Chapter 6
Silence. And then, just as I am about to break it, Kaelis speaks.
“I didn’t even know Arina was your sister,” he says calmly. The flash of hurt in his eyes has my frayed nerves calming. “You only ever called her your ‘friend.’ ”
“Sister or not, did you know Arina was the Star?”
“No,” he answers calmly. “If I had, I would’ve told you, I swear.”
“Arina…She’s not dead?” Gregor, like Ren, asks the room.
Ren lifts his hands uncertainly.
Jura mouths, I don’t know.
“She’s alive,” I say. “She’s here. And we’ve wasted enough time. We’re getting her.”
Twino shifts. “Clara, I know that Arina’s death was—”
“Ravin told me she was alive,” I interrupt pointedly.
“This is not ravings following the abuse Glavstone put me through. I assure you, I am quite mentally competent. This is not my first experience surviving torture.” Ren and Jura both wince at that.
“She’s here in the dungeons. And I would bet anything that she is the Star.
” My eyes drag back to Kaelis. “Level three. Cell five.”
Kaelis slowly nods, confirming what I already know. His voice is soft and solemn when he says, “The Star, based on what I uncovered, is being held on level three, cell five.”
“Fuck.” I turn and storm back to Glavstone’s body and kick his corpse in the side for good measure. I don’t know what he, specifically, did to my sister. But fuck him for it. Fuck the whole world. I grab the key ring off his desk and then head for the closet door.
As I open it, the world seems to oscillate.
For a second, I’m back in Eza’s vision. It’s surreal just how closely my motions match what I did then.
Except this time, the armored individuals that move behind me are my friends.
Kaelis’s voice is actually present as he pushes past Gregor and Jura, not distant and disembodied as it was in the vision.
“Clara,” he says.
“Yes?” I unlock the trapdoor in the floor of the closet. Just as I’m going to start down the stairs, Kaelis grabs my wrist and shoves something into my palm.
A deck.
The cards are gorgeously made, with gilded edges and inked with heavy lines that show a complete disregard for conserving precious powder.
I instantly recognize the elegant, almost minimalistic style of the main subjects of the cards contrasted with the heavily detailed framing.
And if not for that, I’d still recognize the way the magic flows through them almost as easily as I’d recognize it channeling through my own cards.
It’s undeniably Kaelis, from the first brushstroke to the last caress of power.
I hold his stare, and Kaelis leans forward to speak only to me. “You deserve a better deck than whatever swill Glavstone inked.”
“Thank you.” I mean it fully.
Kaelis nods. As he releases his grip, his fingers drag over the back of my hand. There’s so much quiet longing in his touch. An apology that this is not the time or the place for. A yearning that doesn’t want to be ignored, yet must be.
I turn, brace myself, and start down the stairs.
All I can think of is how much this place has taken from me. I want to rip the whole thing apart, stone by stone, every cell and iron bar. As long as Halazar stands, it will always call me back. It will always be a part of me.
From the outside, Halazar looks like a box, with three stories extending above the rocky island.
Basement floors descend three levels into the bedrock of the island as well, but each is only one hallway long, with just a few cells lining it.
These levels are stacked on top of one another, connected by stairs at their ends.
As we descend deeper into the bowels of Halazar, the air becomes as thick as the scum that oozes down the walls.
“Welcome to the first level of the dungeons,” I announce as the stairs finally end at a compact hallway.
I lift a cold lantern off the wall and summon an Ace of Wands from Glavstone’s deck; I am saving Kaelis’s cards for when I really need them.
Sure enough, the magic is weaker than I’d like—than I’m used to—thanks to Glavstone’s mediocre inking.
The lantern is still full of oil and sparks to life, but its glow doesn’t reach very far.
Doors emerge from the darkness like ghosts.
Everything is eerily still and silent until a door suddenly rattles so violently it nearly bursts off its hinges.
Screaming rises from within, a sound more beast than man.
Other prisoners join in a haunting litany of yelling and shrieks.
“What’s happening?” Ren’s voice has a slight quiver.
“They know we’re here,” I say.
“So they’re trying to escape?” Gregor reasons.
“Maybe. Maybe they think a beating is coming. Maybe they are expressing their pain when they know someone can hear them.” The door is still rattling behind us even after the darkness consumes it.
