by Tricia Barr
“Hello, my love,” Joran greeted, sitting beside her on the couch she had been curled up on as she read. “I am sorry for being away so much today. But it seems you haven’t missed me too horribly today.” He gestured at her book.
“Yes, it’s a great story,” she said. “Have you read it?”
“I have tried to read as much as I can since we awoke in this modern age, but I can’t say I’ve gotten to that one yet,” Joran said.
“Have I read it?” Ayanna asked, baiting him.
“I’m not sure,” he said, shrugging even though something changed in his eyes. “It’s possible…”
“How long has it been since we were released from the ground?” she asked, feigning mild curiosity. “You’ve never been specific about it, and I’m just curious how long we’ve been able to experience this new world before I lost my memories.”
His expression of nonchalance didn’t change, but some dark flicker in his eyes said he was suspicious of her questions.
“Anyone around here will tell you it’s been near a week,” he replied. “Why are you so interested?”
“I just wonder how much of this world I was able to get used to before my accident,” she said. “There is just so much to take in. I could spend an eternity in this library reading every book again and again.”
Joran smiled, his suspicious twinkle waning. “There are so many more books than just what we have here. I’ll introduce you to something called ‘the internet’, and you could have access to an unlimited supply of books.”
She knew full well what the internet was. She remembered that you can buy any book in any format, from a physical book you can hold in your hand to an electronic book you can access from any device, or even have stored on your phone as an audio file so someone can read the book to you as you drive. But she wouldn’t tell Joran any of this. By now she knew that the more she remembered, the less she could share with him.
“That sounds wonderful,” she said, playing along.
“If you’ve had enough of your books, why don’t you join me for a walk around the grounds,” he suggested. “Then we can have dinner together again and sit in the den to watch something called ‘television’. It’s a box with moving pictures on it. I figured I’ve been featured on it enough that I might as well view it and see what the fuss is about.”
Yes, she knew what TV was also. When she had seen that video camera at the prison, she hadn’t had to ask what it was for. Her recall abilities were getting much better and more frequent. More and more, just seeing something brought back hundreds of little reveries.
Rather than comment about the television topic, she said, “Alright, that sounds really nice.”
She set aside her book and took his hand to let him chaperone her through the castle.
They had a nice walk around the grounds and spent much of the afternoon in the garden, talking about plans for the future. Joran told her what “assignments” he had been planning with his council members and how much better the world would be. She knew she had to get him off this topic before she said something she would regret.
“Why don’t we take a trip?” she asked.
“What sort of trip?” he asked, handing her a rose he just plucked from a rosebush.
“I don’t know,” she replied vaguely. “I want to see the world. I want to know what we have missed. You speak of changing the world and making it a better place, but how can you truly know what’s wrong with it if you’ve never seen any of it? What if there’s so much that is right?”
He laughed through his nose and looked down at the rose she now held.
“I may not have traveled the world, but I have seen more of it than most,” he said dryly. “The whole time I starved in the ground, spirits would tell me things, show me the world through their eyes. I have watched history being made, far more than you’ll ever read in any book.”
His voice was dark and dangerous, making her feel as though she should be afraid. She must have expressed this caution in some way, because Joran caught himself and changed his tone.
“But I can understand you wanting to see more,” he said, stroking her chin sweetly. “All you have seen is this castle, and your only outing into the world has been to a place of incarceration. You need to see more. Maybe then you’ll see what I see. So yes, we will plan a trip. To wherever you want.”
“Really?” she asked, excitement bursting like little bubbles in her belly. “Oh this will be so great! I’ve read about so many places, and the maids have told me stories of places they’ve been. Carlatta even had some special chocolates ordered for me from her homeland, a place called Mexico. We should try them at dinner!”
Joran laughed. “Why wait until dinner? Let’s have some now.”
Ayanna smiled wide and tugged Joran inside. Usually they had the servants get them whatever they wanted, but Ayanna had not been comfortable with this. She much preferred doing things for herself. And how hard could it be to find the chocolates in the kitchen?
As they neared the kitchen door, Ayanna recognized the voice of Jessa, her favorite maid. But the hushed and secretive tone of Jessa’s words made both Ayanna and Joran slow and then come to a stop before pushing through the door. Joran angled his ear toward the door to listen, and suddenly Ayanna felt as though she should pull Joran away as soon as possible.
“You know what, chocolate can wait—” she began to say, but Joran silenced her with a raised index finger over her lips and a look that said “don’t”.
So Ayanna closed her lips and listened as well, praying that Jessa didn’t say anything to offend Joran.
As they listened, it became clear that Jessa was talking to someone on the phone.
“Yes, that’s right, the prison attack,” Jessa said hushedly. “I know who did it. They’re keeping me hostage…”
Hostage? Ayanna had always been under the impression that the servants were here of their own free will, and that they chose to serve Joran. Were they, in fact, slaves?
Ayanna squeezed her eyes closed, shouting to Jessa in her head, Shut up! Shut up!
“Yes, and there’s going to be another attack,” Jessa continued. “I can tell you where, but you have to get me out of here.”
