Chapter Eleven Inara Feuer
"What we know matters but who we are matters more."
A few days later the king sent word to Adan to search the Loch for rebels.
It felt like that was all she was doing these days.
Cias's spymaster described a girl in perfect detail, she couldn't have been more than twelve years old.
The king was adamant that Adan catch her and bring her before the court.
It was why Adan was perched on the rooftop of a building in the Loch in the middle of winter. The wind cut through her leathers and right to her bones.
Adan had spoken to some towns folk about the girl.
She had been seen yesterday stealing a loaf of bread, but hadn't been seen since.
She knew what it was like to be on the run and starving.
She understood this little girl more than she did herself.
She had to find her first, before any of the other kings guards.
There wasn't a place for the homeless in Lymia. The king saw them as a disease on the city, and was content to let die on the streets. In this weather, from what onlookers described about her state, she wouldn't last the night.
Adan swooped down from the roof with ease, swinging on clothing lines and digging her nails into the hard brick and stone.
Landing like a cat on her feet on the wet slush below, and began to stalk the streets from the shadows of the alleyways.
Soft fluffy snow turned to slush and mud in the Loch, painting it a dull grey.
Under the glow of the moonlight, it made no difference to her.
She walked down to the peer, and along the winding path of the lakeshore. There were a few people huddled by burning braziers to keep warm. Adan approached them slowly. She raised her hands, palms towards them, in hopes of not scaring them away. One wrong move and they would all scatter.
"Excuse me." She said quietly, so she wouldn't spook them, but just loud enough for them to hear over the crackling fire. The three closest spun around and their hackles rose. "I'm not here to harm you, I just have some questions. I'm looking for a young girl."
"Popular girl." The one grumbled to his friend, "You're not the only one who's been looking for her." He held out his hand, and Adan slipped a couple of coins into his outstretched palm. "I saw her not long ago hanging outside the pub down the street. She can't be far."
"Thank you for your time." She slipped them another couple of notes before disappearing down the street towards the bar.
There she was, sitting on the bench outside. No shoes on her feet, they were wrapped in soaked cloth. Her tattered dress was not made for winter, and she didn't have a jacket. She was shivering, and Adan could see the tint of her blue lips.
"Hey there." Again, she raised her hands again and made herself smaller.
Her voice more tentative and caring than she every used with anyone else.
The girl's silk black hair was matted in places, and her dark eyes were hollow as she glanced Adan's way.
She made a move to bolt, "It's okay, I'm here to help--" She was gone down an alley way before Adan could finish her sentence.
Adan bolted after her. The girl was surprisingly fast for her state.
Adan followed her down alleyway after alleyway before she decided to cut the girl off.
She knew the streets of the Loch like the back of her hand.
Helps when you spend most of your time walking them, rather than flying.
She picked up her speed, hitting her shoulder on a sharp turn.
She saw the girl turning down the same alley, just a head, so Adan lunged.
She took the girl down, she turned underneath Adan and swiped out with her nails.
She snapped down the girls' wrist, and pinned her easily.
"I told you I'm here to help." She clutched at the writhing hell-cat.
"Looks like it!" She snapped like a feral dog.
"You're the one who ran." Adan loosened her grip, "please don't do that again." She rose to her feet, and extended her hand to help. As Adan hoisted her up, she asked, "What's your name, kiddo?"
"Rose." She rubbed her side that took the blunt landing after shed been tackled.
"Well, Rose, you have two options. You can come with me, where I will get you some new clothes and a hot meal. Or you can stay here and take your chances with whatever else is stalking these streets."
Rose smartly took option one.
--
"A Chimera? No wonder Cias sent you to snatch her."
Czandra said over her mug of hot tea. The Pearl was silent, it was way past midnight when Adan had snuck Rose inside its tall walls.
Rose was passed out in one of the rooms upstairs.
After she was fed and properly bathed. Czandra agreed to get her out of the city at the earliest convenience.
"She can't grant wishes just yet, but in a couple of years."
Adan paused, her thoughts locked on that little girl.
"If Cias got his hands on her." She physically shivered.
Chimera can grant wishes, and if the king was unstoppable now...
Having a Chimera leashed to his side would certainly seal that fate.
