Chapter 37
CHAPTER 37
A tangerine sun danced in the penetrating dark.
Neve blinked, and black strips appeared across the sun. Her body somehow felt both numb and very sore at the same time. Fog filled her head.
As she awoke further, a wave of nausea crashed over her, making her groan.
“Neve?”
The sorceress realized she was lying on a hard, cold floor and her head rested on something soft.
“Neve, it’s Amelie. Can you hear me?”
A soft hand stroked her clammy forehead.
Neve squeezed her eyes closed and open again, trying to clear her vision. After several more blinks, the sun was revealed to be a single torch glowing from a bracket on the other side of metal bars. The air was freezing.
Unbidden, her memories returned in a violent flood.
Royals guards had ambushed her and Amelie at the parlor. Caryn had led them there. And before Neve could fight off the guards, they’d hit her over the head.
Why hadn’t they killed her? Surely that was Meliohr’s wish.
Neve rolled from her side onto her back. Her head was resting in Amelie’s lap. The Velandian looked down at her with tracks of dried tears on her cheeks and a stricken expression.
“I thought you died,” she whispered. “Please, say something.”
“I’m alright,” croaked Neve. “The others?”
“The parlor was overrun. I don’t know what happened to Jarin and Riella, but if the guards left us alive, I hope the same is true of them. Davron and Eleksi were nowhere to be seen.” She paused, touching her fingertips tenderly to Neve’s cheek. “The guards brought us to the palace dungeons beneath the dungeons.”
“What?”
Neve rubbed her face, trying to comprehend the words.
“They led us through the regular dungeons, where the other prisoners are held,” explained Amelie. “At the very end of a hallway was a door leading to this section. You and I are the only ones in the cells down here. I tried screaming, but it seems that no sound gets out or in.”
With enormous effort, helped by Amelie, Neve pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around. The cell was small, with barely enough room for one person to lie down. There appeared to be no guards or windows.
“Are you hurt?” asked Neve, focusing on her friend’s face.
An angry red scratch marked Amelie’s cheek and her hair was loose and messy around her shoulders, like she’d weathered a fierce storm.
“Am I hurt?” she replied, putting her hand to her chest. “It’s you who was thumped on the head and then lay here with gray lips and floppy limbs. How do you feel?”
“Sick. Dizzy.”
Neve frowned. There was a strangely familiar quality to the sickness she felt.
“I searched for any weakness in the bars,” said Amelie. “I found none. Night had fallen by the time we arrived here. I believe roughly an hour has passed since then.”
“I don’t understand why the patrol didn’t kill me. Wasn’t that why they were there?”
Amelie’s face paled under the low light of the torch. “I fear that Meliohr has caught wind of Davron arriving in Klatos. She might be keeping you alive in the hopes he will surrender himself to save you.”
“Do they know who you are?” asked Neve in a murmur.
“For now, no. The guards assumed I accompanied you from Starlight Gardens and your black-robed friend neglected to set them straight.”
Bitterness filled the back of her throat. “I don’t know that I can call Caryn a friend. Not anymore. That Davron and Eleksi aren’t here in the cells with us gives me heart, though. As long as Meliohr keeps us alive, we can assume Davron eludes her. He and Eleksi will come to the palace, as we planned, will they not? We must find a way to escape and join them.”
“I do hope Riella and Jarin are alright.” Amelie nibbled her lip. “I wonder if Davron and Eleksi managed to procure the gold and pay off the Spider Kings.”
Neve got to her knees on the dank floor and shuffled over to the bars. “We can’t know anything until we escape from this cell. There?—”
Her words were cut short when she grasped the bars of the cell. The metal sent a heavy, painful jolt through her hands and up her arms. Her dizziness and nausea increased tenfold.
Releasing the bars, she fell backward onto the earthen floor.
“Melr,” she said with a rasp. “The bars are made of Melr.”
The insidious sick, dizzy feeling was from the dastardly mineral, compounding the effects of the blow to her head. She held up her hand, attempting to conjure a simple Glamour, and failed.
“What’s Melr?” asked Amelie.
“A magic-voiding metal, mined from mountains all over Zermes. The Garstangs seek to take control of production.”
Amelie touched the bars gingerly. “To me, it feels perfectly regular, like iron or steel. How curious.” She drew her hand away. “Come to think of it, when Davron first told me the story of the curse, he mentioned that Levissina was briefly imprisoned in the palace dungeons. I remember wondering how mere bars could restrain such a powerful being for any amount of time.”
