49. Katya
49
T he pounding in my head is becoming unbearable, and I finally have to release my hold on the guards or risk blacking out. It eases the pain somewhat, but it still feels as though somebody took a sledgehammer to my skull. I do my best to push past the pain and focus. I can do this. “Move,” Leina shouts at the spectators fleeing ahead of us. They leap out of the way as the four of us barrel down the stairs. When I start down the next set of steps, Leina catches me by the arm.
“This way.” She points back toward the exit. The other two girls are already gone, having disappeared into the crowd. We’re stuck in-between floors. The bodies spilling down one set of stairs and up the other bump and jostle us as they flee the arena.
“I can’t leave Aemon,” I say.
Leina takes me by the shoulders and forces me to look at her. “He’s gone, Katya. There’s no way he could survive that. You go after him now, you’re just going to get yourself killed. ”
“No,” I say, shoving her arms off me.
“Katya.”
I hand over the gun. “I won’t leave him. You go. Take the others. Free who you can. Don’t wait up for me.” I don’t wait for her response. “Move,” I shout to the mass of fae storming up the stairs and, once again, they obey, moving to one side. Leina continues calling after me, but I ignore it. Now is not the time to get into an argument. Her voice fades as I fly down the staircases and out into the arena’s underground tunnels. The air is different here, stale and moist and sickly sweet with decay. There’s a weight to it, like in the caves, the phantom pressure of an entire arena bearing down on me. I take a step forward. The gravelly floor crunches beneath my feet, cutting the silence, and I freeze, expecting some beastly creature to jump from the shadows at any moment.
But there’s nothing.
Stop being a coward, Katya, and find Aemon.
I take a breath and start down the tunnel. Torches are placed at intervals along the wall, illuminating small swaths of space into tiny oases from the oppressive darkness. I rush from one to the other like a child afraid of the bogeyman hiding in the shadows. Hitting a crossing, I pause, checking one way, then the other. Everything looks exactly the same. It would be way too easy to get lost in these tunnels. Who knows, maybe that was the architect’s intent. I bend over and brush my hand along the dirty floor, searching. There I find a chunk of white rock and use it to hastily draw an arrow on the wall, pointing back the way I came.
Now what? I peer down the two tunnels, looking for something to jump out at me and tell me which way to go .
Unfortunately, that something turns out to be a fae guard, dressed in black regalia, who enters the tunnel on my right.
Our eyes lock.
I throw out a hand. “Freeze.”
He begins walking toward me.
“Freeze,” I say, louder this time. I feel my mind reaching for his, but it’s like I’ve hit an iron wall.
He breaks into a jog.
“Freeze, gods dammit.” I reach out again, but it isn’t working. Why isn’t it working? Heart pounding, I stumble backward. My heel hits a bit of gravel, and I go down, tail bone thwacking the stone floor and sending a bolt of pain up my spine.
“Don’t move,” the guard says, and the choral quality of his voice clues me into what he’s doing even before I feel the command trying to worm its way into my head.
Well, two can play this game.
“No,” I shout, and a wall slams down in my mind, crushing it. The guard stops short, blinking, and I take the opportunity to hop to my feet and run. Barely a second passes before I hear his feet pounding the stone floor behind me.
He’s so close, I swear, I can feel it, like a ghost riding my back. I keep my eyes trained ahead, searching for another tunnel. One appears on my left, and I pivot at the last minute, feet sliding on the floor. In my periphery, I see his hand reach out, grabbing for my shoulder, but his fingers find only empty air.
I swerve right down another tunnel and skid to a stop. Two more guards jump in front of me, their bodies so massive they completely block my way. “Don’t move,” they say in unison. Another command. It bounces harmlessly off my mental wall .
Holy Mother, does everyone in this place have the same mental power?
I whirl around and sprint the other way, barely managing to skirt the first guard, and now I’ve got three of them gunning for me. I rush down another tunnel, then another, throwing whatever I can find—trash, boxes, carts—into their path, hoping to slow them down, but it’s useless. They just knock everything aside the way I would some pesky insects and keep coming. I’m completely lost now, and the guards are still right behind me. I’m pumping my arms and legs with everything I’ve got. The muscles in my thighs and calves scream, and my throat is ice.
