“She’s the one,” it says in a deep voice, devoid of any rasp. If it weren’t for the dark undertones, the voice might sound human.
Strong hands tug my arms behind my back and bind them before I can struggle. I am jerked back against a rough body and a bag is thrown over my head, blinding me.
I can blow them apart with a single twist of my wrist. I can destroy them with a snap of my fingers. I can free myself with a single thrust of my palm and run.
Run where? Back to Agron where, in twenty-four hours, I will be murdered because of what I can do? Run towards another wasteland where the elements will kill me, or I’ll be hunted like a rabid beast? Run towards Smoke where the king will use me, or back to Kelba where my people will kill me or . . .
Or let these monsters drag me to the one place that remains a mystery to me?
I clench my fingers into tight fists.
I let them take me.
PART FOUR
Ebonia
Chapter XXXVIII
It is hours of being lead by iron hands in a strange, zigzag pattern that throws any chances of tracing our direction into oblivion. And, to make matters worse, I know they’re doing it on purpose. They know who I am and there’s no way in hell they don’t know who Shade is. They won’t risk letting one of the most fearsome hunters of their kind pinpoint our direction.
The shadows grunt harshly at one another from their throats, but they don’t speak.
The terrain dips unexpectedly and the air around my arms and legs changes from moist and warm, to damp and chilly. The ground is harder beneath my feet too.
We walk for another hour before one of the shadows harshly shoves me to the ground and I hear them setting up camp. The noises they make echo before fading into nothingness. When they rip the bag from my head, I know why.
We’re in a cave. A tunnel, actually.
The shadows – eight of them – gather around an iron circle hammered into the ground. A fire is burning. It imprints their shadows against the walls, making me see double their actual ranks. How can shadows have shadows?
Shade groans from behind me. I turn around.
Slowly, he uses his shoulder against the wall to rise to a sitting position, and look around. The terror that fills his eyes cuts deeper than a blade in my heart. I’ve never seen that cold, frightened twist in his face before.
I shift my eyes to his abdomen. His shirt is coated with dried blood. “Are you still bleeding?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Shade?”
He’s staring at the shadows.
They’re staring right back. Watching. Listening. Waiting.
“Shade, look at me! Look at me!” I tap his leg, gently, until his eyes flicker to mine. “Are you still bleeding?”
He shakes his head.
The shadows start conversing again – but with guttural sounds from their throats.
Shade shifts towards me at a snail’s pace but finally manages to brush up alongside me.
“What are they saying?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I whisper furiously. They know I can understand them so they’re using a different form of communication. “Bastards!”
One of them chuckles. “Trithar sure likes them sassy and . . .”
Another snarls at him. He doesn’t finish the sentence.
There’s that name again. Trithar. Trithar. Trithar. I let the name roll around in my head for a few minutes. It is foreign and dark, but strangely elegant.
Shade burrows his face into my shoulder, his cheek cold against my skin. I wish I could run my fingers through his hair or wipe the blood from his face. But, with my hands tied, the only comforting action I can offer is to lay my head against his and shiver at the soft static of his hair brushing my cheek.
“They won’t break us. Hear me?” I whisper, even as every nightmare I’ve ever had about the monsters comes crawling back into my mind.
He doesn’t say anything.
Our captors pull us to our feet a few hours later and we walk. They don’t put the bags over our heads. There’s no need. The caves are too dark and there are too many tunnels – we would never find our way out again in time to escape.
I am shoved to the front of the line, behind a single shadow, much taller and stronger in appearance than the others. Its cape doesn’t quite brush the floor and the clip-clop of shoes resounds off the walls.
Odd.
“Where are you taking me?”
No answer.
“Have you no tongue?”
Silence.
I grab the shadowy folds of its cloak and jerk it back against me. It snarls and spins on me, slamming me against the wall. From somewhere in the back of the assembly line, a feral voice growls. I claw at the black leather hand that cuffs my throat.
“Behave,” the male voice warns. “Understand?”
“Where the hell are you taking me?”
I catch faint glimmers of silver from beneath his hood. A mask – just like Grag’s. What is behind it?
“We’re not going to kill you, girl,” he says. “Just behave.”
He lets go of me and straightens his cloak.
Once again, I stare at the silver mask beneath his curtained helmet. “What are you?”
He doesn’t give me an answer.
We continue walking.
Up ahead, a light blinks in the long tunnel, pure and bright. Our pace slows. The leader notices and turns around. The remaining shadows hesitate to approach the opening.
“If you insist with your slagging page I will let you explain to the emperor why the journey took longer than necessary,” the leader hisses.
Emperor?
The shadows start moving again.
We reach the opening. A wide space of dark, stormy sky and shards of yellow light greet us. We are standing on a ledge, overlooking a long, dark plain below that rises in jagged hooks, claws, and ridges that create a maze of boulders beneath me. I look at it more closely and a wave of shock rolls through me.
It is a city. The dark plain is split in two, revealing levels of hollow black rock beneath the surface. In the hollow black rock, buildings have been erected from stone and dark figures skate between them like ants. Shadows. And, rising above the dark city, at the edge of the steep plain and high above a stormy sea, a black, glistening mountain points a jagged fist at the sky. No, it is not a mountain.
