Deliverance

by Brittany Comeaux

  He finally stopped running and fell to his knees. The image of her sadness and hurt felt like a stabbing pain in his chest. For a moment, he closed his eyes and faced the sky, allowing the pounding rain drench his face. He didn’t want her to remember him this way, the man she thought betrayed her. He didn’t want to ever leave her again, but rather, he wanted to find her, to hold her, and to protect her. He wanted to feel her lips on his again and because of the pounding drops of rain beating down on his lips, he could almost feel her kiss again. Most of all, he wanted to stay with her . . . and to be with her.

  As soon as the rain began to lighten up, Blaze looked ahead and saw what looked like a cave. Hoping to find shelter from the rain, he rushed towards it and ventured inside. It was wet and chilly but he felt better now that he was out of the rain. He sat down on the hard stone ground and buried his face into his hands. Then, for the first time for as long as he could remember, he began to cry.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he had any tears fall from his face, if he ever even had before. He didn’t know what he could possibly do to save Crystal, but all he knew was that he needed had to do something. He didn’t want to wait any longer, but Blaze knew that running around in the rain would get him nowhere, so he lay down and once he found a somewhat comfortable position, he prepared to rest for the night or until the rain stopped falling.

  As he lay on the rocky floor, Blaze contemplated what he would do to get Crystal out of the castle. Eventually though all he could think of was Crystal herself. He thought about the way he kissed her under the moonlight and how she was the first person to make him feel like he wasn’t alone. He finally realized that he wanted to kiss her again and again for many years to come.

  Crystal made Blaze feel more alive than he ever felt before and she almost seemed to give him a purpose in life. Even through the wet and chilly air in the cave, Blaze felt her warmth enwrapping him as he thought about her. She was the best thing that ever happened to him or would ever happen and he knew then and there that he had to save her so he could tell her exactly how he felt. He then made a vow that he would not stop until he had her back in his arms and that the next time her saw her, he would make sure she knew just how much he cared.

  Then, for the first time in his life, Blaze desperately prayed to Caris to give him the strength he needed to succeed before falling asleep on the hard cave floor.

  CHAPTER 16

  The vision of the ruins disappeared before Crystal’s eyes with a flash of smoke and immediately afterward, the foyer of the Cierith castle surrounded her. The teleportation process made her quite dizzy, and even though she was able to keep her feet steady, she could not move in time to avoid Valamar’s grasp. As soon as they reappeared, Valamar wasted no time in grabbing Crystal by the arms from behind her so that she couldn’t get away.

  “Ow! Stop it!” she yelled.

  Valamar responded by bending her arms, locking them against her back, and clutching them even tighter. Her wrists were thin enough for him to wrap his entire hand around them both and hold them firmly.

  With a low, seductive laugh, Valamar playfully, yet lustfully muttered, “Got you.”

  He then ran his fingers on his free hand softly from Crystal’s neck slowly down her chest, which made her skin crawl, and then suddenly grabbed her necklace off and yanked it off. Crystal then felt a sting where the chain had snapped against the skin of her neck.

  “I’ll take this. Saitar told me about how this little thing controls your power, so I don’t think you’ll need it,” he said, dangling the pendant mockingly in front of her face. He then tossed it to Saitar and said, “Store this away somewhere. Oh, and don’t forget this.” Valamar then untied Crystal’s belt, which had her blade sheathed on it, and threw it to the elder as well.

  “All right,” replied Saitar, who then left the room through one of the side doors.

  After he was gone, Valamar brushed his lips along Crystal’s bare neck and whispered, “Alone at last. Only this time, there will be no interruptions . . .”

  Crystal bent her leg and kicked Valamar in the shin, which made him release his grip on her and fall to the ground. Without her sword, Crystal couldn’t hope to fight him, and her magic would burst out of control and completely drained her energy if she tried to cast a spell, so the only option she had was to run like hell, and she took it.

  As she ran towards the exit, she suddenly heard Valamar yell, “If you value the lives of your friends, I suggest you stop!” Crystal immediately stopped in her tracks, but did not turn around.