Rounding another corner, I spot barrels stacked in a haphazard pyramid against the wall. I send up a prayer of thanks to the mother and put every ounce of my strength into getting to those barrels. My momentum is such that I’m practically plowing into them as I grab the lip of one and, spinning, haul it over onto its side. The barrels come crashing down, one on top of the other like an avalanche. Wood cracks and splinters and a clear liquid gushes over the floor. I lunge out of the way, narrowly avoiding getting my head smashed in, and with a renewed sense of hope, I run my butt off.
I glance over my shoulder. Two guards lie sprawled on the ground—whether they slipped or got hit by a flying barrel is hard to say—but one manages to get around the mess and continues after me.
I catch the pungent scent of animals, manure and hay wafting from up ahead. Following my nose, I turn down another tunnel and have to hold myself back from thrusting my fist in the air with a shouted, “Yes,” when I see the barred cells up ahead. They’re the animals from the fights: giant lizards and chimeras, and wolves and every other terrifying thing they send into the arena, starved and half-mad from being locked in a cell.
But it isn’t the animals I’m looking for. Snatching a torch off the wall, I race for the bales of hay stacked against one of the cells. I knock them to the floor, so they bridge the tunnel walls, toss the torch onto one and run. The hay ignites with a whoosh and a blast of heat behind me.
That should hold them for a while, I think. I cut around a corner and pause to lean against the wall, my chest heaving, heart chugging at what has to be a dangerous rate. I peek around the corner to see if they found a way around, and my blood turns to ice. The soldiers are walking straight through the flames—not leaping or running, but walking through the fire like it’s nothing. The flames lick their skin and devour their clothes, but they just keep coming. When the first guard emerges from the conflagration, his skin charred and bubbling, my legs go weak, and I have to grab the wall for support.
I’m not going to survive this.
I take off again, but exhaustion has set in, making every step more laborious than the last. More guards stream into my path from the left up ahead. I flee right. “Stop, please,” I shout over my shoulder, knowing it’s useless. The mass of guards continues following behind me, their bodies silhouetted against the light, giving them the appearance of one mighty undulating shadow.
My legs give out and I crash to the floor, hands and knees scraped raw on the rough stone. I push back to my feet, only to stumble and fall again.
Hands grab me from behind, lifting me as if I weigh nothing. “Let me go,” I shout .
“Let me go. Let me go. Let me go,” the guards all say at once, as they close in around me, their mocking tone a complete contradiction to their blank expressions.
“Stop. It. Gods. Dammit.” I slap and elbow and shove at the figures surrounding me, but it’s no use. They just keep pushing and pulling and grabbing me. A male with pale blue eyes steps into my line of vision.
“Who are you?” he asks.
Then another fae, this one female with pink eyes, repeats, “Who are you?”
The others chime in like some horrific chorus, “Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?”
“Please, stop,” I beg, the sound pitiful even to my own ears. I squeeze my eyes shut and concentrate on the buzz of power within me and push it out with all my might. “Go away.”
It’s no use.
A hundred hands tug and shove at me, flipping me over so I’m facing another female guard, her bright pink eyes as terrifying as they are beautiful. “Answer me, child. Who are you? Where did you acquire this power?”
I shake my head. “I… I don’t understand.”
Another face, this one a male, “Tell me who you are.”
“I’m nobody.”
“Liar,” the mob says as one.
My throat is swollen and achy, making every breath a struggle. I wrap my arms protectively around my head and squeeze my eyes shut. Please, stop. Please let me go, I think to myself .
“Then tell me who you are,” a deep male voice says in my mind. My head snaps up. The figures remain crowded around me, but they’re all still. Completely and utterly still, like living statues.
That’s when it hits me. Someone else is controlling them, someone who can see me. I crane my neck back to look over and around the guards, but there’s no one. “Please, let me go,” I beg the voice, mind-to-mind.
