50. Chapter 50
My head bounced against something hard, the hit jarring me awake. My eyes flickered open but I quickly regretted the motion. Tiny bits of dust made my eyes sting and water, only amplifying the burning sensation.
“She’s awake,” Ora groaned. My head bounced once again and smacked the hard surface, igniting pain in my skull.
Ever so slowly, I rose up and pulled myself into a sitting position.
Once my eyes ceased watering, I took in my surroundings.
We were in a small holding wagon made of dark stone and wood.
The solid walls were fully enclosed, sans a small slit at the top.
The faintest bit of light seeped through a gap behind me, leading to what I assumed were the doors.
Ora and Sury sat side by side, cramped at one end.
I drew my feet in, hugging my knees as I scanned our moving prison.
“Where are we?” I asked, my throat sore and hoarse.
“From the looks of it?” Sury began. “Our host has taken us across the border into Dokvalon.”
“What?” I gasped and moved toward the small slit that acted more like a vent.
Through the tiny space, I could hardly make out the land, but noted a strange haze blocking the sun.
We were in a forest of sorts, except every tree and plant was dead.
Rows and rows of decayed limbs hung solemnly as our cage passed.
Bones lay scattered on the ground, many that I assumed (or hoped) to belong to animals.
My breath hitched when I noticed a heap of bones with large hind feet, a pair of peg teeth, and what looked like leftover matter belonging to wings.
Bratrian. There were scores of them, and other strange outlines of all sorts of beasts.
Bone after bone, I became lost in my mind and felt utter helplessness.
Only the sounds of the wagon’s wheels against rock and dirt filled the air.
Even the soldiers walked or rode their horses in an eerie quiet.
“Are you okay?” Ora asked, drawing my attention away from the decimated land.
I scoffed. “Are you?”
“Can you touch your magic?” Ora outstretched her hand to reveal faint yellow wisps that resembled a tragic version of the power she boldly Wielded.
My heart trembled as I mimicked her motions, opening my hand to show my own power.
It felt muted, like I could see someone speaking to me but the voice didn’t carry through the fog.
I squeezed my core, as if that would help the draw from my well through simply tensing or stretching muscle.
I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath as I focused on my hand, until my head began to feel light.
Faint, tiny specks of teal and silver light hummed within my palm, begging to be released, to be free from some unknown force that took away their light. Even the inky voice within my mind seemed to be at a loss for words.
“We’re guessing whatever this cage is made of, like those shackles, blocks your Wielding—just like the cave did.” Sury spoke in a low, gentle tone, like someone delivering the worst news one couldn’t bear to hear.
A sniffle escaped Ora as she said, “This is what it felt like all those months ago…when I was in that…place.”
I grabbed her free hand as Sury took the other. She didn’t need to say what she was thinking because I could see the terror in her eyes and the light threatening to flicker out. Small tears ran down Ora’s cheeks, Sury catching them one by one with his knuckles and casting them away.
I closed my eyes and saw silver ones. The last piece of my heart broke all ragged and sharp, but I refused to let it break me. I stared into the nothing, seeing images play slowly in my mind of the man who had claimed my heart—but now I will claim his in my hand.
A metallic tang coated my tongue as I bit harder into my lip, refusing to let the hurt overpower me in this moment.
No, there would be a moment to grieve, but now?
Now was the time to fight. To protect Ora once again from the unknown that was lying in wait, ready to ensnare us in its claws.
I would be ready, because no one had ever faced the wrath that built in my chest as I thought of every betrayal that led us here and every lie that convinced me that I was loved.
My mind’s eye saw each whispered promise being thrown into the fire, feeding it, stoking higher…hotter…stronger. Vovias and Ariadne met their fates, and so will he.
Ora and Sury talked in hushed tones but I never heard a word as we continued to sit there, stopping once for the night, although it hardly seemed any different from the daytime.
A guard gave us a bucket to use and shoved a shitty excuse of food under a slat in the carriage’s door.
The smell of whatever had been appallingly cooked made my stomach curdle and nausea build into my throat before settling.
Anger was taking over, and I would gladly let it.
