by Tracey Tobin
She could picture him nodding. A moment later there was a fluttering sound as something was thrown into the cage. Some kind of fabric struck her legs and slid to the ground.
“I thought you might like a replacement,” Heln told her, “as your other is now all but destroyed. I understand that human females are somewhat bashful about their naked skin.”
Tori’s hand twitched its way up to her bra strap and she was startled. Her mind had been so preoccupied that she’d completely forgotten she’d used her shirt to sop up Jacob’s blood.
“Sometimes things that seem incredibly important one day are the least important the next,” she found herself muttering. As an afterthought she added, “Thank you. It may have been distracting to have to fight in front of a crowd in just my bra.”
Another snuffling sound. This one seemed curious. “You are welcome, little princess.”
He began to move toward the door. After a short moment of hesitation Tori stood up and called out to him. “I wasn’t lying,” she said. “The Shadows are coming. Iryen can see me when I dream. It must have something to do with our shared bloodline.” She squeezed her fists, frustrated at herself for putting another village - even a violent one that was trying to kill her - in danger. “They will find this place. They know I’m here, so they won’t stop searching until they find me.”
It took Heln so long to respond that she almost asked what he was thinking. Eventually, however, his voice came back to her. “There isn’t much I can do. The Chief believes your claim to be a silly lie that you hoped would convince him to free you, and once they had a chance to calm down the majority of the others who heard your claim began to agree with him.” He paused before adding, “But I will make sure we have a few lookouts set up throughout the mountain. That is the best I can do for now.”
There was a creak as the door cracked open, letting a streak of light slip in. Tori gripped her new shirt - a canvas-colored sleeveless thing that she suspected someone had thrown together in a few minutes at Heln’s request - and called out. Heln hesitated at the door, turning only his head to look back at her. She held his gaze and wondered at the sadness there.
“What is it, little princess?” he asked, looking suddenly quite uncomfortable.
Tori searched his eyes and let the question roll off her tongue: “Do you… Do you think that I have a chance to win the final trial?”
He stared at her. He didn’t break her gaze, though she could tell that he wanted to. Something about the question bothered him, she realized. Or something about the answer.
“Yes.”
She blinked several times, genuinely surprised. It was the answer she’d been hoping for, but hadn’t honestly been the one she was expecting. “You do?”
Heln nodded, slow and deliberate. He continued to hold Tori’s gaze. “Yes, little princess. I do believe you have a chance. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that you will prevail.”
With that he turned without another glance, slipped through the door, and closed it behind him to leave Tori once again alone with the dark and her thoughts.
Heln didn’t return. Though he’d been their only real connection to the Coiyana since they’d been locked in this cage, after their conversation he didn’t visit Tori again. Hours passed, exhaustion began to set in, and Tori wondered if they were going to just let her starve in here.
She was terrified to let herself fall asleep. Though she was certain that the Shadow attack was inevitable either way, she couldn’t stand the thought of Iryen’s horrible face appearing before her again. Those eyes… Her eyes, staring back at her with so much hatred while the black flesh around them writhed… She felt like she was having the world’s worst nightmare just remembering it.
She was afraid. And she was alone. Again.
She wasn’t sure when she had begun to cry, but when the door finally slid open again she was staring down at wet patches all over her dirty pants and her eyes felt hot and puffy. The Coiyana who stood in the doorway looked down her snout at the little whimpering human, but Tori didn’t try to hide her tears. There was no point.
“Back against the cage,” the Coiyana demanded. It was a female, smaller than some of the others, with a pale brown fur. She sounded frustrated. She didn’t want to be here, Tori realized. “Your back up against the cage,” she repeated, biting back her annoyance.
Sighing internally, too tired to argue, Tori wriggled her way backward until she was pressed up against the opposite end of the cage. Only when she was as far away as she could be did the Coiyana reach forward and fiddle with something on one of the bars. A click and a shriek, and a few of the bars swung outward, creating a door that the Coiyana quickly slipped in through before locking once more. The outer wall door she had left open a crack, allowing a bit of light to fill the room. For the second her back was turned Tori saw that she was carrying a large leather satchel.
When she was certain the cage was secure again the Coiyana turned, heaved a sigh, walked to the center of the cage, and plopped herself down on the ground. She and Tori stared at each other for a few moments before she made a particularly annoyed sound and waved her fingers as though to say, ‘Well, come on then.’
“Sorry,” Tori told her. “I don’t speak ‘vague gesture’.”
The Coiyana glared. “Come,” she commanded. “I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.”
Tori glared back. “I don’t speak righteous bitch either.”
She wasn’t sure if the joke - such as it was - would translate, but the look on the female’s face told her had. There was a low rumble in the Coiyana’s throat, and she seemed to be struggling to keep her jaws clamped together. Eventually she relaxed, took a deep breath, and said in the most faux-pleasant way possible, “I’m a healer. I’ve been asked to tend to you.”
Tori didn’t move. “Asked by who?”
“Asked by my mate. Heln.”