No.
The figures seemingly come back to life. They grab my arms, my hair, my dress, my throat. They wrap arms around my waist and torso and grapple with my kicking feet, then squeeze and twist and turn me in a billion different directions. I can’t move, can’t breathe. My shoulder muscles scream as they’re stretched to their limit and fiery pain blazes along my scalp, where my hair is being ripped out.
Frantically, I attempt to push out my power, searching the minds of the fae ripping me apart for someone, anyone I can control enough to make them stop, but every time I try to get inside somebody’s head, I’m met with a wall that no amount of pounding will break through.
Panic burns through my veins like wildfire. I’m twisting and bucking and arching and kicking. Black spots burst across my vision. I’m going to pass out. I need air now, or I’m going to pass out and die.
Then the hands are gone and my stomach dips as I’m dumped onto the floor, my head and spine cracking painfully against the stone. My lungs expand, drawing in air so quickly it makes me cough, but I can breathe. Sweet Mother, I can breathe. I roll over onto hands and knees, fully expecting to find my brains littering the floor, but there’s only a small smear of blood.
“You are a fighter; I’ll give you that.”
I look up at the sound of that voice to find King Khalmos looming over me, tapping his ashari sheathed fingers together. The room begins to spin, and vomit rises in my throat. I close my eyes and lower my head back down until my forehead meets the cool floor. Taking deep breaths through my nose, I try to stem the wave of nausea before I throw up all over his fancy satin slippers.
“Water,” he says with a snap of his fingers, and a few seconds later, a glass of water is set in front of me. I glance up to see a guard walking back to join the contingent flanking the king. I probably shouldn’t drink it. It could be poisoned. Then again, Khalmos could have me killed as easily as he got that water, so subterfuge would be pretty useless right now. I lift my head just enough to bring the glass to my lips and drink. The water is cold and soothing against my raw throat, and I guzzle the entire thing before returning the glass to its spot on the floor.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” I say, eyes downcast, so the only things I’m really getting a good view of are the hem of his silky red robe and his slippers.
Those shoes pivot and walk out of my field of view, so I peek up for only a second to see where he’s gone. The soldiers have moved back against the wall and Khalmos is standing in front of one of the arena’s outer windows, looking down on the city. The sound of muted voices shouting and cursing carries through the glass, as does the faint scent of smoke. There’s a crack, followed by a crash that rattles the walls. What is going on out there ?
“I have been king for over five hundred years, and do you know what I’ve learned in that time, child?”
It sounds like a rhetorical question, so I wait.
“There is no power greater than the ability to control the minds of others. And in my long-long life…” He steps away from the window and takes a seat in a massive chair that must be a stand-in for his actual throne and crosses his skinny, pale legs. “I have only ever known one other mentalist, my father.” His eyes narrow. “Until you.”
I look up at him then, shock overriding good sense, but he doesn’t appear angry at me for meeting his eyes. In fact, his lips curl into a smile. “So, I will ask you once again, who are you?”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, sire. I’m nobody special. I didn’t even…”
I stop, realizing I may have said too much.
“You didn’t what?” he asks, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. His expression is—dare I say—eager.
“I didn’t know I had this ability until after I came here.”
“What’s your mother’s name?”
Do I lie? If I tell him the truth, will he go after my family—if there’s any family left to go after. “Alise,” I say, giving him the name of the magi from Duje.
His lips purse. Does he know I’m lying? Can he hear my thoughts?
The shuffling of many feet sounds behind me, and I twist around to see where it’s coming from. A group of about ten black-clad guards steps into the room. I notice that these don’t have the glazed-over look in their eyes like the others. Are they not under his control, then? At the head of the troop is a fae male with a white beard braided to his waist and zero hair on his head. He wears a green belt over his black uniform and blue and white horizontal stripes on the shoulders that I’m guessing mean he’s in charge. He bows and the rest of the guards follow suit.
“Yes, Garothe,” the king says.
