Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Someone was shaking her. It started out gentle, with a light touch on her shoulder and soft words murmured into her ear.
A civilized approach, as if she’d fallen asleep in a coach.
But, gods all, she was so tired. Her mind resisted the nudge to wake from the dark.
Calya had never understood the appeal of sleeping in, seeing it as a waste of perfectly good working hours.
Until now. Cocooned in the peace of darkness, with nothing to make demands of her in time or energy, she saw the merits.
Would’ve continued enjoying them, too, if not for the progressively more determined hand on her shoulder.
If the original attempt had been one of courtesy, the rough jolt she received now was akin to the way she’d kicked the side of Anadae’s bed to wake her when they were children. As wakefulness was forced upon her, Calya felt a touch of compassion for her sister’s past disgruntlement.
“What?” she grumbled. Or, rather, meant to, as she shrugged off the offending hand. The croak that emerged from her dry throat was closer to a sound of protest than an intelligible word.
“Got to wake up, girl,” a deep voice said above her. “They’re coming back soon.”
Calya forced her eyes open, wincing as she struggled to adjust to the room’s light, weak as it was. She was lying on her back, and when she moved to sit up, she found that her wrists were tied. She stared at the thin rope, her brain sluggish as she tried to recall previous events.
Strong hands helped her upright. A dark-skinned man, his coal-colored hair shot through with gray and coiling to his shoulders, peered into her eyes. Satisfied with whatever he saw, he gave a brisk nod. “Avenor put you out, miss. Anything broke?”
“It’s Calya,” she replied, coaxing moisture back into her papery mouth. “I’ll live. Who’re you?”
“Matthias,” he replied. “Why’s Avenor so interested in you?”
“My winning personality.” Calya rubbed the side of her head. “I feel like shit.”
He met her words with an amused grunt. “Ervin gave you a knock, too.”
She took in their surroundings. Three others huddled at the back of the cramped room. There were no windows, the sole light source a small lamp and whatever brightness filtered through the door above a short set of stairs. She squinted upward. So, they were in some sort of basement.
Calya refocused on her fellow cellmates. Two were women of Radiant Isles descent. Vresha, she guessed, one of the southern regions, given how the lamp’s meager glow deepened their golden-brown skin and dark hair, the metallic lines etched into their almond-shaped earrings winking in the light.
The last member was a white man with dark red hair and a beard that hadn’t seen shears in a while. He wore a long gray coat with the initials for Grae University embroidered on the right breast, though the stitching had seen better days.
The same could be said of the whole group, all of them looking as worn as Calya felt. But that was the extent of their similarities. Her eyes lingered more on the differences. One in particular.
Though they were all bound, the others were restrained by manacles rather than simple rope.
While the Grae U man was the only one in official attire, the rest had a mix of robust, practical clothing and just a general…
air about them that gave the impression of mages, even though none wore robes or anything identifying.
She looked at the man who’d woken her, her mind slogging back through their conversation thus far.
“Matt—Matthias. You’re the one who wrote to the Sentinels. That was your office I found down in the cave.”
“Are you with the Sentinels?” the older Vreshan woman asked, hope in her voice. “Are they coming?”
“Yes,” Calya said with more conviction than she felt. “I came with a Sentinel, and word has been sent back to the Valley and to Rhell.”
“Galwynd?” Matthias asked, apprehension pinching the corners of his eyes.
“Gone. He made a deal with—”
“That spineless fucker,” the Grae U man snarled, the lilt of his accent and short vowels rendering the rest of his ire too hard for Calya’s still magic-addled brain to follow.
“I met two other mages,” she said instead. “Treen and Aylton. They were Coalition?”
More nods and angry muttering came in answer.
“Where are they? Why are you—” Calya scrubbed her hands over her eyes. “What—Just, what. Why, how, all of it.”
The mages exchanged hesitant glances.
Calya shook her bound hands for emphasis. “Since we’re all down here, I’d say we’re well enough on the same side. I found your secret journals,” she said, nodding at Matthias. “You were gathering evidence. Why didn’t you tell the Sentinels the truth?”
“We didn’t know, not at first,” the younger Vreshan woman said. “Sylveren sent us to do bioremediation work after Avenor’s failed project was discovered. We thought it was toxic overflow cleanup.”
“So, the garden beds of poison dirt I saw outside were…?”