  She heard Valamar stumble to his feet. He then continued, “It would be a shame if they were executed the minute they arrived because their leader was too cowardly to face her fate. Go on and run if you want them to face the noose!”

  Crystal stood shaking and clenching her fists. Without turning around, she called back to him, “You bastard . . .”

  Valamar laughed and replied, “Well you are too fussy to listen to me otherwise, and so when the king offered to use them to keep you under my thumb, I had no choice but to agree.”

  Although she already knew the answer, Crystal sighed and asked, “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you as my wife, of course,” Valamar replied. Crystal became nervous as she heard his steps coming towards her, and even more so when he continued talking, “You and I could have a glorious wedding here in the castle. I know you have certainly dreamt of it as a child, didn’t you, my princess?”

  Crystal clenched her fists so tightly that she felt the skin of her palms start to tear. Valamar was so heartless it made her sick. She kept her head bowed in the opposite direction, and she suddenly heard Valamar’s footsteps stop right behind her.

  “If you say yes at the altar, I swear on my fortunes that your friends will live. However, if you refuse, they will be publicly executed . . .” Valamar paused, “. . . and I will make you watch.”

  Before Crystal realized she was moving, she turned to face Valamar and swung her hand, slapping him across the face. He rubbed the red spot on his cheek with almost no emotion and then faced Crystal. He grabbed her by her arms again and pulled her towards him, stopping her to wear her face was only an inch from his. He was much taller than her, and so with his head tilted downwards to face her, he looked down into her eyes and said, “I will let that go this time, but defy me again and your friends will die!”

  With that, he placed his hand on the back of her head and pulled her lips up to his. Crystal wanted to punch and kick and scream at him, but after what he just said, she was terrified of what would happen to her friends. The seconds felt like hours, and even though she didn’t think she could want to vomit any more than she already did, Valamar slipped his tongue into her mouth, making her have to furiously fight back tears. Just when she became overwhelmed with sickness and fear, Valamar pulled away, licking his lips and smiling.

  Crystal’s legs buckled underneath her and she fell to her knees, wiping her mouth with her sleeves. Valamar laughed under his breath and backed away.

  “Even though it’s very hard to resist, I know now you are a virgin, so I’ve decided to leave you unspoiled until our wedding night. It’s awfully late, so I will have the guards bring you to your room. We can begin our wedding plans in the morning. Sweet dreams, my love,” he told her.

  He then wiped his lips with a handkerchief that he pulled out of his pocket, walked outside of the front door, and called a few guards over. Within a few minutes, two guards were walking on each a side of her and holding her arms by her sides. They led her to a guest bedroom on one of the top floors and after they shoved her inside, one of them locked the door from the outside.

  There Crystal stood, all alone, in a slightly bigger bedroom than the biggest ones at Valamar’s mansion. She saw the large canopy bed in the middle of the room and without hesitation, she rushed over, fell face first onto the blanket, and let all of her built up tears escape from her swollen eyes. She screamed into the pillow when her emoti
on built up too much, and she continued to wipe her lips. It seemed, however, no matter what she did, she could not stop feeling his tongue against hers, and once again, she felt the urge to puke.

  Above all things there was one thing that hurt her the most. When she was able to take a break from crying, and with her face still buried into the blanket, she muttered, “Blaze, how could you?”

  ****

  Blaze realized he had fallen asleep in the cave when he opened his eyes and early morning light was flooding the cave. The rain had stopped, and when Blaze turned around, he could see that the sun was barely under the line of the horizon. He got to his feet and ventured outside, trying to figure out where he was. He didn’t pay much attention to where he was going the night before and as soon as he walked outside, even the approaching dawn didn’t shed light on his situation.

  Nothing around him seemed familiar, so he decided to climb up the cliff surrounding the cave. He was roughly three stories off of the ground, and when he looked in what he assumed was the south, he saw what looked like a river in the distance. Concluding that this was most likely the river near the Caris shrine, he figured he must have run between half a mile and a mile north, judging by where the light from the sun was coming from.

