Chapter 37 #3
The Sol remain silent, but as their attention shifts from me to Salem, more than a few people stumble back from the bars of their cages, gripping their chains to their chests.
The clatter of it is loud enough that I cut my attention to the entrance to the dungeon, knowing that if Salem was right and they have increased security, there are at least two or three guards out there.
“Shh,” I urge the cages closest to me. “It’s okay.” Holding my hands out, I nod to the Hound. “He’s here to help. I promise.” I begin walking as I speak, making sure everyone hears it. “But you have to stay quiet.”
Salem doesn’t even try to look friendly. Expression blank, he nods to the far end of the dungeon—to the exit. “I’ll be down there,” he tells me. “There are three guards, but they’ll only come in here if they have a reason to, so—”
“Don’t give them a reason to?”
“If you can help it.”
Salem stalks down the narrow aisle between cages, and I instantly feel relief.
The last thing I want is more death on top of what is necessary, but knowing the Hound will be who those guards meet should they enter the dungeons is a weight off my shoulders.
I might not trust him fully, but I trust the magic binding our deal.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I pull Solian magic through my veins, offering rations of it to eager hands, instantly wishing I’d brought more.
“Shh,” I urge a woman when she begins sobbing at the spark of light I offer her. “You have to be quiet.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, brown eyes glassy and dull.
I can see her bones through her skin. I can see everyone's bones through their skin. And through the bodies gathering at the bars, I catch glimpses of where they’ve been living.
Thin pallets on the floor, empty trays in the center, and buckets shoved into the corners. They’ve been given little to nothing—just enough to keep them alive.
As I pass, hands grab onto my own, tears fall from sunken eyes, and soft words are whispered back to me. Things like “You’re here,” and “Is it time? Can we go home?”
I’ve never felt such devastation. Such anger. It’s too much to digest.
“My girls,” an older man rushes out, pushing his way to the bars. “Have you seen my girls? Laney and Lora Emberstone. Hearth coven. Are they okay?”
“I…I don’t know them,” I whisper, wishing so badly I did. Wishing I’d met everyone in Pirn. Wishing I’d brought a list of all those who survived that night. Loved ones they’ll get to see again.
I take hold of his hands, warming his clammy skin with a ration of magic. “But there are so many of us,” I tell him, moving to the next cage. “So many. And they’re all waiting for you.”
The man’s question sparks a ripple of pleas, and the room quickly fills with inquiries about loved ones. A mass of voices spitting out words I can’t decipher.
“Shh,” I beg them. “Please. I can’t get caught in here.”
“My son. Keaton. Have you seen him?”
“Delphine. My wife. She’s a Lakelet. Did she make it out?”
I begin to panic, spinning around at the onslaught of questions. There are too many voices, and I have no way to silence them.
“My husband is a Flora. James Hart. Do you know him? Does he have our son?”
“Our daughter, Gemmalyn. Is she okay?”
I freeze.
Turning in place, I lock eyes with a man and a woman in a cage to my left. They’re pressed up against the bars, thin hands wrapped around the metal.
His hair is gone, and hers is mostly grey, but a few streaks of blonde remain. Both of their eyes are blue and hopeful, welling with tears when they note the recognition on my face.
“M..mender?” I ask, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Yes!” the woman cries, and her husband’s head falls, resting against the bars. As if he’s spent the last twenty-something years trying to hold it up. Her voice cracks. “She made it?” The woman nudges the arm of her husband. “She made it!”
Tears slip over my smile as Gemma’s mother begins to sob.
She clasps her hand over her mouth in an attempt to muffle the sound, and her husband lifts his head from the bars to pull her into him instead, burying her cries in the tattered fabric of his shirt. Resting his cheek against the top of her head, a tear falls into her hair.
That’s when I notice the dungeon has gone quiet.
The chaos of the room has been silenced, and the panic tight in my chest loosens a fraction. My attention drifts to where everyone else seems to be looking—towards the drag of chains at the far end of the aisle. To a man in his own cell.
The bars he leans against are thicker than the others, but he’s able to get his hands through them. Able to look down the aisle and directly at me.
“Our little savior,” he exhales. “You aren’t so little anymore, are you?”
I’m so relieved to see him in one piece that my words come out breathless. “Mr. Vitale.” I hurry down the aisle, sparking an orb of light above me. “Are you okay? That Rogue was—”
“I had a feeling it was you who intervened.”
The light hits his face, and I can’t help but wince at his wounds. One of his eyes is black and purple, nearly swollen shut, and there’s a cut on his lip that hasn’t fully stopped bleeding.
And yet, he manages a smile, as if it isn’t there at all.
“I’m much better now that you’re here.” Callan’s father reaches further through the bars, offering me his hand. “But please, call me Grey.”