Bronn’s men all that time ago.
Sokhanya’s knees buckled, and I barely managed to stumble to her to catch her. She was breathing hard, looking around wildly, blood spattered across her hands and face. The look she gave me was heartbreaking, but I couldn’t let her sit and recover. I couldn’t let her digest what she had just done.
“Come on,” I said, pulling her to her feet.
“Did that really just happen?” Mal said as Krisjian finished pulling himself out from under the armor rack. “Did she just kill the prince in less than a minute?”
“Looks like it,” I said before another rumbling crack reminded me of how our time limit had already run out. “We need to get out of here.”
“Hold on,” Mal said, quickly making her way toward us. “We should bring him.”
“Who?” My brain still felt like scrambled eggs, and it was taking quite a lot for me to focus on her words.
“You know who. Baelfyre. We’d be stupid to think this is over, so let’s haul him with us in case he’s got secrets. Worse comes to worse, at least he faces justice for what he’s done.”
“He’s going to be heavy,” I said. I didn’t know why, but taking him with us seemed dangerous. Foolhardy. But at the same time, what she had said made sense.
“Not if we carry him together. Come on, it’d be a shame to put all your efforts to waste.”
I hesitated a moment, but then the whole basement shook hard and we all struggled to stay on our feet.
“Let’s just grab him and go!” Krisjian said, his voice panicked.
That was enough for me, and the three of us grabbed him, Sokhanya followed like a ghost. I only paused long enough to shove the book we had found into Mal’s pack, but it was enough time for me to look over the slight woman’s face. At least she had enough of herself present to summon up the spit to send a fairly impressive loogie at Baelfyre’s crystalline face, but that was about all she did before she was once against staring hollowly after us.
By the time we made it to the part of the basement that had collapsed over the underwater lake, everything was crumbling around us. I was half-tempted to just give up on taking Baelfyre prisoner, but we were so close that I summoned the last of my strength and just threw him down into the hole.
“I hope that crystal floats,” Mal remarked idly before taking a deep breath and diving in herself.
Krisjian went right after her, and I looked to Sokhanya, but she was just standing there, eyes wide in terror as her gaze flicked between me and the hole.
Oh.
Right.
Of course, she couldn’t swim. She had spent almost her entire life locked in a dark cell and had almost no muscle or fat on her. She was skeletal and in shock. Not a good time to learn.
But we didn’t have time to convince her either.
Quickly, I crossed to her, crouching down and pointing to my back. For several terrifying beats, nothing happened except for rubble raining down around us, but eventually, I felt her clamber on.
I was so tired, down to the very core of myself. My chest hurt. My head hurt. My throat hurt. But I took a deep breath and stood, the starved woman clinging to my back. I tried not to remember that she had just murdered a man that way. Even if it was a man who most definitely deserved it.
“Here goes nothing,” I said before getting a running start and diving in.
12
Making a Splash
Back when we were kids, Mickey and I had been able to get away from the city once and hitch a ride to a state park an hour away. It was a green place, full of trees and beautiful gorges, but the real claim to fame was the waterfall that people could climb to the top of only to launch themselves into the natural pool at the bottom.
I remembered being terrified of it, sure that it was going to kill me, but Mickey had convinced me to just try, and eventually, I had found myself standing at the launching point.
There were no words for that plummet down, rocketing through the air like a boulder, the water coming up fast from below. I could recall being terrified, being sure that I would die, but then I hit and went down, down, deep down, until that momentum stopped, and I was shooting for the surface.
I had laughed then, giddy and full of elation. It was thrilling, and suddenly all that fear was gone. Sun-soaked and drunk on the adrenaline, I distinctly remembered scrambling out and climbing up to the top of the waterfall three more times.
That had been so fun, and was one of the brilliant memories I liked to think of when I needed comfort.
Too bad the jump from the basement to the underground lake was nothing like that.
We fell for so long, going so fast in the dark that I couldn’t get my bearings. I found myself playing a dangerous game of trying to judge if I could draw in another deep breath or if I would smack water with my mouth open. My fingers cramped as they held onto my glowstick, but it wasn’t bright enough to illuminate all the wa
y down.
But then I heard it, the sound of water splashing against rocky shores, and I took the deepest breath I could.
And then we hit.
It felt like slamming into concrete. I heard both of my ankles pop and a gasp of pain let all the air escape my lungs as we plunged under too hard and too fast. To her credit, Sokhanya held on incredibly tightly, her skinny limbs like a vice around my shoulders—not that I could even lift my arms with how quickly we were descending.
It was all too much, overwhelming. I had been jarred and beaten and thrown every which way, and my brain was protesting the violence. It wanted rest. It wanted to stop fighting.
It wanted air.
Finally, we slowed enough for me to kick violently upwards, too dark to see the surface so I could only dizzily hope that it was close. But no matter how fast we moved, no matter how much I kicked, we never broke through the watery barrier.
Funny how I had been so mad at how tiny Sokhanya was, how clearly starved and malnourished they had kept her, but now she seemed so heavy to me. Her limbs were iron, bonded to me and weighing me down. Pulling me toward the blackness.
My lungs were screaming. My muscles were screaming. Maybe even I was screaming. I couldn’t quite tell. All I knew was that I was running out of steam fast, and I still had no idea how close to air we were or weren’t.
Was I really going to survive being in their clutches just to end up drowning during our escape? How anticlimactic. But my kicks slowed to almost nothing, and I realized we were going back down instead of floating up.
And the worse part was that I wasn’t just killing myself. There was an innocent party on my back. Someone who’d never known freedom or love or acceptance. Someone who had come to this country hoping for a family to love her, to cherish her like a child, only to treat her like a prisoner. She’d never known presents on Christmas. She’d never known a fresh breakfast with someone who meant something to her. She didn’t know the smell of fresh rain after a heatwave. Her favorite thing to eat. How to make a quality quesadilla. Nothing.
