“But how is that possible? Humans don’t normally live so long,” he said.
“It’s not possible,” I said. “Not without the use of dark magic. In essence, when her eldest daughter came of age and had three daughters of her own, the priestess sacrificed that daughter, stealing her life and glamouring herself to become her. She also consumed the lives of many witches along the way. Those who betrayed her or no longer served her purpose. The priestesses stay alive by killing others and consuming their power.”
Trention closed his eyes and leaned back against the stone wall. “It’s horrifying what they’ve done,” he said. “To demons and humans.”
“The sapphire priestess kept a large stone inside her body. She called it the master stone, and it was one of the original stones from the first sapphire gate that was opened,” I explained. “In the final battle, when Harper ripped the stone from the witch’s chest, it broke the spell that kept the priestess alive. Whenever she consumed a life, she stored that power in the stone, and was using it as some type of life support. Without it, she couldn’t survive.”
“And they used that stone to free you?” he asked.
I nodded. I’d told him this story a handful of times already, but he wanted to hear it over and over again, each time asking new questions. As if it could make any difference to us down here in the dungeons.
“As long as they have all of the original items used to first open a gate, they can reverse the spell and close the gate forever, freeing all of the demons still bound to that gate,” I said. “That’s how they set me free.”
“It seems so simple,” Trention said. “Yet who would have ever believed the witch could have lived so long and done such horrible things?”
“I wish the king would have listened to us when we tried to tell him the truth,” I said. “When the guards brought us here, the king barely let us speak. He labeled us traitors and threw us both in the dungeons, refusing to even let us speak about the war against the Order. I don’t understand why he doesn’t march his army through a portal and kill them all. It doesn’t make any sense. If a seventeen-year-old girl could raise an army large enough to defeat one priestess, the King of the North could destroy the entire Order in a matter of weeks.”
Trention sighed. “I’m afraid the king is not himself these days,” he said. “He hides away, hardly ever making an appearance in court. Your mother and father handle most of the king’s day-to-day duties now.”
“They do?” I asked. This was a surprise. I knew my father was a high member of the Council, but hearing that they’d moved up to nearly take over the king’s duties was shocking. Especially since my own mother had all but told me there was nothing she could do to get me out of the dungeon.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “The rumors were that the king and queen were so grateful for their loyalty after you and your brother both disappeared that he gave them free rein over many of the decisions that are made in the King’s City. Even your mother has a seat now on the Council.”
I shook my head, trying to make sense of it. Was this why my parents had refused to help free me or even to come look for me at all? Had they basically traded my life for power? Bile rose in my throat, and I had to force it back down.
I would never forgive them for what they had done. Even now they were happy to let me rot down here while they practically ruled the kingdom.
“Can I ask you a question?” I wanted to change the subject. I didn’t even want to think about my parents again tonight. Being taken by the Order had been difficult, but being betrayed by my own parents had nearly broken me forever.
“Of course,” Trention said.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “When I lived in the castle, you were the headmaster of the school. You were a leader, well respected by everyone.”
He rubbed his face where a thick beard had grown in. “I made a mistake,” he said. “I was well aware the Council had no desire to join the fight against the Order, but I found a piece of information during some research that gave me hope. I should have kept it to myself or found someone who could get word to the Resistance, but instead, I took the information to the Council. To your mother, in fact.”
“My mother?” It seemed I couldn’t get away from the thought of her, after all. “What information?”
“In my spare time some evenings, I used to like to go to the royal library and make my way through the books there,” he said. “You’ve seen it?”
“The library?” I asked. When he nodded, I smiled, remembering how many times I’d gone there searching for Lea, usually finding her with her nose in a book. She loved to read about magical creatures who’d long since gone extinct and the warriors who’d fought them.
“There must be a hundred thousand books in that library,” he said. “Maybe more. Even in a few hundred years, I’d only managed to get through about five thousand of them.”
My eyes widened. “You’ve read five thousand books?”
“I’ve read more than that,” he said with a laugh. “But only five thousand of the ones in the royal library. There are many books there that can’t be found in bookshops or apprentice libraries. Tomes as old as the castle itself. Some of them truly ancient, written in dead languages.”
“How can you read them if the languages are dead?” I asked.
“It’s one of my gifts,” he said. “And the reason I became a scholar in the first place. I have the ability to decipher any language as if it were written in my native tongue.”
“That’s quite a gift,” I said, thinking of the ancient tomes Andros had mentioned. The Resistance Army lived in a secret hideout they called the Underground. It had been built by trolls, a race believed to be nothing more than legend. They’d been extinct in these lands for thousands of years, but Andros had found proof of their existence in the Underground and had built a home for refugees among the ruins. Jackson and the others had hidden down there for a while, but I’d never been there myself.