  Just when Blaze turned around to see if he could see any more, he suddenly heard voices and his heart sank when he saw three Daldussan soldiers coming out from behind a boulder further up the cliff, but thankfully facing the opposite direction.

  “Shit!” Blaze instinctively, but very quietly cursed as he dropped to the ground behind another serious of rocks. He lay flat on his stomach, practically holding his breath while listening to the soldiers talk to each other.

  “Dammit, we’ve looked in this area three times since before sunrise! Let’s just head back and tell the general he’s not here!” one of them complained.

  “Not a good idea; the general’s already crabby because the king made him look for the prince and the other rebel that escaped all night, so we hardly need yet another earful from him!” another one replied.

  “Orodan’s had his hands full since the prince killed Perun. He’s gonna kill us if we don’t find him!” the third one cried.

  Blaze’s heart sank. So they were looking for him, but why? Bogdan had Crystal and the others imprisoned, so why worry about catching him now?

  Just then, Blaze heard hurried footsteps coming up the cliff, and then one of the soldiers said, “Where the hell have you two been?”

  “We just came from the cave at the foot of this cliff; we checked in and out, but no sign of Prince Blaze,” reported a man who Blaze assumed was another soldier. He then realized what amazing luck he had waking up when he did. If he had woken ten minutes later, he would be in chains already.

  “Damn! We are so dead if we don’t find him!” cried one of the soldiers.

  “You double checked the cave?”

  “Yes, every inch!”

  “I say we all check again and then split up and follow the foot of the cliff to see if he wandered off.”

  With that, Blaze heard the footsteps leaving and as he poked his head above the rocks, he saw five Daldussan soldiers shuffling down the cliff. When they were out of sight and earshot, Blaze heaved an enormous sigh of relief followed by a nervous laugh. He sat shaking for a few minutes and finally managed to get the feeling back in his legs, so he began to rise to his feet.

  However, his heart nearly stopped when something grabbed his jacket and hoisted him off of the ground. Once Blaze realized he was in midair, he turned around to see none other than Orodan holding him several feet off of the ground.

  “Thought you could hide, could you, Prince?” the enormous general mocked in a deep, monstrous voice, “I’ve had to spend the entire night looking for you!”

  “Why were you looking for me?” Blaze asked.

  “That’s none of your business!” Orodan bellowed, bringing his free hand to Blaze’s neck.

  “The hell it’s not!” Blaze yelled in a hoarse voice, “You know damned well I didn’t tell Bogdan about the rebels! Now how did he find out?”

  Orodan laughed and replied, “Of course you told him! He got all of his information from you!”

  “That’s a lie!” Blaze yelled even louder. He attempted to reach for his sword, but Orodan grabbed it first, unsheathed it, and threw it aside. While Orodan bellowed with laughter, Blaze then kicked furiously in front of him, which hit the enormous general but unfortunately did nothing to hurt him.

  Orodan continued to roar with laughter at Blaze’s feeble attempts to free himself, and he squeezed the prince’s neck tighter with every kick. Blaze was finally able to reach his boot and pull out the hidden dagger inside it. He stabbed Orodan’s arm with all of his strength.

  “OW! You son of a bitch!” Orodan roared. He then released his grip on Blaze who then tumbled to the dirt. Orodan pulled the knife out of his arm and threw it to the dirt away from Blaze. He then turned back to the prince and said, “The king said to bring you in dead or alive, so I have no problem killing you here and dragging your corpse back to the castle.” Without another word, Orodan then lunged at Blaze, gripped his neck again, and pinned him against the ground.

  Unarmed and out of options, Blaze knew he had to think of something fast or else he would not live long enough to see Crystal again. He would never see her smile, hear her laugh, or look into her eyes again if he didn’t act quickly, and that was all he needed to think of in order to come up with an idea. Blaze reached his arm out to his side and searched frantically for something he could use, and within seconds, he found a fist-sized rock and readied it in a throwing position.

  “HA! You could not hurt me with your legs, so what makes you think that little pebble will hurt me?” Orodan roared.

