by Tom Hansen
In that one singular moment, the entire camp came together as one.
Ynya now realized why it was so important. She recognized the look in everyone’s faces.
The prisoners had lost one of their own, someone taken to the breaking point and beyond. A sister, a father, someone they huddled with under the cold unforgiving sky, was now dead.
Similarly, the guards had lost a recruit. Not all survived the treatments. Few endured the Third Enlightenment.
At that moment, the guards lost one more to their ranks. One more companion to chat with them along the wall. One more bunkmate, or mess hall conversation.
Every person, including the Warden, watched.
Including Thore.
He dropped the rocks he carried. His work long forgotten, he locked sorrowful eyes with her once again.
Thore narrowed his vision and pursed his lips, a downcast look on his dark face.
Ynya felt horrible for abandoning him, after all that he had done for her, but she couldn’t stand by and not help her sister. He had to understand that.
Ynya realized that he would be discovered now. Her escape and admission to Joanne about the location of Tyrain and Aelin had sealed the fate of all the soldiers with tunnels behind their footlockers.
She wished she could tell Thore she was sorry. He stuck his neck out for her and she hadn’t appreciated the gesture like she should have. There were any number of ways she could have handled the situation to keep him from being discovered, but once again, in her haste to find her sister, she caused harm to someone else through her actions.
She didn’t know if it was fate, or dumb luck, but he was three steps from Gustave. His was another whose fate was probably sealed. Once they found Aelin with Tyrain, it would be all over for both of those men.
It was over for all of them.
Both men stood tall and somber as they watched their friends carried south, to the white buildings.
Ynya realized that both Gustave and Thore weren’t looking at just her. In front of her was Joanne. They had both been Joanne’s friend as well. Despite Joanne’s conversion to Skarmyord, only a few days ago she had been a friend.
Ynya couldn’t forgive her for her betrayal, but still felt awful for the way she had been tortured into becoming what she was now.
And yet, Joanne still wore prisoner clothes, while Ynya wore a guard’s outfit. What do the prisoners think about that? Do they care?
Joanne’s broken body led the group toward the white-roofed buildings near the southeastern exit to the prison. Her broken leg swung limp, probably causing incredible pain with each bounce. Yet she didn’t make a sound, not a whimper.
Ynya glanced back to the men, wishing she could yell and warn them.
Please Gustave, please go save your sister and Tyrain. Go now, before the Warden comes for them.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Take them through here and strap them in the other room. I will get to them soon. I have to monitor the speed of the serum as her final transformation takes hold.”
The entire group paused in the doorway as they took in the sight of 2201.
More than one guard almost lost their stomachs at the sight. They all trembled as they gazed upon her form strapped to the table.
She smelled their fear from the across the room. It was a new sense she hadn’t used until now. It was already proving useful.
The voice returned, crying out in exasperation at the three forms carried to the other room.
<
The small sweet voice that spoke to 2201 filled with anguish.
Even though it wasn’t physical pain, it was somehow worse than what 2201 endured.
She didn’t know that there were other types of pain. She hadn’t known that someone else could feel pain like hers but in a different way.
They have your sisters?
<
2201 watched as soldiers hauled the three girls into the other room.
The room where she’d seen the first creature.
She remembered his twisted features. She remembered his howls of anguish. She remembered the claw marks on the walls.
She remembered the soldiers replacing the glass.
They turned me into the same monster? Am I the same being that they had locked up in that room?
Finny didn’t reply, but deep within the silence, 2201 felt the yearning. She wanted to see the girls again.
A memory popped into her mind. It was only a moment, a second, like the reprieve from pain she had asked of the Translator.
She remembered being a girl.
She had forgotten what it was like. She had forgotten what she used to be before all the pain and broken bones. She had been a girl before the claws and backwards legs.
I don’t want to be that creature. I don’t want to be twisted and hunched on all fours.
<
They strapped Ynya down, with Synol next to her.
To the far side, Joanne howled in pain as they wrestled her down and twisted her broken leg back into place. The sickening crunch of her broken bones filled the air.
The soldiers left, glad to be away from the thing in the other room.
After a few minutes, Ynya could talk once more.
“Synol, are you okay?”
Synol nodded, wordless. Tears streamed down her face. She didn’t move her gaze from the doorway.
That thing had been so disgusting, so twisted.
But it had looked at Ynya with a recognition she couldn’t shake.
There had been something there, something behind those eyes, an intelligence.
She searched her memory, but came up blank. She’d never seen a creature quite like that before.
But those eyes.
I’ve seen those eyes before, haven’t I?
The night of the storm.
A chill ran up Ynya’s spine at the memory. “No, it can’t be.”
“What?” Synol asked in a whisper.
