Chapter 15 Rowan
Rowan
"Again." Viera orders.
My head is forced into a bucket of water.
The shock of it never lessens—the icy burn in my lungs, the primal panic clawing through my chest as my body fights against the hands holding me down.
Water floods my nose, rushing into my mouth through the nasal passage and filling my ears with a muffled roar.
My body revolts with animalistic urgency, every muscle straining in futile protest as I can no longer hold my breath and take in the water.
My throat closes. The edges of my consciousness blur, black spots dancing across my vision. It hurts.
At the precise moment before I lose consciousness entirely—when the black spots have joined hands and the whine in my skull drowns out all else—they yank me up.
I emerge gasping, choking, water streaming from my hair, mouth and nose as I desperately suck in air. My lungs feel like they're being shredded from the inside.
“What ingredients are needed for the antidote?” Viera asks. It’s a variation of the same question she’s been posing since the ordeal started.
"I don't..." I gasp, water still streaming from my mouth. On the other side of the clearing, Logan lays on his side, his ribcage jerking with his whimpers. His eyes are closed and I don’t think he is aware of where he even is. If he was, certainly his draken would have come to help, wouldn’t it?
If the whole thing works the way Kai and Kyrian claimed.
Unless of course they were lying.
Again.
My captors shake me and I realize I’ve stopped talking. I quickly start again, before they remind me with a dunk. "I don't know of an antidote. Why… why would Eryndor need one?”
“For your research,” she replies calmly, as if we are both in on this conspiracy theory of hers. "As you can see, where do you take the shifters for experimentation?”
“I don’t,” I rasp between heaving breaths, my throat raw from coughing. Reece, the traitor, stands with his arms crossed and a satisfied expression on his face. I find enough strength to snarl at him before looking back at Viera. “I don’t experiment on shifters.”
“What about the draken? Have there been any victims whose shifting magic could not be corrupted?”
“I just work with metal. Alone. In my workroom. At the Spire.” I don’t know how to make the truth any more plain than that.
But Viera doesn’t want to believe anything that doesn’t match her story.
I wonder how much of this war is based on lies and misunderstandings and conspiracies.
Wonder if getting Flurry to see the truth might end the bloodshed.
If I see my mother and aunt again, I need to tell them.
Which I won’t. The only reason Viera let me see her identity is because she is sure I’ll be dead before I can reveal it to others.
“Can’t you just pull the secrets from her mind?” Reece demands of Viera. “I know you went in there to get her.”
“That isn’t remotely how it works,” Viera says before turning back to me. "How many shifters have you experimented on to perfect the alloy?"
“None.” I swallow. “I didn’t even know that auric alloy paralyzes shifters.”
“So, it’s all just a big coincidence?” she inquires with that reasonable tone that I’ve learned to fear.
“You happen to make an alchemical compound so targeted it can take away control of arms and legs and body, yet leave the heart and lungs intact? That’s quite a target to hit blindly, don’t you think? ”
“I -”
She gestures to her companions. "Again."
"Wait—" My protest is cut short as I'm plunged beneath the surface once more.
This time they hold me longer. The water seems colder, somehow, more hostile.
My chest burns, then aches, then screams for air.
I thrash against the hands holding me down, but they might as well be iron manacles for all the good it does.
The world narrows to this single, desperate need for oxygen.
My vision tunnels, darkness creeping in from all sides.
When they pull me up this time, I can barely stay conscious.
I hang limply in my captors' grip, water streaming from my mouth as I cough and retch, my body fighting to expel the liquid from my lungs. This being a less than optimal position from which to make observations, I’m only half aware of Reece’s current movements—but enough to find him closer to Logan’s limp form than I’d like.
I need to make him stop, but I don’t know how.
“What ingredients are needed for the antidote?” Viera starts, launching into the too familiar script.
“I don’t know.” I cough weakly, spitting out more water, and that's when I see it—Reece's movement out of the corner of my eye. He's crouching beside Logan now, one hand reaching toward the wolf's throat. A knife glints in his other hand. My heart lurches painfully, then pounds as the sentry puts his hand on the wolf’s fur. “Please! I don’t work on shifters. I swear. I wasn’t trying to hurt you like that. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what the alloy does. I didn’t know.”
Reece’s face rises to me, a cruel look corrupting his features. “Don’t believe her,” he tells Viera. “We all know it’s impossible. Eryndor knows exactly what it's doing.”
