Chapter 24 #2
Her eyes were starting to adjust, and she realized she could make Benji out, in a stone alcove like hers, just across a small aisle.
He was on his stomach as well, gripping the bars.
It was cool in their prison, the air musty in a way that suggested they were underground.
Although not damp, at least, Alina reflected. A benefit of the desert, perhaps.
Looking along the row, she realized that their barred openings were only two of many. As she peered into the one next to Benji, her heart gave a horrible lurch. There was someone in there.
Benji obviously caught her little gasp.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “All the ones I can see from here are…occupied.”
“Are they dead?” The question came out as a hoarse whisper. Alina’s heart was pounding, fear threatening to overwhelm her. Was this what happened to all the victims? Buried alive in an underground tomb, left to die alongside their unfortunate fellows?
“We’re alive.” The faint voice from out of the darkness made Alina jump. “Just…can’t…risk…using…energy.”
The total exhaustion in the words wrenched Alina’s mind back to the terrifying feeling of teetering on the brink of a fathomless pit when she’d almost depleted herself.
“It’s all right,” she said quickly, relieved to know she wasn’t lying amongst a row of the dead. “Don’t try to talk. We’re going to figure something out.”
A low laugh, too miserable for humor, sounded from further along the row. Alina’s heart ached for her silent companions. If the timeline of disappearances was as they believed, some of them had been here for weeks.
“Are you all skilled with magic?” she asked.
Faint murmurs of assent sounded from all around them.
“What do they want with us?” she mused aloud. “Apparently it’s all to do with some method of storing magic in objects, and high energy capacity is especially desirable. But I don’t understand what exactly they’re doing.”
She closed her eyes, straining her extra sense to try to assess the situation a different way. There wasn’t much movement down in this vault, and she could still feel the blockage that prevented her from harnessing Dust. But it didn’t stop her sensing it.
“Benji,” she said softly. “Do you feel that? There’s Dust trailing from all of them.”
“What?” She could hear his frown. “But they’re not moving.”
“I know,” she mused. “It’s not exactly active. But it’s harnessed to them. In quite a quantity.” She screwed up her face, concentrating. “Not from you, though.”
There was a moment of silence as Benji did his own silent examination.
“You’re right,” he breathed at last. “It’s not coming from you, either.”
“Not yet.”
The ominous mutter came from somewhere down the line, and Alina’s fear spiked again. What exactly were they in for?
She got her answer soon enough. A grating sound from above preceded firm footsteps.
“Good. They’re both awake and ready.”
Alina squinted upward, trying to get a look at the man’s face. At first she thought it was the refinement worker she’d recognized earlier, but she realized after a moment that this man was a stranger. He just spoke with a similar cadence.
He knelt down, studying her with detached interest. Nothing in his manner or words suggested she was a conscious human being able to understand him.
“Is this the one? She really maintained a shield all night without help?”
“Yes, that’s her.” Another voice came from behind him, but Alina couldn’t see the speaker. “And our contact thought she could bribe us to kill her, can you believe it?”
The one studying Alina gave a dry chuckle. “Our neighbors here on the Peninsula are consistent, aren’t they? Always wasting their best resources.” He reached through the bars, grabbing Alina’s chin and tilting her face up.
“Leave her alone!” Benji cried, as Alina yanked herself out of the man’s grip.
He ignored both of them completely.
“With that energy capacity, she’s the perfect option to test the next stage on,” he said to his companion. “We’ll transport her to the coast once the search dies down.”
“We’ll need to be careful,” the other man cautioned him. “Remember our information is she’s got some kind of hold on the prince. He’ll be looking for her.”
“I’m not worried.” The one who seemed to be the leader sounded faintly amused. “He won’t find us, and if he loses his head over it as we’ve been led to expect, it will only work to our benefit in the end.”
Alina longed to shout at them, to tell them not to hurt Xavier. But she knew it would be unwise to confirm the connection between them.
“Will you test her first?” the second man asked. “Before taking her to the coast?”
“Of course.” The leader stood, his voice brisk as he pulled something from his pocket. “It’s not long before dawn. We’d best put them both into service now.”
He tossed whatever it was to his fellow, and both men glanced up. Alina’s range of vision was very limited, but she realized that a thin shaft of light was coming in through a tiny hole in the roof of their underground room.
“What are you doing?” she demanded uneasily.
The second man had moved forward and was placing a neatly carved wooden object just in front of her little cell. He put another next to Benji’s.
“Ready?” the leader asked.
At the other man’s curt nod, he closed his eyes, his face tight with concentration.
It was instantly obvious that the stranger was highly skilled in magic craft.
Using her sense of magic, Alina could feel a funnel of Dust pouring down through the tiny fissure above, surprising her with its steadiness and strength.
Where was it coming from? What was moving so consistently above them?
The man harnessed it deftly, its signature becoming more pronounced in Alina’s mind as it took shape in a way that only harnessed Dust could. She exchanged a tense glance with Benji.
“Lift the blocking enchantment now,” the man grunted.