Andros said he had a library there of old troll manuscripts, most of them written in the troll’s language. He had a group of scholars working to decipher those manuscripts, but it was taking them years. If Trention and I ever found our way out of here, I would have to take him to the Underground. It would probably only take him a few minutes to read what it had been taking those other scholars years to figure out.
“It’s been a blessing and a curse,” he said. “Many of the books in the library are simple spell books or recounts of historical events from various points of view. Some of them are fantasy tales written by bards or traveling storytellers. But a few years ago, I found something special.”
The way he said it made my skin tingle. I leaned forward, listening.
“It was a history book unlike any I had ever read before,” he said. “It was a language I didn’t recognize and the pages were decorated with the dust of diamonds.”
“Diamonds?” I whispered. Diamonds were rare in the Shadow World. There were several mines of sapphires, emeralds, rubies, and a few other precious stones, but there were no diamond mines anywhere in the north or the south. A few diamonds had been found here and there, but no huge deposits like the sapphires we mined every day outside the walls of the King’s City.
“I had the alchemist test it to be sure,” he said. “At first, I thought it must be another fantasy tale, made up hundreds or maybe even thousands of years ago. But as I read, I started to believe it could be true.”
“What did it say?” I asked.
He leaned close, glancing around before he continued.
“It said that we are not alone.”
I blinked, not understanding.
“As far as we have always known, the Shadow World is made up of a single kingdom, once split into north and south,” he said. “There are a few small islands scattered off the coast of the Sea of Glass, but nothing substantial.”
I nodded, anxious to hear where he was going with this.
“This book described another kingdom far
to the west,” he said. “An entire land even larger than the entire north and south combined.”
My mouth fell open, hardly believing what he was saying. “It can’t be true,” I said. “Demons have been fishing the Black Sea for ages. If there was another kingdom out there larger than our own, they would have found it by now.”
“I thought the same thing,” he said. “But then I discovered the map.”
I stopped breathing, hanging on his every word. “The map?”
“Hidden in the binding of the book was a map of the Shadow World,” he said. “It was old. Perhaps older than me, even. I can’t be sure. It was unlike any map I had ever seen, clearly showing our kingdom in perfect ratio with a much larger kingdom to the west across the Black Sea.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Think of what it could mean if it were true,” he said. “Another kingdom of demons, untouched by the Order of Shadows.”
“An entire army who might be able to save us all,” I whispered.
“Exactly,” he said. He frowned, touching his shoulder.
“Are you still hurting?” I asked, moving to examine his shoulder.
He waved me away. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m healing, thanks to you, and may yet live to see the day when we defeat the Order for good.”
I smiled at that, proud that I was able to help him when I’d been helped by so many others.
“You told my mother about the map,” I said. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
His eyes slowly lifted to mine, and he nodded. “I was going to bring the book to the attention of the entire Council, but she intercepted me before the meeting and asked what I planned to discuss with them,” he said. “I showed her the book and explained what it might mean for our kingdom. She told me it was obviously nonsense, written by someone who was either insane or indulging in their own fantasies. She took the book from my hands and when I protested, promised she would tell the king what I had discovered. Next thing I knew, a set of guards stormed into my study and threw me into the dungeons, declaring that the king had called me a traitor to the crown. They didn’t even let me say good-bye to my family.”
I looked away, not wanting to believe him, but knowing he had no reason to lie.
What was my mother’s part in this? Had she even shown the book to the king at all?
“Why would they want to keep this information hidden?” I asked.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it in my years down here,” he said. “The only thing I can imagine is that your mother saw the map as a potential threat to the Council’s power. If the kingdom to the west is larger, they could have a very powerful ruler and a much stronger army than the dwindling one your father now controls.”
“Why wouldn’t they at least try to contact them? Send a group of spies to look into it? Something?”
“I can’t answer that question,” he said. “For all I know, the Council has done just that and discovered that the book was full of lies. It’s not as though the guards here keep me up to date on the king’s business.”
He winked at me, and I smiled. How the old demon was able to make a joke at a time like this was beyond me, but I admired him for his good humor and true heart.
“Sounds as though we’ve both been betrayed by my mother,” I said. “I don’t understand how she can continue to be so loyal to a king who seems to be growing weak.”
“I hope you’ll excuse me for saying this, but her loyalty makes perfect sense,” he said. “The weaker he grows, the more powerful she and your father become. Without an heir, the throne will go to the highest member of the Council when he passes from this world. The way the Council now stands, that would be your father or a demon named Kael.”
I took a deep breath and held it in my lungs until it burned. I tried to calm my anger, but it blew through me like a fierce wind.
