Chapter 21 #2
“You could make this easier, you know,” he muttered, turning away from me and striding to the opposite side of the room.
“Very well. I’ll have to start from the beginning and you’ll have to endure whatever you find repetitive.
Humans were here from the very beginning.
This is our world. It belongs to us. This is our home.
The Geist arrived thousands of years after our earliest recorded histories.
At first, we were a wonder to them and they to us.
We approached cautiously, engaged carefully, and maintained our separate cultures as best as we could.
For a time, they respected that. Some of them even integrated within our villages, making homes amongst us, even breeding with us.
But others decided that wouldn’t do, that their superior race couldn't stoop so low as to mate with barbarians such as we were.
So war came. We had spears and arrows. They had magic and metal. It was a slaughter.
Our councils met. Representatives of humanity argued about what to do regarding the intruders.
Some still believed in the goodness of the Geist. They were encouraged by those who opposed the war, who still made homes among us and married our women to create half-Geist, half-human children.
They wanted to attempt diplomacy. They wanted to kneel.
Others refused and claimed they would fight until their dying breath rather than become a slave in their own world.
And then others, the smallest contingent, ran.
They fled across the desert to the sea where they established three separate countries behind walls made entirely of Mavridis stone.
You can appreciate the mineral, I’m sure, as it’s what binds your wrists and ankles at the moment.
Mavridis stone leeches away magic, bleeds it right out of its host. Only distance will return the ability.
So my ancestors built their cities from the stone and hid behind their walls and here we've thrived for generations, untouched by the Geist, unreachable by magic.
The other groups, well, they met with the fates I imagined they expected.
Those willing to fight to the death did so on bloody battlefields and in shining halls.
Those who proposed diplomacy found it in their own way through the creation of Sanctuary and the continuance of the half-blood line, your line.
And so we've remained a world divided. The Geist on one side of the desert and the humans on the other, each of us hiding behind our walls, waiting for the other to drift into the open. Sure, we aren’t without our own weapons. ”
The prince made a pointed glance to the Zver now snoring in the center of the cell.
“These creatures are the finest of our ancestors’ creations.
Godskillers, we call them,” he mused, smiling like a delighted parent.
“And other such weapons the Geist are aware of and fear so terribly they're willing to stoop to the level of humanity to recruit their warriors, forcing us to fight against our own rather than having the ability to attack them.
You wonder why the Geist don't venture beyond their precious city?
The Zver are why. Our riders are why. And the others, the Fallen, they are why.
Ah, I see you're not surprised by the mention of the Fallen. You know, then, that your partner lives.”
I mentally cursed myself for giving away what knowledge I’d already had.
“Yes, she lives,” he informed me, reaching down to pat the sleeping Zver on the back once again.
“In fact, she’s managed to escape her secondary prison, the one you sent her to upon your own victory.
The Geist are going practically mad looking for her, sending out their finest warriors to search the vast desert for the escaped Fallen girl.
Pity that our riders will find them first. I never delight in ending more human lives. ”
I blinked at him, too stunned to reel in my surprise. He grinned.
“Ah, this you did not know,” he continued, reading my expression easily enough. “What did you think they would do with her? Free her? Send her back to Sanctuary? Please. You had to know that whatever fate awaited her when you plunged her into the abyss would not be a pleasant one.”
In fact, I’d thought she would die. I thought I’d killed her. But I didn't say as much.
“Don’t worry, Victor,” the prince said, his enunciation of the word victor making it seem to be something distasteful he spat out rather than allowing to linger too long on his tongue.
“Your partner is resourceful. She’s already made allies of her own.
Who else do you suppose could have delivered this knowledge to me? ”
I stared at him, trying to process everything he'd told me, everything I already knew.
Adrian had escaped from wherever the Geist had been holding her, somewhere even Kleio had refused to discuss with me.
She was with others now, allies the prince called them.
Did that mean they were human? Or were they Verdunn like us?
Had she found other Fallen? Had she found Prima? I strained against my bonds once again.
“Enough of that,” the prince told me, eyes flashing as he met my gaze from where he stood at the door. “You couldn’t reach her even if you did escape. And if you did, well, can you imagine that would be a very pleasant reunion for either of you?”
I deflated at the truth of his words as he left me behind once again, alone in my dark, damp cell.