by Tracey Tobin
Tori felt another low hiss bubbling up through her throat, but she realized that Jacob was right. There was no way they could set Kaima’s arm in the pitch black darkness of their cage, they had no way of diagnosing any issues that may arise from her injuries, and while they were surrounded by the entire Coiyana settlement like this they didn’t have the tiniest chance of escaping. They would have to play along for now and pray that the Chief wasn’t lying about getting Kaima medical attention.
As the hunting party approached, Tori stood slowly, keeping her stance over her friend, and let her gaze meet Heln’s. She stared hard at him, refusing to move half an inch, until the Coiyana party leader gave her a short, meaningful nod.
Tori stepped aside, reluctant but resigned, and allowed Heln to come forward and gently pick Kaima up into his arms. She took note that he was careful not to jostle the Maelekanai’s arm too much, and found she was able to relax just slightly. Heln turned and walked away toward a cloth stretcher that was being lowered down into the arena, while his hunters thrust their weapons toward Tori and Jacob and began to push them back toward their raised cage.
Tori lifted her gaze back to the Chief and stared into his eyes the entire time she was herded to their end of the arena. She refused to break that gaze even as their cage was lowered down around them, and even as the outer wall began to fall as well.
Chapter Seven
The moment the wall touched the ground and they were once again encased in darkness, Tori screamed as loud as her throat would allow. Fatigue fell upon her all at once as she dropped to her knees and pounded her weakened fists into the ground. Jacob said nothing, and she couldn’t see the look on his face, but she could tell that he was staring in her direction, wondering what he could possibly say or do.
“She’ll be okay,” he said after a moment. “I’m sure of it.” He didn’t sound sure at all.
Tori let her body sink to the floor and lay for a moment with her eyes closed, quiet, thinking.
“This is insanity,” she eventually muttered. “I expected some resistance. We have a crazy story, and we’re expecting them to take a lot on faith. But I never expected anything like this. Taken captive by some of the people we’re trying to save? Treated like we’re assets in a goddamn cock fight…”
“…what’s a ‘cock fight’?” Jacob asked. From his tone of voice Tori expected he didn’t have roosters on the mind and was more than a little bewildered.
She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. The point is that I don’t know what we’re going to do. We’ve lost Kaima. Even if she’s okay, we’ve been separated, so we can’t attempt any kind of escape now even if it were possible. We’re trapped, and our only real option is to continue on with these ‘trials’, which very well might kill us.”
She felt tears spilling from her eyes and shut them again as her hand closed around the broken pill bottle in her pocket. “What are we going to do?”
She didn’t expect Jacob to answer, but she heard him ease his way down to the ground and let out a long, deep sigh. “We’re going to keep fighting,” he told her. “Because one way or another we have to get out of this. You will get the blood to strengthen yourself and we will walk out of this goddamn mountain alive.”
He seemed so certain that Tori curled her fingers into fists and held onto his words with everything she had in her.
Tori must have been truly exhausted because she drifted into a fitful sleep. She dreamed of standing in the arena, the Shadow-beast in front of her, with Kaima and Jacob on the ground being crushed beneath its enormous feet. At first they struggled, but soon great pools of scarlet blood began to seep out from beneath their bodies, and while Tori watched, paralyzed, they finally stopped moving. “You’re next,” the creature spoke in a low, snake-like voice, thrusting its tentacles in her direction.
She woke with a start when the door of their cell opened and someone walked in through the blinding burst of light before it shut again.
Heln’s voice came, a little hesitantly: “I brought food.”
Neither Tori nor Jacob spoke.
“I understand,” Heln said in a low voice. “And I am sorry.”
Tori heard a desperate scrabbling as Jacob flew toward the cage and slammed his sword against the bars in with a shout of rage. She thought that he was going to explode, perhaps even attempt to stab Heln through the bars, but after a moment she heard him draw in a deep breath, and when he spoke it was with surprising calm. “You seem like a reasonable person, Heln,” he said, his voice curt. “You seem to genuinely dislike this situation. So why do nothing to stop it?”
There was silence for an awkward length of time. If she didn’t know better, Tori would have thought Heln had somehow managed to leave without opening the door again. But eventually he did respond, and it felt like the words were ones he’d wanted to say earlier. “You must understand that the Coiyana tradition is to follow the lead of our Chief under any circumstances. Our previous Chief was a more just leader, but when he passed his son rose to the position, and he is an impetuous creature with a superior attitude and he rather enjoys his…games. Not everyone agrees with his methods. Many thought him mad when he began sending hunting parties to capture Shadows rather than kill them. But we have fought and died among the Shadow threat for so long that many have grown cold and hard and enjoy the entertainment he provides them. It distracts them from their daily toil.” His voice went even lower as he continued with the words that seemed most difficult to speak. “I have thought, many times, about challenging the Chief for leadership of our tribe, but it is a fight to the death, and though I fear not for my own life, I fear what would happen to my family should I stake my claim.”
Tori heard the suggestion in his voice. “You believe he would kill them?” she asked.
