Chapter 20
SECOND CHANCE?
Arioch
Someone nudged my shoulder, and I jerked awake. Silentium’s hilt was in my hand before my eyes focused on my húskarl standing hunched over me with a finger pressed to his lips in warning.
I inclined my head in acknowledgment, and Tyrin leaned back against the wall, peering cautiously through the window. The first rays of predawn cast shadows throughout the abandoned flat where we had spent the night.
What is it? I inquired telepathically, unwilling to alert the threat to our presence.
Something teleported in, Tyrin replied.
He and I had slept in shifts throughout the night, yet neither of us had fully rested in the unfamiliar wasteland.
The effects of portal fatigue lingered in the deep hollows of his eyes and the stoop of his shoulders.
It clung to my bones like lead weights as I rose to my feet and joined him at the window.
A rusted Ferris wheel creaked across the square, solving the mystery of the sound that had haunted me all night.
Distant voices drew my attention as something moved by the entrance to the teleportation station.
Through the barren trees, I glimpsed four silhouettes, their breath misting in the frozen air as they moved with an exhausted version of military precision, weapons slung across their backs.
The soldiers crossed the square, boots crunching through the snow-covered landscape as they neared our building to follow a well-worn walkway I had missed in the dark of last night.
As they passed beneath our window, I caught the stench of human sweat—sharp and nervous—mingled with the musk of animal shifters and something damp and earthen.
They rounded the building and disappeared from sight.
“The fatigue should wear off shortly, m’lord,” Tyrin said.
Having come to the same conclusion, I nodded, though my attention remained on the soldiers. What could they possibly be doing here?
“Clymene would not have sent us on a fool’s errand,” he continued.
The intensity of the artifact’s tug on my awareness made me want to forsake all other pursuits and distractions to hunt it down. Still, we were here by design, and there was something not quite right about this place.
Tyrin watched me, waiting. “We cannot travel until the fatigue lifts.”
I knew what he was asking. “Agreed. We follow them.” We had time, and there was no harm in seeking out this second chance Clymene had mentioned.
I collected my bag and tested my connection to magic.
The trickle had grown into a narrow stream.
It was far from the raging river I was accustomed to, but still a marked improvement. “Can you shift yet?”
Tyrin flexed his fingers, and stone rippled across his knuckles before fading. “Almost.”
The heaviness in my legs made it feel as though I trudged through water as I descended the crumbling stairwell and slipped into the street.
Careful to stay downwind, we stalked through the shadows of abandoned buildings, mindful of the frozen snow.
The city sprawled around us in various states of decay, the sight even more forlorn in the light.
My portal fatigue lifted mere minutes before Tyrin’s shoulders lifted.
Like breaking through water’s surface to walk on dry land, is it not? I asked.
An apt description, indeed.
Magic surged at my will. It was time to return to the teleportation station and abandon this wretched place, but curiosity had me in its grasp, and we had almost reached the enormous half-cylindrical construct.
As we drew nearer, the acrid sharpness polluting the land worsened, leaving a metallic taste on my tongue.
Shouts of greeting rang out ahead. The soldiers we were following stopped to converse with four others standing guard before a small outbuilding.
Tyrin and I ducked behind a copse of evergreens and waited as the newcomers concluded their conversation before continuing on to a second outbuilding. They disappeared inside, and the door closed behind them.
Tyrin looked to me, and I acknowledged his question with a slight shake of my head. The second chance Clymene spoke of would likely be in the guarded outbuilding, but with nothing more to go on than a vague guess, I would not risk a closer look. We had tarried here long enough.
I turned to my húskarl. We should go.
Where?
It occurred to me then that I had yet to inform him of my dream, so I took a moment to share what I had learned from Ziara.
Al Mukalla, Yemen? he asked. What are they doing there?
She refused to say. But his response had given me more information than I had before. Yemen is in the Middle East, correct? It had been a while since I had studied geography.
Yes. Tyrin continued to eye me. I was led to believe the dream walk was a one-time spell.
Clymene knew of a permanent option.
The shock in his eyes was loaded with questions about the wisdom of my decision, but he said nothing. The outcome would not change.
The door the soldiers had disappeared behind swung open, releasing a hulk of a man who had to duck to clear the frame. A guard shuddered when the brute passed, issuing a command. Two others peeled off and followed him into the secured outbuilding.
You trust the thief’s word? Tyrin asked.
I was… convincing. They are in Yemen.
Well done, m’lord.
Was I proud of the extreme I had gone to in order to convince her to reveal their location?
Yes. My methods had been efficient, yielding the desired results.
Still, I could not deny the way my chest had tightened at the look she had given me when she realized I would not hesitate to eliminate her pack.
Were the lives of her people more important than mine? Absolutely not.
I would spare the children, though. I was no monster, and it was not their fault, and they would not be held accountable for the imbecilic warmongering of the adults.
The wolves are planning to restart the war. They want to eliminate the Mondeine.
Morons. He shook his head. Are they all children? Have they no memory of how abysmally that plan went the first time?
I believe she meant to recruit me.
A smile ghosted across Tyrin’s lips. A gross miscalculation on her part. Did you learn anything else of interest?
She will do anything for her people. It was a trait I admired, and one I would continue to exploit.
I took another look at the guarded outbuilding before turning. Come.
We had made it only a handful of steps before a scream broke the stillness of the morning, snapping my attention back to the outbuildings.
The two remaining guards appeared unconcerned by the disturbance, holding their positions by the entrance.