It’s a palace.
I shake my head in disbelief.
They are monsters. They’re not supposed to have a city. They’re not supposed to have a palace. They’re not supposed to have any civilization whatsoever. They’re supposed to be living nightmares that feed off of fear and thrive in their lonely existence. But . . .
What the hell?
The shadows don’t lead us towards the city. Instead, we crawl down the rock outcropping of a stairwell in the side of the mountain and enter a damp tunnel once again. As we walk deeper and deeper beneath the earth, a vulgar stench taints the air. Sewage. Blood. Decomposing bodies. Vomit. Fear. Death.
Up ahead, a door opens as we approach. The air beyond smells even worse than the tunnel. Through the darkness, I see rows and rows of hard, gray bars.
A prison!
We stumble into the new tunnel, lined on all sides by bars and torches, through which I see emaciated shapes. They lie on their sides, against the walls, or curl into corners. As we walk further down, the shapes change into horrible forms. Some look like animals. Others are monstrous beasts that growl at the edge of the cells.
A handful of six inch talons slashes at my ankles.
I scream and leap away from the cell.
The shadow leader stomps on the monster’s talons. They snap beneath the weight and the paw disappears with a pitiful moan of pain. We leave the monsters behind.
Now the shapes that hover behind the bars drool loudly, their feathery white fingers clutching at the shadows that pass them. They are shadows too. From the slobber pooling on the floor I believe they’re d
runk. If it’s even possible for shadows to get drunk, that is.
We are forced to take a harsh turn to the right. The cells around us are empty. The horrible smell in the air fades. I still smell sewage, blood, and vomit, but it is not as overpowering as before. Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to it.
The leader opens one of the cell doors with a gnarled key and shoves Shade and I inside. I shiver against the damp chill hanging amidst the walls.
Several of the shadows snicker at Shade as he collapses against the farthest wall and turns his back to them. They flutter away, still chuckling.
The leader reaches through the bars and cuts the bindings on my wrists with a single slice of his gleaming, black knife. “My name is Roke,” he whispers. “Remember that, Ilevrana, when we meet again.”
He walks away.
I hurry to Shade and rip the leather bindings from his wrists. He doesn’t move when I place a hand on his shoulder and shake him. He doesn’t answer when I say his name. I start to turn him around, afraid he’s passed out from loss of blood, but he shakes free from my grip and stands up. He paces back and forth, combing fingers through his disheveled hair.
“Shade . . .?”
His answer is an irritated growl.
I stand up. “Shade . . . stop.”
“Stop what?” He looks at me. His eyes are wild and maniacal. He looks more like a caged animal than a human being. “Stop thinking about what they’ll do to us. Stop looking at my surroundings. Stop smelling the air around me. Gods damn it, Kyla, we’re not in a damn nightmare or a forest clearing. We’re in their territory! Their cage! Do you know what that means?”
“This is what they want us to do,” I snap. “They want to frighten you!”
“Frightened?” He shakes his head. “No, Kyla, I’m terrified.”
He peers through the bars of our cell.
From far down the tunnel, I hear screams. Horrible, human screams.
His fists clench at his sides. “They won’t break me!” he snaps. “I’ll kill myself before I let them torture me again!”
An hour hasn’t even passed before footsteps ring far down the tunnel and raspy chuckles approach our section of the prison. I scoot into the darkest corner and pull my knees up to my chest. Shade is curled in the opposite corner, but when the shadows stop in front of our cell and look in at us, he stands up.
The shadows stare at him, their hoods pulled back just enough to reveal ebony masks and their eyes – deep black eyes. I don’t like what I see in those eyes.
One of the shadows unlocks the prison door and steps inside, gesturing for his comrades – three of them – to follow him.
The ominous tingles at the base of my spine put me on edge.
They close the cell door and approach Shade. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. He just watches them through narrowed eyes, fists clenching behind his back. Fists clenching for a fight. For survival.
The daring one – the one who’d unlocked the door – steps closer than the others. “Eat shit, Ilkanari!” he snarls and slams a gloved hand into Shade’s abdomen. Blood coats his leather knuckles when he draws them back and a red circle blossoms over the crusted copper color of Shade’s vest.
The three others kick and punch at him.
I stand up and launch myself at them, curling fingers around the daring one’s cloak and tugging him backwards with such force we both fall on the ground. Searing pain splinters through my knee, but I have the shadow beneath me. Using the opportunity, I jab my fingers beneath its hood, where they meet with resistance. I claw at it with both hands. The shadow screams and, with a mighty heave of its shoulder, throws me aside. My hip explodes in a series of little shooting stars of pain up my side.
Shade screams. He’s fallen to his knees, but they aren’t stopping.
“Leave him alone!” I force myself to my knees, but the pain in my side prevents me from rising any further. “Stop!”
Blood spurts from Shade’s mouth when a leather hand gives him a smooth uppercut and puts him against the wall. His head sags, and he falls to the ground.
Hot, pulsing waves surge into a storm inside my head.
One of the shadows screams as I lash out with my right hand and slam him against the wall with the heavy power radiating through me. The sickening crack his body makes on connection with the stone makes me smile.
