Chapter 12 – Zaide
CHAPTER 12
ZAIDE
M y head banged on the smooth stone floor when I awoke sharply, face down and confused. I rolled onto my back and groaned as I pressed my hand to my head and allowed the events of the evening to come rushing back to me.
Hunters attacked the island, and just as Daithi had foreseen, I was now their captive.
Ice spread through my veins as though the damp of the floor had seeped under my skin, and I shuddered but didn’t open my eyes. I wasn’t ready to face the reality of my situation.
You have suffered worse than anything a human could throw at you. You will survive this. You have much to live for.
The memory of Clawdia telling us about her vision of children—our children—flashed into my head, and I sighed as my heart warmed at the thought; the ice melted.
I tried to reach out to her across our bond but found it muted and dulled. Panic surged into my throat, and I swallowed thickly as I searched further. I could see it in my mind’s eye, the purple bond that stretched between our souls, but I couldn’t touch or feel it.
Something blocked us from connecting.
Something here? A spell or the cage? Or something on her end? It reminded me of the terrible moment when she lay unmoving in the cave for days as she recovered. My mind blanked as panic rushed through me. Has something happened to her? And Charlie and Baelen, are they also hurt? Or taken?
Screams shattered the quiet, and I shot upright, my eyes wide open to see my new prison. Unconscious witches covered the floor, positioned as though the hunters had thrown them into the cage, not caring where they landed.
Some had just awoken as I had and rubbed their heads. They whimpered as they tried to wake their friends. I remembered the feeling the first time I woke up in captivity; the memory haunts me.
Much like the cage in the cave, a fuzzy blue magic outlined the bars. But what hunters use magic to capture supernatural beings? Are they not human? Or do they have a witch they used to do their spells?
It was puzzling, to say the least, but I’d learn more about my captors when they showed themselves. As more witches stirred, I realized this moment couldn’t have been the one from Daithi’s vision. He said I was alone in a cage and being taunted. I relaxed slightly, glad to know my suffering may not be as imminent as first assumed.
Ingrid, Karin’s mother, sobbed loudly, and her husband, the miserable doctor, consoled her with light touches and hushed words along with other awake witches. But she crawled away from them to peer down at the faces of the unconscious witches and cried, “Karin. Karin. My daughter, where are you? Please … please …”
Clawdia visited Karin, so if Karin was here, so would Clawdia, and I didn’t want her to lie on the cold floor if she could lie safely in my arms. Yet I remained still, uncertain of my reception here and, more importantly, aware that moving might bring attention from our captors.
Ingrid got more hysterical as she continued to check the faces of the other captives and didn’t find her daughter. By the time she checked the last unconscious witch, she was screaming again. “Oh, my daughter, where could you be? Why aren’t you here with us?”
I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe Clawdia and Karin are safe somewhere else.
The witch next to her gently stroked her arm and said, “Is it not better that she isn’t here, Ingrid? I understand your worry, but I think you need to be more concerned for yourself and everyone else here.”
Ingrid ignored her and wailed, “She’s dead. I just know it. I know she didn’t escape. The brutes killed her. She was such a fragile girl.”
“Oh, stop with the hysterics, Ingrid,” a red-haired witch snapped from the opposite corner. She sneered at Karin’s parents as she hugged a younger witch’s unconscious body to her chest and stroked her hair. “It’s Karin’s fault we are here. She can rot for all I care.”
Silence fell, and all eyes turned to her. She didn’t seem unnerved. She continued to ignore everyone, but her jaw was stiff, and her eyes blazed with anger.
“What do you mean by that?” a familiar voice asked from the left of the cell. Alex, the daemon representative from the supernatural council, pushed himself into a sitting position, crossed his arms, and glared at the redhead.
“Is it not obvious?” The witch scoffed. “A girl who had so little magic herself used the wards to siphon magic, not just from the wards, but from her family and all of us stupid enough to take refuge on that cursed island. Wards that failed and allowed hunters to gather us up like pigs to slaughter. She probably organized the collection herself.”
The doctor’s face turned red, and he shook as he shouted, “Blasphemy!”
Ingrid’s voice cracked as she replied, “We gave you shelter, welcomed you, fed you, and this is how you repay that hospitality?”
Ingrid’s friend, who continued patting Ingrid’s back, glared at the witch and hissed, “You speak of black magic. No witch can do dark magic. All the teachings are lost. As they should be.”
“Lost to the largest collector of witch teachings in the world? I don’t think so.” The witch shook her head, the disgust on her face clear.
Marianne, the vampire representative for the council, interrupted the next tense silence. “Do you know something we don’t? Do you have evidence for these accusations?”
“Karin drained my magic for a ward that was supposed to protect us, and yet that ward failed, and the girl is not here.”
“Don’t you talk nonsense about my daughter!” Ingrid shouted, spittle flying from her mouth as she pointed threateningly.