“Now that the rightful heir has returned, I can only wonder what your parents plan to do,” he said.
My eyes snapped open and fear swirled around my heart like a flame. “Lea,” I whispered. “Do you think she’s in danger?”
I couldn’t believe my parents would hurt her, but I never would have believed they’d abandon me, either.
“As long as she’s trapped in the dungeons, she doesn’t pose any threat to their power,” he said. “But if her father lets her go, I imagine it will upset the plans your parents have for themselves and their daughters.”
“Daughter,” I said absently. “My sister Illana fled the King’s City a few months ago to come looking for me after she’d heard I’d been set free. She’s with my brother now in the Southern Kingdom.”
Trention frowned and shook his head. “Illana?” he asked. “That’s strange.”
“Why?” I asked.
“She seemed absolutely devoted to your mother,” he said. “I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so, but I once overheard her telling one of her handmaidens that she was glad you and your brother had both left. That it gave her a chance to be closer to her mother.”
Tears stung my eyes. I knew the old demon wouldn’t lie to me about something like that, but it still hurt to hear it.
“Well, she must have had a change of heart,” I said. “I didn’t get a chance to see her myself, but a friend told me she’d crossed over to the human world and gotten captured by the emerald priestess. Jackson and Harper saved her, but that’s when Harper was taken prisoner.”
“Jackson?” he asked.
I smiled. “Denaer, my brother. Jackson is the name he took when he crossed into the human world. He prefers it now.”
“A strange name for a demon,” Trention said. “And I’m sorry about your sister. That means the only child left in the castle is your sister Orian.”
“If the king passes his crown to my parents, she would someday become the Queen of the North?” I asked.
“As long as none of your other siblings return and manage to get back into their good graces,” he said. “Orian is the youngest, isn’t she?”
I nodded. She’d been a shadowling when I’d left the castle. I bet I would hardly recognize her now.
“Queen,” he said softly. “That’s a very powerful temptation. Enough to want to keep another kingdom hidden at all costs. Enough to make sure the king’s daughter doesn’t come back to claim her throne.”
The thought turned my stomach, and I closed my eyes, picturing Lea in the dungeons of her father’s castle.
Under normal circumstances, Lea was fully capable of protecting herself. But this was not a normal circumstance. Just like mine, her powers were off-limits inside the dungeons. Anyone could slit her throat and she would be almost helpless to defend herself.
A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. Well, not exactly helpless. That woman could fight with the best of them, and I had no doubt she would fight like hell against anyone who dared to cross her. Magic or not.
But a powerful member of the Council with an entire army at her disposal?
Even Lea could be outnumbered beyond hope.
What exactly was my mother capable of in the name of power?
The thought chilled my bones, and I wrapped a tattered blanket around my shoulders.
“You best get to sleep, old man,” I said with a laugh. “Or it will be a rough day for you in the quarries tomorrow.”
Trention braced his hand against the wall and pushed himself to a standing position. Even that small effort brought a hint of perspiration to his forehead.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said. “Though I could sit here talking to you all night if I were young again.”
“I’m sorry for what my mother did to you,” I said softly. “I don’t even know who she is anymore.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “We can’t be held responsible for the sins of our parents.”
“Maybe not, but we can do what we can to make it right,” I said, standing to show my respect to this honored demon who’d been imprisoned for simply telli
ng the truth and trying to save the lost. “I will make it right, Trention. That or die trying.”
He smiled and clasped my hand. “Your life is not yet half lived,” he said. “Don’t waste it worrying over an old relic like me. Save as many as you can. Get out of this place and keep fighting against the Order of Shadows until every last one of those witches’ hearts has been ripped from her chest. That will honor me enough.”
I smiled and watched as he made his way back to his corner of the dungeon, but as I sat back down and leaned against the wall, my smile faded. Lea was in danger, and I was helpless to do anything about it.
I had to find a way out of these dungeons. Ezrah had said to keep my head down, but I didn’t have time for patience. I didn’t have time to wait down here until someone else came to rescue me.
This time, I would have to find a way to save myself.
It Will All Be Over Soon
For two days I believed that my threat to Judith had worked. She hadn’t spoken to me much since that night, but at least no one had come to punish me or confront me about leaving my room.
I looked for Brooke, too. Not to talk to her, but just to know that she was real and that she was okay.
I didn’t see a single glimpse of her anywhere. I knew that they had several wards here in the institute, and from the looks of it, a lot more patients than I had ever seen in the dining room or the courtyard at one time. Either that or there were a lot of empty rooms. This place must have held hundreds of beds, and I had no way of knowing whether they were all full or if many of them were empty and waiting for more girls to come in.
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