  “I’m . . . not . . . aiming for . . . you!” Blaze spat out. He then tossed the rock with all his might to the bottom of a huge, but visibly unstable pile of boulders. The little rock was all it took to shake the boulders out of place, and they all began tumbling down hard. The distraction before they fell gave Blaze enough time to slip out of Orodan’s grip just in time, and the boulders piled on top of the massive general and buried him alive. Thick as his skin and muscles were, they were no match for the thousands of pounds of hard stone that crushed onto his body.

  As the boulders lay still and the dust began to settle, Blaze coughed and hacked for air. Once he was able to breathe normally again, he heard low, but desperate cries coming from Orodan.

  “Please . . . help,” the general hoarsely muttered.

  Blaze stood in horror. As the dust settled, he could see the lower half of Orodan’s body had been crushed by the stones and yet the poor bastard was still alive. Blood stained the dirt around him and he pleaded, “Please . . . kill me!”

  Blaze couldn’t believe what he saw, and despite being taught to never show mercy in battle, he felt he had no choice but to show pity. However, he knew he had to get answers first.

  “Tell me how Bogdan found out about the rebels’ secrets, and I give you my word that I will kill you,” Blaze ordered.

  “A-all right,” Orodan replied. Unable to look around and face Blaze, he pointed to his neck and muttered, “The mark.”

  Blaze put his hand on the left side of his neck. “The tracking mark?”

  “Yes. . . . Saitar . . . saw it . . . and placed a spell on it. Anytime . . . the mage who put it on saw . . . a vision of you . . . Saitar did too,” Orodan replied weakly.

  Blaze then remembered the incident at the ruins where they found the first shard and how Saitar had grabbed his neck. He then concluded that that must have been when Saitar did it. He also realized then and there that this was how Bogdan knew about Valamar, because Thaddeus had had visions of that night. His heart then sank when he thought of how he had called Crystal “princess” in the mansion, and realized that it was his fault that they found out who she was.

  “Kill me, please!” Orodan cried.

  Blaze snapped back
to reality and replied, “Very well.”

  Blaze then lifted his sword and plunged it straight through Orodan’s heart. The general then bled out and died within seconds.

  Blaze fell to his knees again after removing his sword from Orodan’s chest. He felt so stupid for letting Saitar take control of him like that and vowed to never be reckless in battle again. At least now, he figured, he knew what was going on and hopefully could try to find Crystal now. He didn’t know how he would, however, if Saitar was seeing his every movement until he got close enough to the castle.

  Suddenly, Blaze’s vision became very cloudy and he heard an echoing and booming voice in his head yelling, “BLAZE! I AM SORRY I DIDN’T BELIEVE YOU!”

  Blaze instantly recognized it as Thaddeus’s voice. The old mage must be far enough away to have seen the whole thing.

  “I AM GOING TO PUT MYSELF UNDER A SPELL SO THAT I WILL FALL INTO A DEEP SLEEP, SO DON’T WORRY THAT SAITAR WILL SEE YOU! JUST SAVE CRYSTAL, BLAZE, HURRY! VALAMAR PLANS TO MARRY HER DAY AFTER TOMORROW, SO YOU HAVE TO GET HER OUT OF HERE! GOOD LUCK!” Thaddeus’s voice rang.

  After that, the voice stopped and Blaze felt normal again. Just save Crystal kept lingering in his head, but Thaddeus didn’t need to tell him that for Blaze to know he had to do it. He then realized that he needed to move quickly, because if Saitar could tell the soldiers where he was, there was no doubt that the place would be crawling with them soon. Before he left, however, he shut Orodan’s eyelids and set up a smoke signal with some nearby flint rocks so that other soldiers could locate the general’s body and bury him.

  It seemed that Crystal’s compassion had finally rubbed off on Blaze, and frankly, he didn’t really care anymore.

  After looking up from the foot of the cliff and making sure that the smoke signal could be seen, Blaze headed off. Instead of heading straight east, however, he decided to move back towards the Caris shrine, pass it, and go back to the river, and follow it until he came near Cartigo. He would carefully venture around the land trying to avoid the eyes of the law and find a way to sneak into the castle.