Tori felt the tenseness of her muscles lessen a little, but not completely. Finally she pushed herself away from the bars at her back and wriggled toward her visitor. “What’s your name?” she asked. She wasn’t sure why she even cared.
“Lira,” the Coiyana replied. She began to dig through her bag. She brought out a number of food items, which Tori eyed, her stomach growling, but they weren’t offered. Instead, Lira settled on an oddly-shaped cylinder with one wide end and one narrow one. She placed the wide end against Tori’s chest and stuck her ear up to the narrow one. Some kind of stethoscope then?
Tori watched with thinly-veiled interest as, step by step, Lira checked over different parts of her body with a variety of unrecognizable devices. Sometimes the Coiyana made snuffling sounds, sometimes ‘hemmed’ or ‘haww’ed over something, but she offered no insight. After what was surely a more involved examination than was necessary, she said, “You’ve got a few cracked ribs,” and went about wrapping a painfully tight bandage around Tori’s midsection without bothering to move the shirt out of the way.
As she pulled and tugged and fidgeted with the wrappings, Lira’s eyes flicked back and forth between her work and Tori’s face, until finally Tori couldn’t stand it anymore. “What is it?” she grumbled. “Is there something on my face?”
Lira frowned, tried to focus on her work - which was practically done anyway - and finally threw her hands in the air and growled. “Fine!” she shouted to no one in particular. “Fine! I’ll ask even though I know it’s absolutely ridiculous!” She closed her eyes, growled to herself for a moment, then opened them again and set Tori with a hard stare. “Heln said the ‘Shadow-King’ is visiting you in your dreams, and that he can find you in the waking world by doing so. Is this true?” Her muzzle was a hard line.
Tori considered whether or not it was worth telling her the truth. She seemed to have already made up her mind about the matter, and to be frank, Tori just didn’t have the energy left to argue with her. But then again… Lira was staring at her hard, seemingly trying to make her mind up about something, and the look made Tori’s blood
tingle, as though it was trying to tell her something important.
“Yes,” she finally said. “Iryen and I are the only two people on this planet who have blood magic, and somehow he’s using that link to sneak into my dreams.” A few new tears - whether from fear or fatigue or something else - pooled in her eyes as she spoke, and she hated herself for it. “I don’t know how he’s doing it, but I think it’s how the Shadows found us when we were in the Maelekanai village, and if I’m right it means they’re on their way here too.”
At some point during the conversation Lira had dug her claws into the floor beneath them. She scrutinized Tori’s face. Nothing in her expression gave away how she felt about the human girl’s words. “I don’t believe all that for even a moment,” she eventually said. Tori made a sour face, but before she could speak again the Coiyana held up a long, furry finger. “However,” she continued, “It’s clear that you’re massively fatigued, so it’s entirely likely that you’re having nightmares that are keeping you from obtaining sleep. And my mate insists that you be as healthy as possible for your final trial.” While Tori frowned at her, Lira dug into her satchel again and pulled out a glass jar held closed with a cork. The contents inside looked like crushed weeds and some kind of silvery dust that sparkled a little in the light from the doorway.
“My specialty is healing with nature,” Lira answered the question that hadn’t been asked. “This is a concoction of my own design: a mixture of ralkgrass and crushed starstone. Place a small amount in your mouth, chew, and let the saliva run down your throat. When your mouth begins to dry you may spit it out.”
She handed the jar to Tori, who glanced at it and back again, confused. “What does it do?” she asked.
Lira was already on her feet, gathering up her bag and gear, but mercifully leaving the food behind. “It has a very unique ability to block the mind’s ability to dream. It will allow you to sleep without fear of any nightmares that may plague you.”
Tori clutched the jar like her life depended on it. Could it be the truth? It sounded improbable, but then, so did nearly everything she’d experienced in this world thus far.
Lira slipped out through the hidden door in the bars without asking Tori to move this time. Once she was standing by the outer door, well out of Tori’s reach, she put her hand into her satchel once more and came out with something that caught Tori’s eye. “My mate asked me to return these to you as well,” she said, turning the dagger and crystal pendant over in her hand. “You forgot them in the arena during your…speech.”
Tori placed the jar of ralkgrass and starstone on the ground and stood to go accept her possessions, but to her surprise Lira slipped them back into her satchel and cast a hard look back in her direction.
“I see no reason why you should need them,” she thought aloud, “so I’ll just keep them for you for now.”
“What? Hey!” Tori threw herself forward, reaching an arm for her belongings. There was a cry of, “Give me those!” on her lips, but by the time her sore ribs had contacted the metal bars of the cage the door had swung shut and Lira was gone. She let her arm fall.
Blind and alone once more, Tori scrabbled around the edges of the cage until she found her makeshift pillow - her crumpled hoodie - on the ground where she’d left it the prior night. For a while she lay her head on it and simply held the jar Lira had given her, considering the possibility that the contents were actually some kind of poison. But then, she supposed, Lira could have killed her with her own dagger at any time when they’d been in the cage together, so it didn’t seem likely that her intention was murder. Then again, it was clear the Coiyana had some personal issue with Tori, so…
Eventually she decided to chance it. She was so tired she felt as though her body was melting into the hard ground, and holding her eyes open was like running uphill during a snowstorm. She couldn’t take it any longer, and if there was any chance this stuff could keep Iryen away…
She popped the cork and shoved a handful of the mixture into her mouth. It tasted exactly like it looked, but she held it in her mouth for a long time, letting the steeped saliva run down her throat, until she was too tired to do so any longer and spit the remains through the bars of her cage.