She could hear the air shift as he nodded. “I have two young,” he admitted. “It has long been rumored that the Chief orchestrated his own father’s death in order to take over the tribe, and in his time as our leader others who opposed his views have…gone missing.”
“The tribe allows this?” Jacob asked.
The low growl that Heln let out was all the answer Tori needed. “Some may defy him, but many more consider it justice for disobeying the chain of command. The Coiyana have always been a hard people, little guardian, but these past two decades have made us much, much harder.”
Tori thought a moment before speaking. “You don’t seem all that hard.”
To his credit, he let out a little snuffle that sounded a bit like a laugh. “I have watched too many die, little princess,” he told her. “I may be the hardest of us all. However-” He paused. “I remember the way things were before, when we were proud of our place in the system under the rule of the human royals. I have enough softness left in my heart to pray for a miracle to bring us back to those times. And I truly hope that you are, in fact, that miracle.”
There was a shuffling, and the sound of something being set down on the ground near the cage. The door was opened again, and as she blinked back at the blinding light, Tori thought she saw Heln looking back at them with soulful eyes as the door began to shut.
“Eat, humans, I implore you. You will need your strength.”
Tori and Jacob were wary about the food, and sick to their stomachs with worry for Kaima, but they also couldn’t remember how long it had been since they’d eaten last. So it was with some reluctance, but also with watering mouths, that they fished the tray of food Heln had left through the bars of their cage and greedily dug in. It was mostly meat, heavily salted past Tori’s preference, but the protein tasted amazing after the day they’d had, and there was a generously large quantity of water in tall, thin stone cups that Jacob insisted Tori drink the majority of. He was worried about the extent to which she’d used her transformation recently, and though she hadn’t suffered from blood magic fatigue after this particular battle, Tori was just as concerned. There were more trials to come, after all, and though she felt that she was slowly growing abl
e to hold her transformation for longer, it wouldn’t do for her to pass out in the middle of another battle like she’d done on the mountainside.
Once they’d devoured every last available morsel, Tori leaned back against the bars of their cell and sighed long and deep.
Jacob cleared his throat.
Tori didn’t realize that she’d closed her eyes, but now she opened them and looked in the general direction in which she thought Jacob was sitting. “Yes?” she asked.
He seemed to second-guess himself for a moment, but then made a decision and let the words out. “I just wanted to say that I’m impressed with how you’ve managed to keep your focus these past few days.”
Tori actually felt her jaw drop a little. “What are you talking about?”
She heard a bit of shuffling and guessed that Jacob was rubbing his forearm. “You just seem like you’ve been taking things really well, you know, considering. You held yourself together in the council room even when Kaima and I didn’t, and that was a hell of a thing you did in the battle today.”
Tori didn’t know what to say. Her fingers twitched to wrap around the pill bottle, but she didn’t move. Was he crazy? She wouldn’t have granted herself even half that much credit if given the option. Her heart was still in her throat from the battle, her mind playing Kaima’s injury over and over again just to torture her. She had no idea what was going to be coming next, and she knew that even if they did manage to get out of this mountain alive there was still so much more to do before she would have any chance of facing Iryen. Focused? Taking things really well? Ha! She felt like her head was going to explode with the hilarity of it.
“Take the compliment, please.”
Tori blinked in Jacob’s direction. “Um, I-” she stumbled. The tone of his voice had been both firm and playful, so she didn’t know how to respond.
He actually chuckled a little. It was an exceptionally pleasant sound after all they’d been through recently. “You’re a very self-depreciating person, Victoria,” he told her, surprising her by not calling her ‘princess’. “Given all that you’ve gone through, I can understand that it’s probably just a bad habit you’ve picked up, but you really must try to think more highly of yourself. You are a strong woman. Not just physically or because of your blood’s abilities, but within. You’ve already survived what many could not, and no one who was weak of mind or soul would have leaped in front of that Shadow to protect Jiki the way you did. You are capable. Remember that, okay?”
Tori sat silent. After taking several deep, measured breaths, she laid her forehead on her knees and muttered a quiet, “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask.”
It was impossible to tell how much time was passing. Jacob insisted that Tori rest as much as possible, but there was no way to truly get comfortable in their cell. Plus, every time she closed her eyes she had visions of more and more monstrous Shadows attacking and killing her friends.
Food - still mostly salted meat - came every so often, and this was all they had to gauge the passage of time by. Jacob estimated that it had been about a day and a half since the first trial when Tori’s fatigue finally allowed her to drift off with her head nestled against two corner bars.
At first she didn’t realize she’d wandered into a dream, for it was as dark and quiet there as it was in her cage.
“This isn’t the most pleasant of places, is it?”
Tori frowned in the direction of the voice, her hand hovering over her dagger. “Who’s there?” she demanded. “Jacob? Jacob, where are you?”
The voice responded with a discomforting chuckle. “Silly girl, your Guardian isn’t here.”
It was a man, no doubt about that, and he sounded strangely calm and unperturbed by the black void he’d found himself in with Tori. Yet there was something else, something about his tone…
Tori unsheathed her dagger and held it out in front of her, taking her best guess at the direction the man would come from if he moved in to attack. “Who are you?” she demanded.
