Chapter 5 Livid
Livid
The animals that respond to my summons are the predators.
Bobcat. Wolf. Cougar. Grizzly. Jaguar.
They are mine and I am theirs.
For the last few months, they’ve been my only company.
We prowl this cell together. We claw at the walls, we hurl ourselves against the magic that binds us, heedless of the sick, slick feel of the blood that Mara used to weave it.
We tear apart every pretty bit of furniture Mance sends down to make our imprisonment more comfortable.
And when we are finished reducing each bit to splinters and bolts and ripped fabric, we display them.
A testament to the fact that an armchair will not make us forget her abandonment.
A polished end table will not erase her betrayal.
At first, she would only send more.
But at this point, with the cell crammed to bursting with the aftermath of our destruction, she has stopped.
Which means that now we are fully deserted, fully forsaken. For all I know, fully forgotten. And still we prowl, pacing in the dark. Trapped in a cage of broken things.
Tonight, we are particularly on edge, because something is happening above us. As usual, we have no idea what it might be. I hear the frantic stomping of many boots. I hear muffled shouting. There’s an unease that taints the air.
I pick up a piece of shredded chair and lob it at the ceiling with a scream, then listen for any reaction, any indication at all that someone has heard me. The stomping and the yelling don’t falter, but the growls of my companions rise, echoing off the bare, rock walls and nearly drowning them out.
I’m so focused on straining to discern what’s going on above my head that I don’t even realize someone is standing right in front of me.
Until he speaks.
“So. She has even locked up a part of herself.”
My head whips to the speaker, along with the head of every animal prowling around me. In my current mood, I feel ready to attack anyone in range, even a friend, though I don’t think I have any of those.
But the person standing in front of my cage is no friend.
It’s my father.
My reaction is immediate. A white-hot flare of shock, followed by burning, choking rage.
He’s walking free. Standing casually before me, arms folded leisurely across his chest, like he has all the time in the world to regard me.
My creatures leap for the bars, snarling at him and snapping their teeth, and I join them without hesitation, my fingers clawing at the invisible, bloody shield.
He only laughs, unharmed, as our efforts glance off Mara’s barrier.
“I think I like this side of you,” he muses.
My lips curl back in a sneer, and I claw more ferociously, imagining the squelching blood is his flesh beneath my fingers. Longing to shred him as easily as we shredded the furniture. Wanting him to hurt, to suffer, to burn.
If he truly likes this side of me, then he’s never understood me at all. Yes, he has always wanted my power, wanted to use it, but only if he could control it. And I would never, ever submit to him.
I would die first.
In a flash, I remember the last time I saw this man, when I had beads pulled taut against his throat.
The moment when he stopped gloating and felt true fear for the first time.
When all the violent strength he taught me was unleashed back on him.
I was so close. So close to ending him, so close to taking everything.
Not only his title, but also his life, and all of his power. It would have been mine.
If only Mance hadn’t stopped me.
There’s movement behind him, and it snaps me out of the memory, because it’s not until then that I realize my father isn’t alone. A figure stands behind him, hooded and half in shadow.
“I’m confused,” the stranger hisses, and I don’t recognize the voice. “Isn’t that . . . ?”
“Just part of her,” my father says dismissively, and I bristle at the casual sharing of our secrets.
The stranger looks over his shoulder. “All right . . . You can fill me in on the particulars later. We have to go.”
Go?
“What is this?” I demand. “You’re breaking out?” My voice is a near growl, and it’s not just because I want this monster to stay locked up forever.
I’m jealous.
I’m nearly choking with raw fury at the idea that he might get to feel the sun on his face while I’m forced to cower in the shadows.
But my father seems to have lost interest in me already. Instead of answering my question, he nods to his companion and starts to move past me. The mysterious man falls into step behind him, trailing like a shadow, ready to leave me to my fate.
I panic.
My throat closes with desperation and a cold sweat breaks out across my back.
Am I really about to watch him walk out? Stroll out, like he hasn’t a care in the world? Am I really going to stay behind?
I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands.
No.
Never.
I have to convince him to break me out, too.
But how?
My eyes latch on to his retreating back, and my thoughts race as my predators stir around me.
What I know about my father is that he’s practical. Viciously so. I need to persuade him that getting me out is in his best interest. Which, of course, it isn’t.
But unlike other forms of Mance, I’m not above a lie.
“Even if you could get out of your cell, you won’t be able to leave the dungeons!” I call after them.
My father stops walking. Then he looks back over his shoulder at me.
“Don’t listen to her,” his companion urges. “We need to go.”
“The door is magically warded,” I say. “It only opens for authorized guards. You can get in, but you can’t get out. And any attempt to open it will notify all the people who are authorized, and they’ll come running.”
“No one has magic like that,” the mysterious person retorts.
“It’s from the Grasslands,” I bluff. “Remember how Sangua forced a whole pile of her servants into the Broken Citadel to see what magic they came out with? Well, Azele has kept many of those powers secret, but she shares them with those in her alliances. This magic was a gift from her. And it was specifically meant to help keep you contained.”
They’re both hesitating now, looking at each other. It’s working.
I swallow my excitement and hold up a hand, wiggling my fingers.
“But I have Mance’s hands. I’m authorized. I could open the door.”
My father takes a step back toward me, scrutinizing my expression.
“And why would you help free me? You hate me. Even if your creatures didn’t make that clear, I can see it in your eyes.”