“Gustave told me the Translator experiments on people, turning them into a new type of soldiers. I thought he meant something like the Skarmyord, human but with new abilities. I think what he really meant was whatever we just saw in there.”
“What do you mean? Who was that out there? It looked kind of like a huge starving wolf but without fur.”
Ynya swallowed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to betray her thoughts. She didn’t want Synol to have to bear the burden of that thought in her head now. But she couldn’t hold back, not when it could be the truth.
“I recognize those eyes. They were same eyes I saw on Finny when we were in the eye of the storm together.”
Synol gasped, her voice barely escaping her throat. “What?”
“I think that is Finny out there. I saw tubes in her arms. They must be doing something to her that is turning her into that. That must be what the Translator does.”
Beside her, Synol sobbed.
“It’s true,” Joanne replied. Her voice was hoarse, pained, and barely above a whisper. “He’s tried for years. His last one was his first successful experiment, too.”
Ynya spat. “No one asked you.”
“I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It’s what they did to Firtze. He tested so high, with Ordinals all the way up his arm and onto his chest. They put him through the Enlightenments incredibly fast, like they did with me, but then the Translator took him.” She coughed, a high, wheezing cough, spitting out pink foam.
Ynya recognized that sound. Joanne’s lung had been punctured, and with all the blood loss from her leg, she probably wasn’t long for this world.
“Firtze screamed so much. I h
eard him from the Pen. His screams turned into howls of pain, then just howls. They broke his mind, and his body. They turned him into something that looked like your sister out there.
“When they carted him out, a day or two before you showed up, he was locked in a metal cage. I will never forget that day. I didn’t want to believe it was Firtze, but the eyes don’t lie. I remember he looked at me through the bars. He knew me, but instead of smiling or waving, he growled and tried to bite through the bars.”
Joanne shuddered, which turned into another violent coughing fit.
“He almost made it through, too, but they beat him into submission in front of everyone, loaded the cage onto a wagon, and left through the west gate. They took your other sister with them too.”
Joanne’s voice was small, barely audible. “I’m sorry, Ynya. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry I betrayed you.”
Ynya growled. “It doesn’t matter now. They’re going to torture Tyrain over it.”
There was a pause, then Joanne spoke again. “I didn’t tell him where Tyrain or Aelin were.”
“You what?”
“I never told them where they hid. I kept that for myself. Even through all the torture, I remembered what really mattered. Their secret is safe.”
With that, Joanne devolved into another coughing fit. She let out one last wheeze and stopped.
Ynya struggled against her bonds, but wasn’t able to turn enough to see Joanne’s face.
“She’s dead, Ynya.” Synol finally said. “Joanne died.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
2201’s mind whirled.
She had been trained from birth to obey the Frost Queen.
She also remembered running around in the snow, laughing and giggling. She remembered the warm embrace of a large man she called Papa, scooping her up from the snow. She remembered riding on his shoulders.
No, that is a false memory.
The Translator and the Warden huddled over her, deep in a heated conversation.
She ignored them, she had other things to think about.
Memories.
Finny was silent once again.
2201 felt her. She hadn’t gone far. She stayed close at all times.
Finny had never left her because she was part of her.
She was 2201, but she was also Finny.
2201 remembered her Mama. She remembered her Mama’s sweet smile as she cleaned dirt off her face, or tucked her into bed.
Bed.
She had slept in a bed.
No! There is no sleep, only pain! There is only service to the Frost Queen!
She had slept in a bed with her sisters. They were so warm and lovely.
Ynya was the warmest.
2201 felt something new, a new type of anguish. She was sad.
Ynya wasn’t warm anymore. Somehow she had her heat taken away. Something was wrong with Ynya now. She didn’t have her heat. Ynya was cold. Ynya was never cold.
Ynya had magic. She had always been warm because of her magic.
Mama had magic. Mama never talked about her magic.
Finny had magic. She could control her breath and create gusts of wind to puff up Mama’s skirts.
Mama taught her how to control her magic when no one else was around. It was their secret.
Her bones hardened. The serums were finishing their work. She felt the pain ebb through her veins as it finalized the changes to her body.
Finalized.
She had just come into her magic. She had just bloomed a year ago. It was before Synol left.
Synol.
Synol was next to Ynya in the other room right now. She remembered Synol had left to get married. She was so beautiful, like Mama, with long wavy hair down to her butt.
Now Synol and Ynya were in the room where the monster had been. They would become monsters soon.
Just like me. I was turned into a monster.
The howls bored into her mind. She would never forget. He had been in so much pain, even when they carted him away.
He was a monster of pain, and pain would never leave him.
She was becoming that monster of pain too, only she didn’t howl.
She was stronger than him. She still had her mind.
She had Finny. Finny never left her. Finny calmed her. Finny kept her sane through all the breaking bones.