Garothe rights himself. “The tunnels have been swept. There was a minor fire that’s been put out and the remaining prisoners disposed of, sire.”
Wait, what? Disposed of? Does that mean? Nonononono, that isn’t possible. They couldn’t have killed Aemon; he’s too strong to be disposed of.
Except, he was badly injured. He could have passed out in the tunnels. He wouldn’t have even seen them coming. He—
The king nods. “Excellent. Go see if your unit can assist rounding up the escaped slaves. Kill the men. Take the women and children back to the camp.”
“Yes, sire.” The male gives his king a stiff bow, then turns on his heel and heads out the door, waving for his men to follow. The aware guards separate from the rest and exit the room.
Oh, gods, Aemon.
The king turns his attention back to me. “I know you’re lying, girl.” He taps the side of his head.
Whelp, that answers the can he read my mind question?
Two guards grab me from behind and lift me to my feet, while another steps in front of me. Their expressions are blank. How is he able to control all these people at once and without speaking?
The king rises to his feet and walks over to stand beside the guard directly in front of me. “Now, tell me the truth. Who is your mother? ”
My head feels like it’s been split open, and I’m so damned dizzy I can barely hold it upright. It’s hard to think, much less comprehend what he’s saying and formulate a response. “I told you already,” I manage to say, each word like a gong pounding against my skull. “I’m not lying.”
The guard reels back and strikes. Pain explodes across one cheek, then the other. Colored spots dance in my vision. “Please,” I beg the king.
“Tell me who your mother is,” he says.
Fear grips me like a fist, squeezing my chest. My heart pounds violently against my ribcage, and my entire body trembles. There’s no way I’m going to win this fight. I’m a rabbit that’s been cornered by a wolf. “ Please don’t hurt me,” my mind cries, but the words that leave my mouth are, “Fuck. You.”
The king’s body seems to deflate at that, and he shakes his head. “You brought this upon yourself.”
The guard who struck me steps back, while several more soldiers congregate around the king as though they need to protect him from the tiny woman being held by two-grown males. Ridiculous.
“Do you know how the lines of succession work here, in ümbros?” Khalmos asks, calm as can be. “When the king’s child comes of age, they may challenge their king to a Bellak-mor.” Khalmos steps forward, closing the distance between us, and grabs me by the nape. Then he shoves his face into mine, so close our noses almost touch. “It’s a fight to the death,” he says, voice like a snake’s whisper. “My father was a fool to let me live long enough to challenge him. I will not make the same mistake.” He releases my neck and lightly pats the side of my battered face .
“What?” I ask, my mind stretched too thin to digest what he’s saying.
The king doesn’t respond. He backs up again, and the officers flanking him unsheathe knifes from their belts. I don’t know which is more terrifying, the blond with his razor-sharp dagger on the kings right or the guard with purple eyes who’s holding a knife the size of my forearm on his left.
The one on his left smiles.
“Wait,” I say, the word thin and awkward on my swollen lips. “Don’t do this,” I beg the king, the tears raining down my face turning him into a red smudge.
“Last chance,” the king says.
“Iona. My mother’s name is Iona, please.”
The blond soldier starts toward me as Khalmos smirks and says, “I know. That’s why you have to d—”
The king’s eyes go wide with shock, his mouth stretching open as though about to scream, but all that comes out are gasps and gurgles. Blood oozes from between his lips and down his chin, and the king crumples to the ground. Behind him, bloody knife in hand, the purple-eyed guard whirls on the blond, slitting his throat.
The hands holding my arms release me, but there’s no strength left in me to stand, and I fall. The rumpled soldier leaps, catching me. He cradles me to his chest while holding the bloody knife out defensively in front of us.
But no one attempts to fight him. The remaining guards blink and look around themselves, confusion painting their features. It’s like they’ve just been woken in the middle of a dream, and they aren’t sure what’s real and what isn’t .
“It’s alright, witchling. I’ve got you,” the purple-eyed guard says, lifting me into his arms. His pale skin begins to color, his features shift and morph, and in a matter of seconds, it’s Aemon smiling down at me.