After the night passed and some terrible sleep later, the carriage shifted to buckle along what could only be a poorly paved street.
Each turn threatened to make me nauseous once again before the carriage finally groaned to a stop.
Muffled commands came from the outside as a clanging against metal chains beat at the door.
Ora grabbed the back of my tunic, practically dragging me away from the door as it opened.
Gray sunlight entered the carriage. Through instinct I shielded my eyes but quickly adjusted when a shadowed figure entered the frame.
“From the smell of you, I’d say you’re in competition with the swine,” Cadis said with a cold, mocking grin.
“Come, the lot of you. We’re not going to keep him waiting. ” He stepped back to let us exit.
“Let me go first,” I whispered back to Ora and Sury, who both began to object, but I ignored them and scooted toward the end.
A hand extended to my left, offering help to climb out of the carriage.
I thought it was odd that a soldier would show hospitality to prisoners and looked to say as much, only to find silver eyes boring into mine.
My lips pulled back into a snarl. Something like hurt flashed across Peiro’s expression before his face returned to its stoic state. “Let us help you, princess,” he said in a hushed whisper.
“Haven’t you done enough?” I spat at his boots and climbed out of the carriage, landing on my feet. I spotted a dark collar around his neck beneath his tunic but dismissed it, for I no longer cared. “May Thuvina guide you through Cisoi’s Door.” I snapped, neither of us refusing to move.
“Keep your eyes open. Not everything is as it appears,” he choked through gritted teeth.
“You would know that, wouldn’t you?” I kept my glare, hoping the daggers I formed with my eyes found their mark.
I finally lost the battle once I felt hard metal encasing my wrists in heavy shackles and was pulled along to the front of the carriage.
The coolness of the metal covered my skin as a foreign feeling entered my body, muting my Wielding once again.
Sury was right about their power-muting extending to shackles.
At least these people were thorough. Ora and Sury stood next to me in matching sets.
We were lost for words as we observed the black castle made of stone that felt unnatural.
The spires rose into the sky and became lost in the red-tinted fog.
What I assumed used to be a garden that led up to the stone steps was now but rotten stems jutting from the ground.
The leaves and petals of flowers laid curled and black—a ghost of what their beauty used to be.
“Come along,” Cadis called out and he took the steps by twos.
It was such an odd contrast, seeing his bright blonde hair and green tunic stick out against the grays and blacks of our surroundings.
Strangely, the metal hoops in his ears shined against the fog with each step he took toward the dead castle.
Slowly we followed. The closer we climbed, the more detail I could make of the structure and how everything was coated in a strange black matter. Red lights blinked from various windows before disappearing altogether from the strange clouds.
The inside was immaculate and dark. Black marble with white and red veins overpowered the ornate gold-accented decorations. All was strangely well-kept and unlike the dead land just outside the door.
I didn’t realize I had stopped walking until I heard a hard sigh come from ahead of me.
“Any day now. He’ll be pissed if we’re late, and, well…
you don’t want to see what he does when he’s rather angry.
” Cadis’s smile turned my stomach sick before he pivoted on his feet and headed toward large, elaborate doors at the end of the black and red hall.
“Do you know anything about Dokvalon’s king?” I asked as I watched Ora step next to me.
“I heard he didn’t have a face,” Sury said from Ora’s other side. “That his evil deeds rid him of his skin.”
“Mother and Father only shared with me that we must keep the treaty in place…but we never got further than that before they died,” Ora whispered. I reached for her hand, the skin on my wrists stinging in protest of the motion within the chains.
“You need to keep moving.” The deep whisper came from behind. The same voice that used to whisper vows and encouragements. The voice I had so willingly given my heart to. The one I’d finally admitted that I had loved.
But now the voice fueled my wrath.
“Touch me and die,” I said over my shoulder, not bothering to give him my attention. I continued following Cadis into the door he’d disappeared behind and into a large room.
The throne room, I realized, matched the hall with the black marble with red veins.
The black was so deep it reflected the lanterns, giving the impression that it was liquid ink.
The extravagance was breathtaking, even as a foggy haze billowed on the other side of the windows where the sun fought to shine through.