"He'd groom her. By the time she would be old enough to cast, she would do it out of some fake idea of love and loyalty. All the while, having no idea that she was his leashed beast. It's his way. You have to get her out, Czandra."
Adan downed the scotch in her glass to immediately refill it.
"I will, Little Mouse." She was dead serious, and Adan knew she could trust her with this.
They hadn't been caught—not yet, and Adan would keep going until her luck ran out.
"What are you going to do about him?" She knew Czandra was asking about the king.
He wanted the girl, and failure was not an option.
"I have a plan." It meant that she had to leave now if she wanted to accomplish it before dawn. "I have to go." Adan stood, pulling her hood down over her eyes, finishing her recently refilled glass and pulled up her mask.
--
She slipped back into her room just as the sun crested the horizon. She didn't even have an opportunity to draw her drapes as she fell into her bed face first. Disregarding her rule to shower before bed. She passed out cold, with her boots still strapped to her feet.
--
Adan walked into the throne room with her head held high. Her gaze zeroing in on Lennox in the crowd, and he looked furious. Obviously, the news of Adan's failure had made the rounds already.
"Another Fire, Adan!" The king bellowed upon her arrival, pushing off his throne to stand.
It was safe to say that he was enraged. "Tell me, Assassin."
He hissed. "What is the point in keeping you around if you can't follow through with a simple command?!"
The king certainly wasn't used to his subjects failing him, and if they did, they didn't last long.
"How is it you can't even bring me a simpering little girl?!" His voice boomed off the hall walls.
Adan reached the end of the dais and dropped to her knees. She wasn't getting out of this without payment in blood.
"The girl combusted, Sire." Adan prayed to the gods that the king had already suspected Ruby's heritage.
She bet on only him knowing that Ruby was from Fire House.
The throne room filled with gasps. Of course, revealing a deceptive lie that she let a phoenix slip through her fingers might gain her a worse beating.
She didn't mind if it meant that Rose was free. She would do anything for Fire House.
"You're telling me that you let a phoenix get away?" The King seethed, leering down at her from his platform. She kept her head low, and stared at her reflection in the marble floor.
"It would seem so, Sire." She kept her tone even.
He made a grumbled sound of frustration.
The sound of smacking skin filled the room before she registered the burning across her face.
The king had struck her--hard. Her face twisted, and a throbbing bloomed over her cheek.
She could feel blood in her mouth as the king fiddled with the rings on his fingers.
"Darius." He called his son forward, and moved back to take a seat on his throne. The malicious grin of Prince Darius Dreadmore was hard to miss, he looked like a boy on Yule Eve staring at a new present. He was going to rip her apart.
He snapped his fingers and two guards approached.
They were hauling in the rack, Adan clenched her jaw as she spared a quick glance over her shoulder.
The crowd made way for the low table that was placed before the king, just behind her.
Darius strode forward, and yanked her up by her arm.
She knew there was already a bruise forming.
He flipped her efficiently on her back with a loud thud.
She did nothing to fight him. The guards attacked her limbs, sealing her fate.
Her wrists were chained to one another, and pinned above her head.
Her ankles were fastened to the rope wrapped around the roller at her feet.
Darius leaned in close to Adan's ear, "You'll scream this time, Whore."
If this was any other interrogation, any other type of torture, she would have spat in his face. But it would just bring her more trouble and this was enough as it was. The guards stepped back, she didn't need to test her restraints, she knew she wasn't going anywhere until the king allowed it.
"You are running out of chances, Adan. This will be your last. You have until the Princes birthday to return to the castle with either Captain Jax or the Rebels leader's head, preferably both, or do not return at all."
Not returning didn't mean she was free. Oh no...
She knew it meant that she would be hunted down like a dog.
Dragged back here in irons and treated much, much worse.
The king must have nodded for his son to begin his ministrations, but Adan couldn't turn her head to see, she could only look up at the ceiling or down at her body.
Darius face came into her line of sight, his gleeful smirk made her eyes burn, but she knew what she had to do.
Like before, she buried deep into herself, but before she could crest that darkness and quiet.
She was smacked hard across the face again.
"Not this time." Darius snickered. "I won't let you use that pain management technique you learned with the Sicarii."
Adan was surprised it took him this long to figure out what she was doing.