Finny was her.
A new pain crept into 2201, but not in her bones, nor in her head.
It was a pain in her heart.
Sadness. Loss.
She didn’t want Ynya or Synol to go through the same pain she had gone through. She smelled the fear on Ynya. Ynya was afraid, afraid of never being warm again. Ynya was afraid of Finny.
She wanted Ynya to be warm again. She didn’t want Ynya to be afraid of her. She remembered Ynya standing in the eye of the storm, her red hair flying wildly about her face. Ynya hadn’t been afraid of her then.
Finny hadn’t looked like a monster then. Finny had looked like her old self. Finny had red hair back then, before it fell out.
Before the serums took my red hair.
Her bones hardened more. She was so close. So very close to finishing her transformation. The Translator cut off his conversation with the Warden to focus on the valves and hoses going into Finny’s monstrous new body.
If she finished her transformation, she would be the monster. She would never get her red hair back.
She wanted her red hair. She wanted to laugh and skip and play with her sisters again. She wanted Ynya to have her heat back. She knew Ynya missed another type of magic, a magic so incredibly powerful she could tell–
2201 recognized that magic. It was the magic of her Mama. It was the magic of Talia Oblique. She hadn’t known it then, but she knew it now.
Her Mama’s magic was in Ynya. She could smell it, yearning to come out and take control.
Wait.
The hardening paused for a moment before continuing.
Stop.
The hardening stopped and waited for her command.
Ynya needs to have her heat back. Synol needs to not be so sad.
She turned her head, looking around the room.
Then she saw it. She saw the thing that put the earrings in her ear. It had to be the same thing that took Ynya’s magic away.
If she used it again on Ynya, she might be able to give her magic back. Ynya would be able to be warm again.
Then things would be alright.
She sat up, breaking the straps that kept her down. She realized she’d always been able to break those straps. She was strong. She was the strongest one in the room.
If she wanted to do something, she could do it.
But she didn’t need to be strong. She could have her red hair back. She liked her red hair. It was wild and crazy and fun. It made her happy.
I want my red hair back.
The serum obeyed.
Her talons disappeared into her fingers, her bones turned backwards and shrunk, making her shorter again, and her knees faced the other way.
Her mouth shrunk, and teeth retracted back into her jaw.
The men in the room yelled, but she ignored them.
They tried to grab her.
She didn’t like that. She was busy right now and she didn’t want to be interrupted.
The Translator grabbed her shoulder. “What are you doing? The transformation isn’t complete!”
She spun, looking into his eyes. He was afraid. She smelled the fear on both men.
The Translator was afraid, but the Warden was the most afraid.
She reached up with her smooth-skinned hand and grabbed the Translator’s wrist. She twisted his arm until it snapped.
“You will not touch me again.”
His eyes went wide as he screamed.
She turned her head slightly to the side, studying him. “Why do you cry? I thought pain was a good thing? Isn’t that what you told me when I was in pain? Isn’t that what you told me when I asked for just
one second without the pain?”
The Warden turned to run, but she didn’t want him to run. He had also caused her pain.
She used her wind to grab him and throw him into the wall, pinning him there.
The Translator fell to his knees, still screaming. “2201, stop this at once!”
“2201?” She pursed her lips, remembering. “That’s not correct. My name is Finny Oblique, and I’m going to give my sister back her magic.”
Finny picked up the apparatus off the table and turned it over in her hands. She remembered when she first came to this prison that they had used this on her.
Her hand went up to her ear, feeling for the spot where they had punctured her. She felt the hole, but she didn’t like the hole.
She told the serum to close off the hole. She wanted smooth skin.
The serum complied.
Finny walked into the side room and looked at Ynya.
Ynya cried. She also smiled. She cried while smiling. That was odd.
“Hello, Ynya. Finny is sad that you aren’t warm. Do you want to be warm?”
Ynya nodded. “Yes, Finny. I would like to be warm again.”
Chapter Forty
Ynya had been so long without her inner fire that when Finny removed the earring with the tool, the surge of heat overwhelmed Ynya’s frail body.
She convulsed as the magic surged through her. It latched onto her spine, running down her nerves and veins, and poured into her extremities.
The magic filled her head, propelled out of her skull and into her hair. The room lit as her hair heated, filling every corner with a blinding light.
Finny cut her from the table, but Ynya didn’t move. She needed to feel the burn in her again, she wanted to relish it.
A voice she hadn’t heard inside her told her she had no time left.
She needed to act.
Synol cried beside her.
Ynya felt the tidal rush of magic as her older sister regained her magic once again.
Ynya fell off the table and onto the floor.
She huddled there for a long moment, regaining her strength. The heat warmed deep inside, rousing the inner-most parts of her soul.
A shiver ran up her spine, and she stood.