“But how did the wards fail? And why, in that exact moment, did the hunters find us?” The red-headed witch threw her hand wildly, gesturing to the cage. “And are we all going to ignore the fact that hunters took us, yet we now sit in a witch-made cage spell? Who else could have been the one who led us to our doom?”
The accusations sent a chill down my spine. If Karin caused our capture, what did she do to Clawdia? Where is my soul pair?
Ingrid screamed and charged the outspoken witch. “You shut your filthy mouth!”
Her husband grabbed her and held her back before she could do anything, and she fought him until he whispered something in her ear. As she settled into his arms and her glare lessened, the tension eased.
And then someone close to me whispered, “Why are we even alive? They are hunters. What reason would they have for capturing us instead of simply killing us all?”
Someone else whimpered. “Torture? Maybe they want us to give up our secrets?”
“Torture?” a voice from across the cage squeaked.
“Well, what did you think was going to happen?” snapped another angry and stressed witch.
Another muttered, “We were all trying not to think about it.”
While the same high-pitched voice echoed, “Torture?” again.
A cheerful, hopeful person remarked, “If Elizabeth and Karin are on the outside, then maybe they’ll rescue us.”
And then that person was torn down by a negative, monotone person who replied, “I wouldn’t bet on it. Karin is the reason we are here, and Elizabeth’s main priority is not saving us. We are doomed.”
It had escaped my notice that Elizabeth also wasn’t in the cage, and I was glad Charlie wouldn’t lose his birth mother. I sighed. And I wouldn’t feel responsible for ensuring her safe return.
Perhaps she is already with Charlie.
As the witches became more and more distressed, I still didn’t catch sight of Clawdia, Baelen, or Charlie. I prayed Baelen kept his promise and they were all somewhere else, somewhere safe. I hoped Savida, Daithi, and the protector were alive and well too.
“Can you not say something positive?” another person snapped.
The monotone witch replied again, “What’s positive about this situation? I’m positive we are going to die here. Make peace with the goddess, because we’ll be reunited with her soon.”
“Die?” the squeaker squeaked.
Just as the whole cage was about to descend into panicked chaos, Marianne clapped her hands and stood up. The witches quieted and gazed at her like a savior, as if she were hope personified. “Stop. Stop. You’re all causing each other to panic, and that isn’t productive. Now, let’s do a quick headcount and plan our next move.”
“Zaide? Are you awake?”
Joseph, the faei representative of the supernatural council, shuffled across the floor to me and became visible in the blue hue. His usually smart-looking clothes were torn and hung limply from his shoulders. His hair resembled a bush.
“Yes,” I croaked and cleared my throat. I made myself comfortable, crossing my legs and arms and keeping as far away as possible from the nervous creatures near me.
Joseph wasn’t nervous and sat close to me as he spoke in a low voice, “Quite the predicament we find ourselves in.”
“It certainly seems that way. How many of us are here?”
He hummed. “About fifty, I’d say.”
I let out a breath and asked, “All the council are with you except Elizabeth?”
“Yes.” He pointed in their direction, and I could make out Samuel crouched and shaking. Joseph continued, “Unfortunately, Samuel’s beast is struggling with the cage and has rendered him useless in our escape.”
“Escape?” I asked slowly.
He made a humorless chuckle and replied, “Of course. You didn’t think we would lounge around in our enemies’ grip for long, did you?”
“You can escape from this cage?” I clarified, because that information would have been important to all those panicking witches a few moments ago. They needed hope. I glanced over at Marianne to see her leaning over a group and whispering. Maybe that’s what she was doing.
“With your assistance, I don’t doubt it,” Joseph said confidently.
I blinked, then rushed to ask, “What can I do?”
“While the witches work on the spell to bring down the shield and I ensure the task team can locate us, you will need to bend the bars. You can do that, correct?”
“I can.” With new hope rising inside me like a bird launching into the sky, I smiled widely. But where would we escape to? The hunters would surely hunt us down. I frowned, then asked, “You are hoping the task team will be close by to rescue us?”
He nodded. “All the council have a chip inside them with a locator spell on it since we should be reachable by all our people, but I believe it to be blocked by some spell. When we don’t check in with the task team, they will come looking for us. Hopefully, by then, I will have already circumvented the spell and freed us.” He eyed me. “You also have a special connection to your soul pair. Can she find you through that?”
I pursed my lips, thinking back to when Clawdia went missing and how Charlie and I followed the feeling of her pain to her, or made us rush automatically toward her, our bond taking over. I wasn’t sure what was correct, but we found her.
My bond with her differed from Charlie’s, so I replied slowly, “I’m not sure if we can find each other, actually. What are you doing to unblock the locator?” Perhaps I could do the same to unblock my bond with Clawdia. But I didn’t mention this to him. I didn’t want him to worry if he couldn’t get the task team to find us.
