Epilogue
Gryfon
Iwas always meant to end up in chains.
I'd known it was inevitable for five hundred years now.
Ever since I'd evaded their capture the first time, ever since I'd hidden myself away in the desert and joined the only cause against them, ever since I'd made common cause with their most ancient enemy, I knew a Pavosian cell was in my future.
I'd dreaded the stone walls and iron chains ever since, anticipating the awful feeling of the Mavridis stone as it ate away at my magic like a parasite upon my power.
I hated being weak, feeling weak, appearing weak, and that was precisely what Mavridis stone was intended to do, to bring a powerful man to his knees.
And here I was, on my knees, chained and bound at every limb, against every surface.
It was a testament to their suspicion of me, their fear of me, to have me tethered in such a way.
I drew a grim satisfaction from that. They were still afraid of me, even now.
I couldn't harness the magic of my birth, couldn't access the power I'd been given, but I could still feel her. Far away and unaware of the connection between us, she was awake now. It was harder to reach for her when she was awake. She was too stubborn to listen. But in her dreams…
Siculus, god of dreams, was my new favorite.
Light spilled into the hall farther down the corridor.
I didn't raise my gaze to peer through the scraggly curtain of my unwashed silver hair to see who entered.
It didn't truly matter. Either Deimos had come himself to question me once again or he'd sent that brute of his from the council to torture me once more.
Regardless, the result would be the same.
They'd demand I tell them what I did with the amulet, how I'd managed to send it away right under their noses when they were bursting into that Underground temple only moments after me, and I wouldn't tell them.
I'd made a vow to a much higher power that I never would.
"You look like shit."
I snorted at the comment, recognizing the voice immediately. It was the voice of a man I hadn't seen in five centuries. Slowly, hiding the pain I felt at the simple motion, I raised my head until our eyes met.
Kleio, my former mentor, was dressed in his usual immaculate white but there was a haunted look in his eyes and a gauntness that spoke to our time apart. He'd changed. So had I.
"I'm surprised they let you down here alone," I ground out, voice even deeper, raspier than usual from disuse and suffering at the hands of my tormentors.
"They didn't," he replied in that easy way of his. "But I'm not without a few friends left in the guard."
I said nothing to that.
"They're furious with you upstairs," Kleio informed me as if I didn't already know. "They can't fathom how you managed to slip the amulet out of the Underground right under their noses. If they find out how you did it—"
"They won't."
"Don't underestimate their intelligence. Any man with any common sense at all could see there's only one way you could have done it. If they find out you shadowstepped—"
"They won't have any proof, not unless you tell them."
"You think they need proof?"
I glared at Kleio, making the threat clear that he was not to tell them what he knew.
But the thing about Kleio was that he glared back, always.
He was my mentor. He knew better than to fear me.
He knew me better than almost anyone. Almost. And he had an unfortunate habit of being nearly always right.
"And what, exactly, do you expect me to do instead?" I asked, rattling my chains to strike the point home.
Kleio's gaze slid from me to the iron and back.
"Tell me about the girl," he said, eyes narrowing.
I bristled. Before I could control my reaction, I'd already flinched. Kleio saw. He always saw and his eyes narrowed even more.
"No," I growled, aware of the predatory nature of my tone, aware my former mentor would know exactly why that was.
"You're playing a dangerous game, Gryfon," he told me. "Then again, you always do."
"It isn't a game," I snapped.
He studied me for a moment, lips pursed in consideration.
Kleio had a way of looking at you that made you feel as though you were stretched out under a microscope, as though he could see every shadowy corner of your heart.
I'd never been able to hide anything from him before.
He'd read it on my face just as easily as if I'd spoken it from my own lips, but I hoped I could now.
This was deeply personal, perhaps the most personal thing in the entire universe, and I wouldn't let him strip me of it without my consent.
"Are you going to help me?" I ground out a moment later, doing my best to change the subject.
I was sure Kleio saw through my efforts immediately but he had the grace not to mention it as he replied.
"The last time I helped you, I ended up in a cage for five hundred years."
I frowned. I'd known that, or at least expected it, and I'd known it was my fault. I'd lived with the guilt for five centuries now. But he'd come back. Kleio might still be wary of helping me ever again, he might even not trust me anymore, but he was here.
"This isn't like before, Gryfon," Kleio said and his tone was even more serious than before. "You're on your own this time with no god to back you up and they know you stand against them now. There will be no hiding, not this time."
I nodded. I knew all that already.
"Why?" Kleio breathed, stepping closer to the bars of my prison. "Why did you go back for it knowing they would catch you?"
For her.
"It was the right thing to do," I said instead. "They can't be allowed to have that amulet, Kleio. They can't."
I let my gaze narrow into a glare, let it bore into my former mentor so he could see how much I meant it.
It was important that Deimos didn't get his hands on that amulet but that wasn't the real reason I'd gone back and I could tell, from the look on Kleio's face, he suspected as much.
To his credit, he only nodded, accepting the explanation I'd spoken aloud and stepping back from the bars.
"I'll see what I can do for you but—"
"I know."
He nodded once before turning and striding back down the corridor. A moment later, he was gone, and I was alone in my cell once more.
They came a few hours later. Deimos' brute returned with a contingent of lesser Geist. They took their time arranging sharp instruments of torture upon the stone floor in front of me, letting me see them, letting me imagine the pain they could cause, even though they didn't need the tools.
They had enough power to blind me with pain coursing through their very veins and, by the smug expression on their leader's face, I could tell they knew it.
Still, they went through the motions, making a show of it, knowing the anticipation of the pain was half the torture.
I schooled my expression into a calm, blank mask.
I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of a reaction.
I wouldn't let them know they hurt me or how bad it was. And I wouldn't tell them a damn thing.
As they arranged their blades, sharpening some of the knives and rolling up their sleeves, I emptied my mind.
As Deimos' brute leaned over me with a wicked grin on his lips and formed his own blade made entirely of light, I sought the calm, I prepared my body for the experience.
And when he started cutting, I sat as still as I could, fighting the physical reaction.
I let myself feel the pain, the sharp ache building and building until it would become unbearable, but I didn't scream.
Because if I did, she might hear it, she might feel it.
And I would never give her that pain if I could help it.
This, I would bear alone.