As she began to drift off she pushed her hand into the pocket of her hoodie-pillow and let her fingertips gently stroke the empty, broken pill bottle inside.
Chapter Ten
She did dream.
Or, perhaps, it wasn’t truly a dream. Perhaps she was simply inside her own consciousness, sleeping but not really sleeping, floating in a sea of her own mind…
‘Floating’ was the perfect word for it, for she felt as though she was laying in the open ocean, listening only to the gentle ripple of the water and the beating of her own heart in her ears. With every breath inward her chest would rise up above the surface, and with each breath out she would feel, for a moment, as though she might slip beneath the water and disappear forever. It should have been a terrifying thought, yet somehow it was rather comforting…soothing…
She thought that she could stay here forever. Here it was warm, here it was safe. Here she didn’t have to worry about anything at all. She could just lay and listen and feel absolutely nothing.
And yet…
There was something there, just beyond her reach. Something calling out to her, searching for her.
She squeezed her eyes tighter, feeling inexplicably that if she opened them the thing would be right there, above her, just waiting for her to look at it.
“Go away,” she whispered aloud. “Leave me be. Let me sleep here forever…”
“I’ve got no problem with that, but your trial will be an awfully quick one.”
Startled by the response, Tori sat straight up and felt the blood rush to her head. The sudden wooziness almost made her drop back down, but she managed to catch herself and stared in surprise at the Coiyana by her cage. He was one she didn’t know, and he was looking at her rather curiously.
“Was I…” Tori murmured, “Was I talking?”
Now he just looked disdainful. He tossed a tray of food at the floor by the cage, causing half the bowl of water to splash out onto the floor. “Yes, princess, you told me to go away and let you sleep,” he taunted. “Do what you want, I figure, but your trial begins in two hours, so that’s your call.” Having delivered the food and his message, the Coiyana turned and rushed back through the door with an air of great annoyance.
Two hours…
Tori wondered how long she’d slept. It felt as though the second trial had only just happened, yet she was surprisingly well-rested. Plus she’d been told the final trial wouldn’t occur until Jacob and Kaima were fit enough to watch. Could she have slept for a full day? Days, even?
She felt panic beginning to rise up in her chest again. The longer she’d been asleep, the closer they were to the moment the Shadows would find this place.
Then the panic swelled to a crescendo. Two hours.
She tried her best to stay calm. She drank the water that remained in the spilled bowl and ate as much as she dared. Every bite made her stomach twist, but she knew she would need the strength. When she felt that an hour had passed she began to stretch, calling on her old cheerleading warm-ups, working out the kinks caused by sleeping on the ground.
And she focused. Her mind wanted to wander, wanted to panic, wanted to cry out. She was filled to the brim with worry for her friends, fear for herself, terror at the idea of god-knew-how-many Shadows descending upon them at any moment now. But she pushed it all down as hard as she could and forced her thoughts forward.
I need to win this trial. I need to win this trial. I need to win this trial.
This is it…one last trial…
Win, and you’ll secure your freedom, save your friends, and be one step to being able to face Iryen.
Lose, and it’s all over right here.
Rested though her body may have felt, her brain felt like it was going to shut down at any moment.
When the outer wall began to raise Tori was standing in the center of the cage, back straight, head up, fists clenched at her sides. Inside she was shaking - positively terrified, in fact - but she was determined to look like the warrior that the Coiyana Chief was goading her into becoming. Win or lose, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of looking even the tiniest bit weak or scared in front of his people.
So it was with her eyes up toward the crowd that Tori couldn’t help noticing how comparatively quiet the spectators were this time. There were still plenty of Coiyana crying out, jeering, waiting impatiently for the inevitable blood, but there were also many who seemed subdued, unenthusiastic, and - Tori realized with some surprise - concerned and unsure of themselves. Seeing their worried faces she couldn’t help entertaining a little fantasy in which the people rose up against their Chief and came to her aid, ushering her out of this hellhole and back out into the sun.
She shooed it away with an angry growl at herself. She might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she wasn’t nearly naive enough to think there was any chance of something like that actually happening.
The inner cage began to rise and Tori shifted her focus to the Chief’s stone throne. Her heart jumped in her chest and her eyes narrowed. He was there, as he had been for each trial, but now he was joined by two figures who looked positively miserable in every sense of the word. Kaima and Jacob were covered in equal parts bandages and chains, the latter of which had been fixed to the throne itself. Their gazes met Tori’s and they called out to her, their voices mingled in desperate cries that were so different from the jeering of the Coiyana. Tori closed her heart against whatever they were trying to say to her. They couldn’t help her now. She had to help them.