At that, Joran slammed his hand on the door to thrust it open and stalked toward to Jessa. Her face instantly paled and she dropped the phone as she shrank away from him.
Joran grabbed her by the neck and lifted her a few inches off the ground, her feet kicking as she struggled to free herself.
“You vile little traitor,” Joran spat at her, angrier than Ayanna had ever seen him. “You dare to call the authorities and betray our secrets? What a foolish little girl you are. Even if they could find me, do you really think they could stop me? I am living death. From now on, I decide who lives and who dies. And your fate has just been decided.”
Jessa arched her back just as the men at the prison had, her eyes rolling up into her head.
“No!” Ayanna yelled, grabbing Joran’s arm and struggling to release his grasp on the poor girl.
But it was too late. When Joran did let go, Jessa collapsed to the floor, dead.
“No,” Ayanna said again, putting her hands over her mouth as tears flooded down her cheeks.
“Don’t cry for her,” Joran said, looking very much a predator. “She was a traitor. She would have us locked away. Again.”
“She didn’t deserve to die, Joran,” Ayanna yelled, unable to control the volume of her voice. “She was a good, sweet girl who was just afraid. She just wanted to go home.”
“This was her home,” Joran said, squaring his shoulders and turning on Ayanna now. “We were her sovereigns. She swore to be loyal to us and she broke that vow, betraying us to those who would try to stop us.”
“And that deserves death?” Ayanna asked accusingly, knowing that she should stop arguing but unable to hold these words in.
“My will is for the greater good, therefore anyone who stands against me stands against the
greater good. Anyone threatening the greater good does not deserve life.”
“You’re wrong, Joran,” Ayanna cried, shaking her head. “You’re so wrong. All of this wrong. You can’t just go around killing people because they disagree with you. And you can’t kill off everyone who commits a crime, either. Everyone does wrong in their life, everyone hurts someone else in some way or another. That’s just what makes us human. If you kill everyone who’s guilty, there won’t be anyone left. Not even you.”
When she finally stopped ranting, she prepared herself for his reaction, whether it be a verbal assault or a physical one. But he stood so still and so silent, and that scared her more than anything. She watched his face, which was cast in shadow, waiting for him to say something.
“You won’t ever change, will you?” he asked in a quiet, deadly voice. “You break my heart, Ayanna.”
In an instant, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of the kitchen, dragging her behind him as she pried at his hand with her free one.
“Joran, what are you doing?” she asked. “Where are you taking me? I’m sorry, please, I’m sorry!”
But her pleas had no effect on him. He continued to drag her through the castle, kicking and crying, past servants and fraternity members that looked on her with familiar pity but did nothing to intervene.
When they came to a staircase, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder like she was a rag doll so they could descend. Though her body attempted remembered maneuvers to escape, Joran’s strength was too much for her to gain any sort of advantage.
She didn’t know where he was taking her. She hadn’t seen this part of the castle before. It was dark and smelled of mildew and dust. The lack of light, natural or electronic, made her plead louder with panic.
Behind her, she heard the clank of something heavy, and then Joran threw her into a pitch black room that made the narrow staircase they’d come from look bright. She landed hard on her butt, the collision taking her a moment to recover from.
Before she could scamper to her feet, Joran closed the heavy door, smothering Ayanna in a dense blackness.
“Joran!” she screamed.
“Maybe some time to yourself will make you reconsider your values,” Joran’s voice said on the other side. “You will get no food, no water, no light for as many days as I see fit. Don’t ever cross me again. There are much worse things than death.”
And then she heard his footsteps stomp away.
“Joran! Please, don’t do this!” she shrieked, finding the door and slamming her palms against it as hard as she could.
She continued to scream and beg for forgiveness, but she knew he was gone. The tears streamed relentlessly down her face, causing her to hiccup and heave with each breath. This was the worst despair she could ever imagine.
Joran was a monster. Joran was evil. And yet being separated from him was agony.
Phoenyx, Sebastian, Skylar, Lily and Sam had spent a large chunk of the day in London. No one was too eager to get back to the castle, and Lily and Sam were relishing every second they got to spend together.
For the first time in the past two weeks that they had been traveling all around the world, they actually got to indulge in some sight-seeing. They visited Big Ben, the Parliament Building and Buckingham Palace, feeling like normal teenagers for the first time in a long time.
Sebastian and Skylar were back to their normal selves, making jokes on each other. Phoenyx and Sebastian got to enjoy some couple experiences, like holding hands as they walked and taking kissing selfies with the London landmarks in the background. And Lily and Sam got to be unbearably cute, kissing and blushing and giggling all over the place.
The day had been strangely perfect. Phoenyx even took the opportunity to call her mom, who had been trying to reach her for the past week and was starting to worry, from the sound of the concerned and more frequent texts, emails and Facebook messages. Phoenyx reassured her that she was still in school and doing fine—so many lies, but her mom did not need the truth. Part of her wanted to tell her mom about all the amazing things she had seen, but that would also mean telling her mom about all the bad things, and she just couldn’t do that. Her mom wouldn’t understand. She was simply safer being blind to Phoenyx’s real world.