“I—” I cut off my thought as I catch the faint shimmer of blue-green light emanating from Reece's palm as he places it against Logan's side. It’s hidden well, the naked knife seeming to reflect the fire’s flames, but having grown up with a best friend who’d perfected trickling healing magic into me without the instructors catching on, I know what I’m seeing.
Reece isn’t trying to hurt Logan—he's trying to help him. Everything he’s been doing, has been an act. A very very good one.
My eyes snap to Viera’s, whose attention I now must keep at all costs. Not just hers. All of theirs. “I don’t experiment on shifters… Because… Because that’s my mother’s purview."
A murmur goes up around the fire circle, excitement flashing in eyes visible above face coverings.
“Where does Commandant Ainsley work on shifters?”
Logan's chest rises more steadily now, the labored wheezing replaced by deeper breaths. Whatever Reece is doing is helping.
"A… a research facility."
"Where?" Viera leans forward, her words coming with predatory intensity. "Where is the facility?"
Great question. The problem with lying is that it takes a lot of work. And ideation. Neither of which I have much brain capacity for right now. Hell, I barely have enough wits about me to keep track of who wants to kill me.
A slap makes my ears ring. “Where is the facility?”
"North," I manage. "In the mountains. Beyond the old watchtowers." My body trembles violently, partly from the cold water soaking through what remains of my emerald gown, partly from fear of losing Viera’s attention. Sweat is dripping along Reece’s temple from the effort he’s putting forth.
"There's a compound built into the mountain. Under it. In the rock. Hidden." I mean if it weren’t hidden, they would have found it by now, right? Though I’m not sure why someone would go through the trouble of carving a compound into rock. Wouldn’t a regular building do? Too late to change the story now.
Fortunately, Viera seems to accept it.
"How many levels underground?" she presses.
My mind scrambles. "Three. Maybe four. I've only been to the upper ones.” I steal another glance at Reece, whose healing light is growing dimmer but more focused.
Logan's breathing has steadied considerably, though he remains motionless.
I need to keep buying time. "The deeper levels.
.. That is where they do the real work. Where they keep the ones who've been there the longest."
“How many prisoners?”
"Dozens," I whisper, letting my voice crack with what I hope sounds like guilt. "Maybe... maybe more. They bring them in constantly.” Wait, if they bring them in constantly, wouldn’t there be more than dozens? “But they only keep the best subjects. The healthy ones.”
“And then what?”
My mind races to conjure whatever might fit in with Viera’s theories. "Injections," I say quickly. "Different concentrations of auric compounds. They... they test how much it takes to achieve different levels of paralysis."
The words taste like poison in my mouth, even as lies. But the hooded figures around the fire lean in closer, hanging on every fabricated detail.
I launch into an elaborate description of fictional protocols rooted in the basic tenets of alchemy.
The latter at least, I can talk about forever.
Though this is the first time I have an attentive audience for the details.
At least at first. I’ve just gotten to the importance of proportions and temperature when Viera puts out her hand to stop me.
"What security measures does the mountain have?”
I open my mouth to spin more horseshit, but my mind blanks. I stare at her, panic rising. “The temperature,” I insist stupidly. “It’s important. Vital.”
"She's stalling," one of the hooded figures says. "Put her under again."
Hands seize my shoulders, ready to force me back into the water. I thrash weakly, my strength nearly spent.
"Wait!" I gasp. "The northern entrance has fewer guards. They rotate shifts at dawn and—”
Before I can muster another creative thought, shouts erupt from the edge of the tree line, followed by the crash of bodies slamming through the underbrush.
The ritual circle fractures as hooded figures scatter, reaching for weapons. They barely have time to draw swords from beneath billowing ceremonial robes before a contingent of armored guards steps into the firelight.
"By order of Prince Theron," Talyn bellows, his voice cutting through the chaos, "stand down immediately!"
For a moment, everyone freezes and there is just the hiss and crackle of the bonfire, spitting embers into the confusion. Viera’s attention darts from Talyn to me to the two contingents of weapon ready warriors. It only takes her an instant to weigh her options. To make her decision.
"Kill the alchemist," Viera orders, her eyes blazing with calculated resolve. "Don't let them take her alive."
Across the clearing, Logan disappears into thin air.