Malignant Intentions
The corridor was narrow and low-ceilinged, hewn from the same black stone as the fortress walls above.
Torches burned in iron brackets at intervals, their flames casting long shadows that stretched and wavered with each flicker.
The air was chilly and damp, carrying the mineral smell of deep earth and a metallic redolence beneath it that made Lark think of old blood and despair.
She pressed herself against the wall and listened.
The footsteps were closer now, coming from somewhere on her left. A steady pace, unhurried, the walk of a guard on routine patrol who expects nothing unusual. She counted the steps, measured the distance, and calculated the time she had before he rounded the corner into her line of sight.
Eight seconds. Maybe ten.
She summoned a dagger into her hand, feeling the familiar pulse of aetheria as the blade took form. Its shape steadied her, focusing her thoughts into a single honed point of intention. She had told herself that this part of her life was over, that she could be more than a weapon.
But Rion was somewhere in this dungeon. And these guards stood between them.
The footsteps grew louder. A shadow stretched around the corner, elongated by the torchlight, and then the guard appeared.
He was young, younger than she had expected, with a thin, pockmarked face and nervous eyes that suggested he had drawn the night watch as punishment rather than privilege.
He carried a short sword at his hip, and he was looking down at his feet as he walked, lost in whatever thoughts occupied a man standing guard over prisoners in the small hours of the night.
He never saw her.
Lark moved without thought, years of action guiding her body through motions as natural as breathing.
One hand over his mouth, the other driving the dagger up beneath his ribs and into his heart.
He stiffened, made a sound that never escaped her palm, and then went limp.
She let him collapse slowly to the floor, watching the blade dissolve into nothing as she released her grip.
She stood over him, looking at what she had done. The blood pooling beneath his body, the slack expression on his face, and the way his eyes had gone empty in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
She felt nothing. That was the worst part. She had expected guilt, or horror, or at least some dim echo of the revulsion she had felt when she first started killing for the Order. Instead, there was only a cold, practical satisfaction that the obstacle was now removed.
Perhaps she had never stopped being a weapon after all.
She pushed the thought aside. There was no time for it now.
The second guard was further down the corridor, seated on a stool beside a heavy wooden door.
He was older than the first, heavyset and balding, and he was dozing with his chin on his chest, a half-empty wineskin dangling from one hand.
The keys on his belt clinked softly each time he shifted in his sleep.
Lark approached in silence, her boots making no sound on the cold stone floor. She studied him quickly, noting the angle of his neck, the placement of his hands, the slow rise and fall of his chest. Then she conjured another dagger and slit his throat before he could wake.
He slumped forward off the stool, the wineskin spilling its contents across the floor, and did not move again.
Lark retrieved the keys from his belt and returned to the grate where Darian and Pippa waited. She knelt beside the opening and gestured for them to come up.
Darian emerged first, pulling himself out of the sewer tunnel with a grimace of relief at leaving the filth behind.
His eyes found the body of the first guard, his expression tightening, but he said nothing.
Pippa followed a moment later, her face pale and her breathing erratic, and Lark saw her gaze skitter away from the dead man on the floor.
She pointed down the corridor, toward the door the second guard had been watching, and they moved.
The dungeon was larger than Lark had expected.
Corridors branched off in multiple directions, lined with heavy wooden doors fitted with iron bars at eye level.
Most of the cells were empty, their doors standing open, their interiors dark and silent.
But a few were closed, and as they passed, Lark caught glimpses of what lay within.
They had expected survivors and had planned to rescue them, but there were none.
Straw pallets stained with old blood. Chains bolted to the walls.
The remnants of meals that had never been eaten, bowls overturned and contents scattered across the floor.
Dried blood pooled on the stone floors and streaked across the walls.
“There’s someone alive,” Pippa said quietly.
In one cell, a shape was still breathing. Lark stopped and pressed her face against the bars. The man inside was curled on his side, his back to the door, but she could see the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
Darian moved to her side, peering through the bars. “Can he walk?”
“I don’t know.” Lark was already reaching for the keys. She found the right one on the second try, and the door swung open.
The man flinched at the sound, curling tighter, his arms coming up to protect his head. He was expecting a blow. More pain.
“We’re not guards,” Lark said, keeping her voice low. “We’re here to get people out.”
Slowly, the man uncurled. He turned to face them, and Lark assessed the damage with a clinical eye. His face was bruised but not broken. One arm was wrapped in makeshift bandages, blood seeping through the cloth. But it was his legs that made her wince.
The knee joints were swollen to twice their normal size, the surrounding skin a mottled purple and black. When he tried to shift position, he gasped in pain and went still.
“Who are you?” His voice was hoarse from disuse, or screaming, perhaps both.
“Friends. What’s your name?”
“Colm. Colm Brannock.” He coughed, wincing at the pain it caused. “I’m a merchant. Was a merchant. They took me from the Stoneway Road.”
“Your legs. Can you walk at all?”
His face twisted. “They took a hammer to my knees three days ago. I can’t even stand.”
Lark exchanged a glance with Darian. Carrying a man through the sewers, across the moat, up into the foothills. It would be difficult, but not impossible. If there were only one of him.
“We need to find someone else first,” she said. “Another prisoner, held separately. We’ll come back for you. We’ll carry you out if we have to.”
Hope surfaced in Colm’s eyes. “You’ll come back?”
“We’ll come back. Stay quiet. We won’t be long.”
She closed the cell door but didn’t lock it. Let him have that much freedom, at least, she thought.
They moved on, deeper into the dungeon, past more empty cells and more evidence of suffering. Pippa made a small sound at one of them and turned away. Darian’s hand found her shoulder, steadying her, and they kept moving.
The corridor ended at a heavy iron door, different from the wooden ones they had passed.
This one was reinforced with bands of black metal and secured with a lock that was newer and more complex than the others.
A guard station stood empty beside it, a chair overturned as though its occupant had left in haste.
Lark examined the ring of keys she had taken from the second guard. There were perhaps a dozen, each one different, and she tested them one by one until she found the one that fit. The lock clicked open and the door swung inward.
Beyond was a single cell, smaller than the others, with no window and no light except what spilled in from the corridor behind her.
The walls were bare stone, the floor covered in dirty straw.
A bucket sat in one corner. A chain ran from a ring in the wall to a set of manacles that lay open and empty on the floor.
And in the far corner, pressed against the wall as though trying to disappear into it, was Rion.
All the air seemed to have vanished from Lark’s lungs, and she had to remind herself to breathe.
He was diminished. That was her first thought before her mind could form anything more coherent.
The man she knew had been solid and steady, with a presence that filled whatever space he occupied with calm.
This man looked as though something vital had been carved out of him and discarded.
He was thinner than she remembered, the angles of his face sharper, his cheekbones standing out beneath skin that had gone gray under the many bruises.
His ginger hair was matted and filthy, hanging lank around a face that was half-hidden by bandages.
The bandages covered the left side of his face, wrapped tight from his jaw to his temple, stained dark with what was surely blood.
He didn’t look up when the door opened. He didn’t move at all.
Emotions twisted in Lark, sharp and terrible.
She had prepared herself for this, telling herself on the long journey here that he might be hurt, that captivity was not gentle, that she needed to be ready for whatever she found.
But no amount of preparation could have readied her for this.
For the sight of him broken and discarded in a dark cell, a thing with no value except as bait.
This was her fault. Duskwood had taken him because of her, had hurt him because of her, had done whatever unspeakable thing lay beneath those bandages because she had escaped twenty-five years ago and Rion had been the next best way to draw her out.
Every mark on his body was a message meant for her.
Every wound was a word in a conversation she had never asked to have.