“Were you…” Jura struggles with the question. I let her. “Were you kept down here?”
“Once,” I say, pausing at the end of the hall at the precipice of another staircase. “Only on this first level. From here on, the other levels are unknown to me.”
But deep below is my sister, and nothing will stop me from getting to her.
“How long did he keep you here?” Kaelis murmurs over my shoulder.
He hovers like a shadow that’s as familiar as my own.
“Only a few days, I think. Not too long. It didn’t have to be to nearly break me.” The door to what was my cell looms in my periphery. Haunting me.
“I should’ve gotten you out sooner,” he murmurs.
“Yes. Back then. But what’s done is done.” I glance at him. Kaelis doesn’t flinch or look away. “At least you were swift this time.”
We plunge into the desolate darkness. The second level is laid out exactly like the first, but there are no noises here. If those within can hear our footsteps, they are too broken to react.
On the switchback of the final staircase I imagine we’re somewhere below the riverbed. No one says anything as we reach the final hall. Here, there is nothing more than stale air and rough stone stained with memories best forgotten.
Despite what Ravin said, and Kaelis’s research supporting it, my chest is so tight I can barely breathe: Do I dare believe my sister is here? I can still feel the bones that I thought were hers in my arms.
We come to the final doorway. Cell five.
I pass the lantern to Kaelis and search the key ring I filched off Glavstone’s desk to find the one that unlocks the door. It takes my trembling hands three tries to find the right key. I move agonizingly slowly. But none of them dare try to do it for me.
The door opens with a sharp scream of old hinges. Beyond it, a narrow, short passage ends in another locked door—to prevent runaways, I’d suppose. The cells on the first level of the dungeons had solid doors, but nothing like this.
A lump catches in my throat, one I can’t force down no matter how hard I swallow.
Hands trembling, I fumble with the keys again, their noise jarring against the suffocating silence.
I yank open the second door, and a rush of putrid air barrels into me.
I gag, the stench of death and decay thick on my tongue.
For a heart-stopping moment, I worry she died mere days before I could get to her.
Not when I was so close…
I step inside, unable to bear the mystery any longer and yet terrified of what I might find. The darkness is so absolute, it is an abyss that swallows the dim flicker of the lantern. Another step. The ghostly shifting shapes coalesce into a figure in the very back, huddled in a corner.
Is she moving? Is she even breathing?
Stumbling, I make my way to her, fighting against the swamp of dread and guilt that mires me. I want to run, but I am too bogged down with horror and fear.
Arina, forgive me for all my weaknesses. For taking so long. Forgive me. Forgive me…
The walls are streaked with filth and the desperate etchings of fingertips raked across stone until the prisoner’s nails surely gave out. The floor is stained with a sickly, mottled brown from horrors more numerous and vile than my brain can conjure.
I’m only a few steps away when I see the faintest tremble to her shoulders. She’s alive.
I choke down a sob as a thousand buried emotions resurrect themselves at the same time.
She’s hunched, curled in on herself, arms folded tightly around her knees as if trying to shield what little remains of her body.
Her arms are so thin I could nearly wrap my thumb and middle finger around them.
On papery white skin from shaved scalp to curled toes is a tapestry of bruises and scars and still-weeping wounds.
I’m almost afraid that if we even try to move her, she’ll crumble to dust in our hands.
But she is alive.
Every labored breath protrudes her ribs, visible through the holes in her rags. How is she even still breathing? I ask myself.
But that’s my little sister, a rebel to the last. Every breath she takes is defiant.
She mutters over and over, her words indistinguishable. Like a long-unanswered prayer for salvation from this place. I kneel next to her. She doesn’t move.
“Arina?” I whisper.
She flinches but doesn’t turn.
My hand lands on her shoulder. “Arina. It’s me.”
With agonizing slowness, she lifts her head. I know that profile instantly, even hollowed as it is.
It’s her.
Tears stream down my face. Her eyes are distant and unfocused. But they’re hers. The lantern light picks up the gold in them, and they seem to glow an almost catlike yellow.
I’m barely breathing. My heart is going to burst from my chest or spasm from skipping too many beats until it stops entirely.
She’s here. She’s alive.