The three remaining shadows come for me at once. I cross my arms in an X, locate their forms, and blast them aside when I unfurl my arms – and the power that I’d been converging.
The blast shakes the prison cell.
I hear a harsh voice. All four shadows stand to attention immediately.
Roke stands outside the cell, the door already opened, waiting for them to exit. When they do, he has them doubled over within seconds, clutching their midsections. His foggy talons creep back inside his cloak.
“I gave you an order. I told you not to harm the Ilkanari in any way, didn’t I” His head jerks in the direction of the daring shadow. “And you dared lay hands on her too?”
“What’s the matter with you, Roke?” The daring shadow squares up. “Have you gone soft all of a sudden? Don’t you remember . . . remember what he did to us. All of us? He took everything from me! Everything! A little shit-eater like him doesn’t deserve to live, let alone breathe our own air.” He steps closer. “Let me kill him.”
“No, Avril.”
“You know what he is!” Avril snaps. “You want him dead as much as I do. Just let me . . .”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Roke cocks his head at me. “Because he’s hers. Can’t you see that?”
“Who gives a shit?” Avril jabs a finger in my direction. “If you ask me we should kill her too. She . . .”
One of Roke’s foggy talons is around Avril’s throat in less than a second. “No one gives a shit about your opinion. No one gives a shit about you. Stop thinking that they do, and you might live a little longer.” He releases him.
Roke turns and tips his head in my direction. “Apologies.” He turns back around to face the trouble-making group. “You’re still here?”
They hurry down the tunnel, trying extremely hard not to make it obvious that they’re eager to get away.
Avril flicks two shadowy wisps in my direction before disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel – a silent threat of things to come.
I hurry to Shade and roll him over. He’s out cold, blood and bruises coating his face and neck. I open his vest and wince at the open wound spitting blood down his sides.
“Does the Ilkanari live?” Roke asks.
I tear the bottom of my tunic and press it against his wound. “Go away!”
When I turn around to face the silence, he is gone.
I return my attention to Shade, applying pressure to the hot pulse beneath my hands.
What had Roke said? “He is hers.”
They had better remember that the next time they decide to touch him.
“Kelban!”
My eyes flutter open.
A different shadow watches me from behind the bars.
“Kelban!” it snaps again. “Your name is Kyla Bone, is it not?”
“Yes,” I say.
The shadow sighs – low, soft and . . . relieved? “Good. We won’t have to dance around that subject,” it says and places gloved hands against the bars. Its fingers are incredibly thin and there’s something different about its voice. “You’ve caused quite a lot of trouble for us, lately, girl. You’ve prevented us, on numerous occasions, from wiping a troublesome village like Agron off the map and your man there . . .” She gestures at Shade, still unconscious against the wall, “. . . has slaughtered thousands of us – recently with your help. You even defeated Grag.” There is awe in its voice.
“Friend of yours?” The shadow’s hands tighten on the bars. I can’t resist smiling. “Accidents happen.”
The shadow glances anxiously down the tunnel before speaking to me again. “Actuall
y, I’m of the opinion that he got what was coming to him. The arrogant son of a bitch had been floating on his own air for far too long. If you hadn’t dispatched him, chances are I might have slit his throat within the next year anyway.”
Now I realize why it’s voice sounds different. The shadow is female.
I laugh in amusement. “I always wondered how you hell-cursed bastards reproduced. Never figured that some of you possessed the organs for such a human act. Do you lay eggs or birth through your legs like normal species?”
The shadow shows no sign of offense. “You’re hardly in a position to be giving me lip, girl. Do you realize that killing Grag already places your life on edge? He was Ebonia’s greatest general . . . and you killed him. The people will be upset. His highness is grieved. And I . . . I regret that a little girl like you had to do it.”
So help me gods, if someone calls me a little girl one more time . . .
“You don’t like feeling inferior, eh?” she asks, noticing my irritation.
I lean against the bars. Within seconds I could show her inferior. I could blast her clear down the hall with one swipe of my hand.
“Go to hell!” I snarl.
“Don’t you want to know why Roke dragged you here?” she asks, her voice taunting. She knows her words will dig deep into my skin. “Don’t you want to know why Grag was hunting you, and why he tried to ‘rid you from existence?’”
Shade stirs, and his eyelids flutter.
“I won’t demean myself by talking to filth like you.” I turn my back on her and approach Shade.
“That arrogant pride is why fools like your Kelban stock, die!” she snaps.
“And its because of heartless monsters like you that we’re dying!”
The shadow shrugs. “Someone always has to be the tale mothers tell their children at night. To protect what is theirs from those who would seek to take it. We have become monsters to protect our land.”
“You broke the land!” I scream, the tether on my rage snapping.
“We did not break this land!” she screams right back, the darkness fading from her voice. Shivers skate up my skin. She sounds as human as I. “If you want to know the truth, we hate the violence, the agony, and the fighting, as much as you. We want it to stop. We want peace. We want respect. We want justice.” Her voice lowers, until its a soft rasp again. “But you, of all people, know that world is nothing but a dream, don’t you?”
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 60