“Oh, I’m just creating an illusion shield to block their block.”
Not something I could do. “Ah, yes. Faei illusion magic.”
“I’m sure with a friend like Daithi, you know it well.”
“Daithi is very secretive.” I looked at the witches listening avidly to Marianne and asked, “When are they planning to do the spell?”
“As soon as possible. Before our captors have time to react.” I nodded. We needed to try something. He patted my shoulder. “Glad to have you on board. We’ll let you know when we’ll need you, but it will probably be evident.”
“Wait a moment, Joseph.” He raised his brow and paused before I whispered, “Did you see the dragon? On the island? Just before we were taken?”
“No.” His eyes scanned mine. “I assume you did?”
“I think so. There was a roar. I think it lifted me.” I tried to remember clearly but only recalled flashes of gold. I shook my head. “But it makes little sense. Why would Fafnir be on the island when the hunters attacked us? Does he not fear them too?”
“Are you sure you saw him? Did you have a reaction to the tranquilizer? Are you feeling well?” Joseph’s brows furrowed with his concern. Not because he liked me, I assumed, but because he needed me well enough to help us escape.
I frowned. Other than my bond with Clawdia feeling cold and lifeless, there wasn’t anything wrong with me. “I feel fine.”
“Then I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. If Fafnir was there when we were taken, he’d hardly let a bunch of humans take us when he could drain us himself.”
“I don’t think it tried to hurt me …” I’d been lifted, but then hunters shot it, and it dropped me. Maybe it was trying to kill me. Why else would it pick me up?
He patted my arm, which both infuriated and reassured me. “I think you were seeing things. It’s fine. It’s a drug meant for humans, so who knows how many darts hit you to knock you out. You might have overdosed but as long as you feel all right now …”
I knew nothing about human drugs, but his certainty that it was a hallucination had me doubting my own mind, my own eyes. And as I recalled the moment, I could have sworn there was something familiar about the dragon, something in its eyes … so perhaps I was unwell.
Joseph gave me a smile and shuffled away from me, leaving me to my own thoughts. Marianne was still supervising the witches, and they were chanting quietly, all focused on a task and calm. Alex bent over Samuel, trying to calm him from whatever was triggering his beast. I’m certain the lack of freedom frustrated him, but maybe there was other magic involved, as there seemed to be with the shields.
A terrible thought suddenly occurred to me. What if they are listening? Like the witches were listening to us when we were in the cave cage?
I reached across someone to clasp Joseph’s shoulder hard and whispered, “Have you checked there’s no one listening to us down here?”
His expression changed from shock to a frown, and he shrugged off my touch. “Of course we have. I wouldn’t be speaking so freely otherwise.”
He attempted to turn his back and continue whatever magic he was attempting, but I grasped his arm and asked again, “I do not mean for magical ways of listening, I assume that is the first thing, considering we are in a magic cage, but have you checked for human things. Things Charlie might use to listen to others.”
When his expression faltered, my heart stopped, and as his head swung around, I saw his eyes searching the walls beyond our cage. He shouted to Marianne, “Did you check for bugs or technology hidden from us?”
His question, once again, made the silence fall and the tension rise until all I could hear was my heartbeat in my ears as Marianne paled and she, too, scanned the room.
“It’s dark in here …” I allowed my thought to trail off since it didn't help anyone acknowledge the hunters probably left us in the dark so we would assume we were alone and forgotten about and they could hide things.
Now we had to deal with the outcome of our foolishness.
One witch, after a quick chant, pointed with a shaking hand and a sob in her throat. “There.”
I couldn’t see what she pointed at, but panic spread through the cage like wildfire. Whimpers became screams, and although the council tried to hush and take control of the situation, it was too late. My heart hammered as chaos descended.
Those not prone to panic launched themselves into the spell, chanting loud enough for the others to calm slightly and join. I stood and gripped the now flickering blue bars, ready to do my part and push them apart for us to escape. But a loud and angry hiss drowned out their casting, and smoke filled the room.
The chanting stopped as screams took over, and hysterical witches clawed at the bars. But the bar’s blue shield came back to full power, blasting the witches and me away.
As the smoke covered us all, I curled into a ball on the floor and covered my mouth with my shirt. But so many witches were still screaming and rushing to the bars, stomping on me in the process enough that my hair was tugged as feet slipped on it.
My gods, if you can hear me, please protect us. Ensure Clawdia, Charlie, and your son, Baelen, are safe. I need them, and they need me. Please help us reunite.
And as the screaming died down and the sound of the smoke stopped, I opened my eyes to see everyone collapsing in the strange-tasting white fog. Piled atop one another and in unnatural positions, many had their mouths wide open as their chests continued to rise and fall. Alive.
Relief swept over me as my eyes fluttered shut and my mind quieted.
The last thing I heard was footsteps.