There was a loud clucking noise a little to her right. Tori adjusted her position and glared into the darkness. After a moment she realized that the stranger was ‘tsk’-ing at her.
“How very rude, my little one,” he drawled from her left. Tori’s heart skipped a beat as she whipped around again to brace for the threat. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you how to respect your elders?”
His voice seemed to be everywhere. Tori spun in circles, slashing the air with her blade as her heart rate rose higher, her breaths coming quicker. She felt tiny shifts in the air and lunged for them, desperate to get her blade on something, anything, to get some hint of an idea where the voice was coming from.
Silence…
Tori stood still, poised with her dagger, staring straight forward, willing her eyes to pierce the veil. She listened to the sound of her heart beating and begged it to slow so she could listen for movement.
Silence…
All at once her head rang with the pain of being slammed into the bars behind her. A cruel hand squeezed her shoulder so hard that she cried out and dropped her dagger. The blade struck the floor at the same time a set of fingers snapped in front of her face.
A small light appeared, a flame from between the fingers, just bright enough to illuminate his horrible face as he leaned uncomfortably close to hers.
His skin, hair, body: it was all black, swirling, and skittering like bugs swimming through layers of rotten blood. Tori felt bile working its way up her throat as she was hit suddenly by the stench, the same as the Shadow blood, but a hundred times stronger and more putrid.
“Yessss…” his voice had become a low hiss, something no longer even remotely human. “I do see the resemblance…”
Tori felt the world grind to a halt as her gaze landed on the one distinguishing feature on the man’s writhing black body: his eyes. Her father’s eyes, and his father’s eyes.
Her eyes.
“Iryen” she gasped.
His smile was pulled straight from the devil’s face. “Hello, niece. Well, we’re a bit further removed than that, but ‘niece’ will still do nicely, I think.”
“H-how-?” Tori squeaked. The squirming black hand on her shoulder felt like it was crushing the bones, but she couldn’t piece together the will to try to escape.
“Oh my dear niece,” Iryen cooed in a blatant mockery of familial concern, “Intelligence really doesn’t run in the family, does it? How quickly you seem to have forgotten…” He leaned in close, too close, his cold, slimy cheek rubbing up against Tori’s as he hissed in her ear, “I can find you in your dreams…”
Chapter Eight
Tori was startled awake by the roar of the crowd and a blinding light assaulting her eyes. Jacob had already scrambled to his feet beside her, his sword at the ready as the walls of their cage rose.
Tori’s chest felt cold, but it wasn’t because of the sudden impending trial. She could still see Iryen’s horribly familiar eyes floating in front of her when she blinked. Her mouth was open for the scream she hadn’t quite managed to get out before she’d woken.
“They’re coming…” she whimpered.
How Jacob was able to hear her over the din of the Coiyana’s cries she would never know, but the moment the words left her mouth he was crouching down to gaze into her eyes. “What is it?” he asked, concern etched in his brow. “What’s happened?”
The cage had fully risen, but Tori remained glued to the ground. She turned unblinking eyes to Jacob and, surprising him, fisted both her hands in his shirt to pull him closer. “The Shadows are coming,” she hissed.
Jacob’s eyes grew wide and he opened his mouth to question her further, but was interrupted by the booming voice of the Chief addressing his people.
“We are amused,” he called out across the arena, “To say the least!” He raised his arms to the crowd, grinning wide so that the glint of his teeth could be seen even from where Tori crouched. “Our little princess was abl
e to slay the Shadow-beast, despite our prior disbeliefs. However…” Somehow his grin seemed to get even wider, though such a feat should have split his face in two. “…she did so with the help of her two subjects. Today, little royal one, you are short one servant, and will be facing numerous adversaries. Can you still prevail?”
Jacob’s shoulders couldn’t have been more rigid. “Numerous adversaries?” he growled, as much to himself as Tori. “That doesn’t sound great.”
Tori felt tears of panic pricking at the corners of her eyes. “We don’t have time for this,” she moaned, tugging at Jacob’s shirt. “They’re coming! Just like at the Maelekanai village… He can see me! He can find me! The Shadows are going to find us and kill everyone!”
She could see the blood draining from Jacob’s face. He clenched his jaw and faced the Chief with a shout on his lips, but it was useless. The din of the crowd was deafening, the spectators even more excited for this show than they’d been for the last.
Their opponents’ wall began to rise, so there was no longer any time to waste struggling to be heard.
There were seven of them this time, each roughly the size of a grizzly bear. Unlike the tentacled elephant creature, these Shadows understood the function of their ichor-oozing bodies. Before the outer wall of their prison had risen two feet, they’d already twisted and squirmed through the cage’s bars and were slithering across the arena toward their prey.
The crowd cheered uproariously. Tori scrambled to her feet, released Jacob, and snatched up her dagger. Her chest was tight with Iryen’s words to her, but she had to focus on the enemy before her. She could worry about the ones that were on their way when she was in slightly less imminent danger.