“Not a choice,” Matthias said, voice hard. “The Coalition didn’t give us one. I did send word when we started to suspect something was off, but Song got suspicious and started screening our mail. Had to be careful after that.”
“Some of us fell sick. Then we knew,” the Grae U man said with a bitter laugh. “They threatened to withhold what few remedies we had if we didn’t cooperate.”
“More like obey,” the older Vreshan woman said.
“We’ve friends still here. Somewhere,” the Grae U man said. “Can’t leave them. And the work… it almost… well, worked.”
“Making a poison?” Calya thought back to the dirt in the beds. The exhausted look on Eunny’s face as she prepared to ride back to the Landing’s neighboring village. “I think you succeeded.”
“A cure,” he snapped. “Before our defenses broke. You’re not a mage, so what are you doing here?”
Gods, there were so many reasons she was here, but this wasn’t the time or place to get into them with a magic elitist. She had a headache as it was already without trying to condense her life story for strangers.
“I’m here to stop Brint fucking Avenor,” she said. “The what and the why together. Working on the how.”
Matthias huffed with a grim laugh. “On that, we’re all aligned.”
“They’re already clearing this place out. Why?”
The Grae U man’s shoulders slumped. “Our containment for the poison. It keeps breaking. The poison keeps changing, and we don’t have enough people to share the load. They know we can’t stop it from getting through. Not this time. Song might’ve had a plan, but she’s gone, and Avenor’s useless.”
The defeat in his voice made Calya’s blood run cold.
She wasn’t a mage or a scholar or a journalist. The closest she’d ever been to the Eyllic poison was what she’d read about in the papers during the war, and that had ended years ago.
She and Anadae had never discussed her more recent work with specifics, and besides, it took place up in the Valley.
Calya’s personal dislike of the place aside, it had a way of conveying a feeling of safety.
She only really knew of the poison from a business perspective, the danger and cost measured in aid provided by Helm Naval ships.
For something like the poison and its aftermath to take root in Graelynd…
it was too horrible for her to fully comprehend.
Calya had always assumed the Coalition was at least a little corrupt, but never to this degree.
Greedy, sure, but not reckless. Dangerous.
“Is there anything you can do?” she asked.
“The Coalition has the source,” Matthias said. “We might be able to slow the spread, but not forever.”
“Not without getting poisoned ourselves,” the older Vreshan woman whispered.
“That’s been their plan all along,” her younger countrywoman said. “Make this look like our fault and leave us here to rot.”
“My sister knows we’re here. Anadae Helm. She’ll come, and my Sentinel is here, and he’s already getting help as we speak.”
The others didn’t appear to share her confidence, but the words buoyed Calya. Anadae and Ezzyn would be sailing toward them already, and they knew far better than Calya what it took to stop the poison.
As for her Sentinel, the sentiment might not hold true anymore, but there was no doubting that Lowe would help. Even if he didn’t care for Graelynd, his morals had never been in question. Calya and the Sylveren mages wouldn’t be abandoned. She wouldn’t let herself entertain any other thought.
Further discussion was cut short by the sound of footsteps approaching the door.
A scrape of metal against rock, and then the door groaned open, revealing Brint silhouetted in the doorframe.
He clomped down the stairs, followed by a big, barrel-chested, unsmiling Graelynder who was the physical manifestation of everything Calya found repellent in men. What had Matthias called him? Ervin?
“Brint.” Calya struggled to her feet, ignoring the wave of nausea that came with the motion. Her pride revolted at the thought of letting him sneer over her, and if she managed to vomit on him, all the better.
“Oh, Caly. It doesn’t have to be this way,” Brint said, stopping in front of her.
Ervin glared at the mages, planting himself between Calya and the others.
She held up her bound hands to Brint. “I agree. Be a dear and do something about this.”
Brint laughed, the sound false and grating. “I’ve always liked your spirit, Caly. Now, be a good girl and tell me what I want to know, and I’ll see about making you more comfortable. Where is the ranger?”
“No idea. We aren’t partners.”
“Don’t waste my time. I know you’ve been poking around my business together.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here for HNE.”
Brint leaned in, an ugly smile curling his lips. “Liar. You’re not much of a spy, Caly. I found you with Matthias’s notes, remember?”
She somehow managed to keep her face blank, though on the inside she winced.