Another scream dissolved into sobs and broken pleas for mercy.
That sounds like a child, I noted as a thread of anger ignited in my core.
Tyrin’s grim expression mirrored my concern. It could be a trap.
Then we shall proceed with an abundance of caution.
One thing was certain. We could not abandon a child to abuse that it was in our power to end. Utilizing the frozen foliage and discarded construction equipment, we crept closer, hiding behind a tractor bearing a radioactive warning label.
“Please. Not again. I can’t—”
“I believe you can,” a gruff voice answered the child. “Get him up. Strap him in.”
Hopeless whimpers made my jaw clench. Nothing stood between the tractor and the guards. The moment Tyrin and I emerged from cover, we would be spotted.
“Do you smell that?” one guard asked.
The breeze had shifted, and we were too close.
Threat of discovery drove me to action. Signaling that I would attack the guard on the right, I inhaled a deep breath, gripped Silentium, and raced around the tractor.
The guard spotted me, and the first note of alarm burst from his throat before I froze the air in his lungs, strangling the sound.
In the next heartbeat, I drove the hilt of my sword into his temple. He crumpled to the ground, out cold.
Tyrin dispatched his own guard with brutal efficiency before looking to me for orders.
“Hold him still,” someone snapped from the outbuilding.
“No, please—” The child’s voice cracked.
“Shut up and channel.”
Hastening my steps with a snarl, I sent a burst of magic to the second outbuilding, freezing the door shut to keep the newly arrived soldiers and any others trapped inside.
Then I strode to the second outbuilding and tried the door, finding it unlocked.
Tyrin stepped up beside me, holding his axe at the ready.
I turned the knob and pushed the door open.
Two bright, magical lanterns illuminated the cramped space, casting harsh shadows across walls covered in peeling paint and rust stains, despite the building's obvious newness. An iron cage dominated the room, its bars thick as my wrists and blackened with scorch marks.
Inside the cage, next to a shabby sleeping cot piled with threadbare blankets, two guards gripped the arms of a brown-haired boy.
The child couldn’t have been over fourteen or fifteen, scrawny but scrappy in build, dressed in rags that hung off his skeletal frame.
The guards wore protective aprons and gripped him with thick rubber mittens, pressing him against a machine that pulsed with sickly green power.
From where I stood, I could see a whip in the hand of the hulking brute. Fresh welts crisscrossed the boy’s back, visible and bleeding through the shreds of his shirt.
“Channel,” the brute demanded.
The boy’s entire body shook. “I can’t. Please.”
The whip cracked across his shoulders, and the child screamed, jerking in the guards’ grip. A flash of lightning erupted from his hands, arcing into the machine. The device flared brighter, humming with absorbed energy before the boy collapsed against the hold of the guards, gasping for breath.
“Again.”
“No more,” the child sobbed. “Please. I’m too tired.”
My vision tunneled. The stench of ozone mixed with blood and fear flooded my senses and ignited my fury.
The man raised his whip again.
Ice exploded from my palm, freezing the whip mid-swing and coating the bastard’s arm up to his elbow. He bellowed and spun toward me.
“Who the hell—”
Tyrin’s axe bit into his chest before he finished.
The guards released the boy, fumbling for the weapons at their belts.
I froze their feet to the floor and drove Silentium’s pommel into the first guard’s face.
Bone crunched, and he toppled over at an odd angle, blood gushing from his nose.
Still enraged at the torture he had inflicted on a child, I brought my blade down and separated his head from his shoulders.
The second guard slashed out at Tyrin with three-inch claws, but my húskarl ducked and swept his legs out from under him. The guard stumbled, but before he could regain his balance, Tyrin spun and, with one deadly strike, finished the male off.
The boy eyed us, his hands out and ready for an attack. Burns covered his palms where electricity had channeled through his skin. His brown eyes tracked our movement with animalistic wariness.
“We mean you no harm,” I said, keeping my voice low.
The child’s laugh turned into a wet cough. “Heard that one before.”
I sheathed my sword, and he relaxed slightly, hastily scanning the space but finding nothing of interest, save the machine. “Is that the second chance?” I asked.
He gave me a blank look. “The machine?” At my nod, he shrugged. “Never heard it called that before.”
If it was the subject of Clymene’s vision, I knew not what to do with it. Made of metal, cemented to the floor, and connected by pipes and cords that shot through the wall, it appeared nearly impossible to remove.
More questions danced on my tongue, but shouts and loud banging rang out from the other building. The soldiers had discovered the frozen door.
Worry flooded the boy’s eyes as he looked toward the sound.
Tyrin rushed to my side.
“We are leaving,” I said to the boy. “You may join us if you wish to leave this place.”
“I’m sure as hell not staying.” He dropped to his knees, removed the mittens from the nearest guard, and pulled them on. Expression still wary, he followed us out of the building, wincing in pain at every step.
We made it to the tree line before the metal door exploded outward and flew a dozen feet, slamming into the opposite building.
Guards spilled out, and the boy spun, ripping off his mittens and flinging out his hands. Lightning shot through the air and into the chests of two of the four remaining guards. I froze the air around the other two, encasing them in ice.
The boy swayed, then crumpled, his power spent. I caught him before he could hit the ground. His pulse fluttered weakly beneath my fingers, and his breathing was shallow and ragged.
Tyrin scooped up the discarded mittens and forced them back onto the boy’s hands. “We need to make haste, m’lord,” he said.
I threw the boy over my shoulder, and we ran.