Neve sagged, cold sweat prickling her forehead. “Alas, I am not Levissina. I feel as powerful as an earthworm right now.” She scrunched her face. “Does Davron know about the Melr cell? I thought his family was friendly to mages.”
“He didn’t seem to be aware.” She rubbed Neve’s back soothingly. “I know that Davron’s grandfather was a harsher ruler than his son, though. And the palace itself is centuries old. The cell might’ve been here for a long time.”
“Well, here’s hoping we won’t be. Where are our weapons?”
“Confiscated. The dungeon guard has checked on us a few times. I’ve dared not ask him anything, lest he reports my Velandian accent.”
Neve opened her mouth to formulate a plan, but stared slack-jawed at the dark stony wall instead, fighting for consciousness.
The effects of the metal and her injuries seemed to be cumulative. All she wanted was curl up and sleep for many days and nights, despite knowing the danger they were in. The harder she tried to form coherent thoughts, the more scrambled they became.
“I just need to lie down—” stuttered Neve, barely able to keep herself upright while leaning on her hands.
Amelie caught her just before she slumped to the floor, easing the sorceress onto her side, facing away from the bars.
“Take some rest,” said Amelie, positioning Neve’s head gently in her lap once more. “But please, do not close your eyes.”
The note of fear in Amelie’s voice made Neve’s heart twinge, and she resolved not to surrender. She would not surrender to the Melr, nor the queen herself. No one in Zermes would be safe while Meilohr lived. Neve had to find a way to escape the cell.
Or perhaps she would simply waste away down here, crushed under the deadening emanations of the vile metal. Her heartbeat felt weak, like it was moving at half speed. With every passing moment, overcoming the Melr felt more and more impossible. It was like a lead anvil, attached to her ankle and dragging her into a suffocating abyss.
In her struggle to maintain her wits, Neve began hallucinating. The wall before her seemed to shift and lurch. Close to the floor, a symbol gleamed and grew in the flickering torchlight.
The delusion taunted her by showing a glowing circle with a lightning bolt through it. The symbol of Starlight Gardens. Would she ever see that place again?
Lying in a damp, foul-smelling dungeon, her spirit ached for the beauty of the magical refuge. As she imagined the lustrous purple night sky, the symbol on the wall shone brighter.
In detached wonder, she reached out and pressed her shaking finger against the glowing symbol.
“Neve?” asked Amelie. “What are you doing?”
To her surprise, the symbol didn’t disappear when she touched it. It remained as if etched into the craggy, uneven stone wall. Urged by a sudden thrill of instinct, Neve dug her fingertip deeper into the symbol, small chunks of stone falling away.
There was a cavity behind the stone chunks she’d dug out. She cupped her hand just in time to catch the fine silver chain that slithered from the gap. Neve sat up, holding the chain to the torchlight in wonderment.
“It’s a necklace,” said Amelie in hushed, awed tones. “What on earth is that doing there?”
“Someone hid it. A mage, I believe.” Neve turned the jewelry over in her hands. “There was a symbol of Starlight Gardens concealing it.”
Just by touching the chain, she could tell it was pure silver. The metal was delicate, hewn in a filigree pattern and beset with luminous garnet stones. The silver ought to have been tarnished after being housed in a dungeon wall, yet it was shiny and unblemished.
“You do not think it was—” said Amelie, trailing off.
Neve shrugged, her mind feeling somehow sharper. “We can’t know how many mages have been incarcerated here. But, perhaps it was her.”
“It’s the funniest thing.” Amelie peered into her palm at the necklace. “When Davron was cursed, his eyes were this exact shade of garnet. They truly looked like jewels, with the same depth and dimension.”
“Magic can manifest in peculiar ways. The murkiest recesses of our minds often dictate how it materializes.”
Amelie’s face lit up with a mischievous smile. “That’s the truth. You know, Davron’s tongue—” Her expression turned to mortification. “Oh. I forgot for a moment, you are his cousin.” Her cheeks flushed and she looked away.
Neve snorted. “What about his tongue?”
“No. Never mind.”
Without thinking, Neve undid the chain’s clasp and pulled her hair away from her neck.
“Wait—” said Amelie in alarm. “You can’t mean to put on the necklace. What if it’s cursed?”
“For once in my life, I am listening to my instincts. And my instincts are telling me to wear it.”
Amelie let out a long, shaky breath. “Then, let me help you.”
They both stood and Amelie went behind her to fasten the clasp.