“Of course I hate you,” I spit. “But I hate confinement more. Let me out of this cage, and I’ll free us both. After that, we’ll call it even for tonight and we’ll go our separate ways. Deal?”
He starts to shake his head. “You’ll merge with Mancella, and then she’ll know how I escaped. Who I was with.”
This last statement surprises me, because I’m sure I don’t know the man. But Mance must if he’s worried about her identifying him. I glance at the stranger, only to find him already looking at me.
And when our eyes collide, for a second I think maybe I do know him. There’s a spark of recognition in my chest that makes the animals behind me stir.
But, no. His features are all unfamiliar.
It’s just the anger lurking behind his stare that I know all too well.
I turn away from him and press my advantage.
“I won’t,” I assure my father. “I won’t go to her at all. Why would I? She’d only lock me up again. You think I want to be here?”
He considers me carefully.
“Put your animals away,” he says finally.
I do, my heart hammering. And the air feels vast and empty without their breath at my back.
Then Father steps forward and unhitches the cord Mara wrapped around the front of my cage. I bite my lip, not trusting myself to speak.
“Can I borrow your lockpick?” he asks the stranger.
The man shifts from one foot to the other, still eyeing me. I wonder if he saw something familiar in my own stare, something that might make him second-guess opening my cage.
But before he can answer, the footsteps above us go thunderous, like a rainfall turning into a torrent. Whatever is happening up there has just gotten worse.
And the man seems to know why.
With a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, he unlocks my cell door and swings it wide.
I don’t wait a second more. I dash forward and past him, sprinting down the hallway.
“You said you’d let us out, too!” my father yells at my back.
And then they’re both barreling after me, no longer concerned with keeping quiet.
There’s no magical lock on the door, but that doesn’t mean I want them to get out. I loose all my predators again, sending them snarling down the hallway behind me.
The stranger pulls a sword from somewhere in his cloak, and my father withdraws a splintering stake from his pant leg, one that looks suspiciously like it used to be the leg of a table. I curse Mance and her ridiculous gestures.
When I make it to the door, I barrel into it, shoving it open, but somehow they’re right behind me.
My father slams his stake into the side of the jaguar’s head, whipping her snout away long enough for the stranger to slit her throat and then arc around to plunge his sword into the heart of my wolf as well, with brutal, awful efficiency.
I feel both creatures return to me and it seems harsher than usual.
Like they brought the aftershock of those injuries with them.
Probably because I’m sickened by what I just witnessed.
But I don’t have time for that. Blinking back angry tears at the cruelty of it, I wince and send them out again.
At the same time, I duck through the door and slam it shut behind me, groping around for the lock.
I want to trap them with all of my creatures, with all of my rage.
I want to give my jaguar immediate revenge.
But just as I find the latch and move to engage it, the door swings outward again, and my father thrusts his arm through the crack.
I abandon the latch in favor of bracing both hands against the wood and wrestle with him for a moment, my animals clawing at his back, even as the stranger continues his attack against them.
My father holds firm through the onslaught. And behind me, the booted footsteps are getting closer.
I grit my teeth, straining hard. But in terms of brute strength my father has always been my superior. Despite my struggle, the door starts to inch toward me. And then the stranger starts pushing, too, and my stomach sinks.
I can’t do it.
I can’t stop them from getting out.
The realization slams through me, bitter as poison.
If I stay much longer, we’ll all be caught. And I am not going back in that cage.
With a frustrated scream, I let the door go and run for the windows that line the hallway. Without looking back, I wrench one open, crouch in the window frame, and then fling myself onto the lawn.
I flinch as I feel my grizzly return to me, meaning that they’ve finally managed to end her.
Again, strangely, I feel the slashes as though I took them myself.
As the minutes tick by, the bobcat, jaguar, cougar, and wolf slam into me, too, making me feel wrung out and ripped apart.
It makes me sick how ruthlessly they cut them down.
I hope it was the guards who did it. I hope they caught my father and the stranger and marched them right back into the dungeons.
But I have no way of knowing.
And my hopes aren’t high.
I duck into the hedge maze and make a couple swift turns, taking cover in the heart of the leaves, and trusting that if anyone pursued me, I would know how to navigate my way out faster than they would.
My heart pounds in my ears and my breath comes in short gasps.
But I don’t hear anything else.
The night is silent.
Which means no one is coming after me.
I huddle against the bushes, trying to catch my breath. Trying to think about what I need to do next as my predators pace beneath my skin.
I’ll have to figure out a way out of the grounds. That’s first.
Most people don’t know that Mance can split, but if I run into someone who does, then I’ll have to pretend to be a part of her they won’t be threatened by.
I look down at my outfit. It’s crumpled and dirty, so I can’t impersonate Poise. And I don’t have anything to put my hair up with, so that cancels out Mance and Asset.
I’ll have to be Heart.
I comb my fingers through my hair and force a smile.
It doesn’t feel right.
Maybe I’ll just keep my head down.
With a groan, I lean back into the leaves, looking up at the moon I haven’t seen in so long. Then I inhale the heavy night air. I devour the scent of flowers. I relish the breeze on my skin.
No, I can smile.
I can smile, because I am finally free.
With my head held high, I walk out of the hedge maze and straight through the front gates.
No one stops me. There are a couple of confused glances, likely from people who know Mance to be in another location, but when I make eye contact the puzzlement resolves into respectful nods of acknowledgment. Mere confusion isn’t a strong enough basis to question a Prime.
And that’s what I am out here.
A Prime.
My smile deepens as I disappear into the night.