An hour before sunset, they bid Sam goodbye for the evening and took a taxi back to Bodiam. The sun had just set over the grassy hills when the taxi pulled up a few hundred yards away from the castle and the group got out.
Skylar’s demeanor became instantly startled, and the other three looked at him warily as he stared blankly off toward the castle, waiting for whatever revelation he had for them.
“It’s Ayanna,” Skylar said. “Joran’s put her in some dungeon beneath the castle.”
“No,” Lily gasped.
“What!” Phoenyx snapped, heat crackling off of her as her desperation and rage combined in a deadly cocktail. “That’s it. I’m getting her out. Now!”
Sebastian grabbed her. “We can’t just do that.”
“Why not! Joran’s got our best friend locked up like an animal. I’m not going to let him hurt her anymore!” Phoenyx was seeing red, ready to fight. “I’ll burn him to a crisp and see how quickly he heals from that.”
“Don’t you think I care about her, too?” Sebastian snapped, shaking Phoenyx’s shoulders. “She’s my best friend, too. Don’t you think I want to go in there and rip Joran to pieces?”
Sebastian’s outburst was so uncharacteristic that it shut Phoenyx up and made her stare at him.
“But we can’t act on emotions right now,” Sebastian said, a bit more calmly now that he had her attention. “We are so close to having a weapon that can kill him. If we show our true colors now, we’ll never get close enough to him to use it, and he will become the ruler he always wanted to be.”
“Sebastian’s right, Phoenyx,” Skylar said. “How we react to this will determine who wins this war. You know as well as any of us that Ayanna will be much safer if we don’t try to save her, at least not just yet.”
Phoenyx tried to hear their words, but all she could think about were all the ways in which Joran could torture Ayanna. If he had her in a dungeon, that meant that she had done something to displease him. Phoenyx already knew that Joran had physically harmed Ayanna because of the lash wounds on her back. There was no telling what other forms of punishment he had in store for her for whatever crime she supposedly committed this time.
But she knew her friends were right. If Phoenyx went in there now, fire blazing and hatred raging, Joran would know where her loyalties lay. Not to mention that her element wouldn’t hurt him at that distance anyway. They needed to stay close to him if they had any hopes of killing him with the dagger, assuming Sam succeeded.
“Alright, fine,” Phoenyx said, slumping her shoulders. “So what, then? We just do nothing?”
“No,” Lily said, surprising all of them.
They all turned to look at her.
“If Joran has Ayanna locked up, then she either did or said something against him,” she continued. “Joran’s punishment must have shown Ayanna his true colors. She might be more susceptible to trusting us if we come to her now and explain the truth.”
“That’s brilliant, Lily,” Skylar said. “If we can get to her and remind her of who she really is, we’ll have one more person on the inside we can use to defeat Joran. And no one gets closer to him than her.”
“But what if Joran just erases her memory of this punishment?” Phoenyx asked. “Our intervention would be for nothing.”
“I don’t think he would do that,” Sebastian said. “If he’s punishing her with imprisonment, he means to send a lasting message. Locking her up would be a waste of time if he just wanted to get out his anger and start her mind over again.”
“I agree with Sebastian,” Skylar said. “And even if he did decide to wipe her mind clean, this is the best chance we have to get to her, so we have to try.”
The hope of having Ayanna
returned to herself again was suddenly blinding, and Phoenyx was all in for this plan.
“Okay,” she said. “Skylar, are there guards keeping watch at the dungeon?”
Skylar was quiet for a moment, concentrating, and then said, “Yes, two. They are armed.”
Only two guards? Easy.
“And where is Joran?” she asked.
“Sitting in the library, brooding,” Skylar said, his eyes distant as he focused on his mental vision. “He’s not even worried that we will fight against him for Ayanna, because he knows he will win.”
“Well if he’s expecting us to come after Ayanna, we have to give him something he would never expect,” Sebastian said, looking off pensively for a moment. Then he slowly turned his gaze to Phoenyx, his expression conflicted.
Phoenyx didn’t like that look. It meant that he was about to propose something that he really didn’t want to.
He turned his body so that he was face to face with her and took her hand in both of his.
“You have to sleep with him,” Sebastian said, and Phoenyx felt her heart drop to the bottom of her belly.
“W-what?” she asked, disturbed by how much the idea excited her, and crushed by the look Sebastian was giving her while suggesting it.
“He wants you,” Sebastian said with a shrug. “Come on, who wouldn’t? You going to him now would be the last thing he would see coming, and I’m sure he wouldn’t turn you down. You can keep him occupied long enough for us to get to Ayanna and make her remember herself.”
She couldn’t believe Sebastian was asking her to do this. Sebastian, who was possessive of her for the first time in their long history. Yes, she’d had to use her body as a bargaining tool or means of distraction for them before, but they both knew this time was different. Joran was a whole new kind of enemy, and Phoenyx hated how strongly she wanted him, too. Her dark side, the one she wanted to rid herself of forever, had no problem giving in to Joran. She hadn’t told Sebastian that, couldn’t tell him that. Hell, she could barely admit it to herself. She was afraid that once she crossed that line, she wouldn’t be able to come back. That her dark side would take over.
