Chapter 38
CHAPTER 38
N eve turned around and touched her face.
“Your skin and lips are no longer gray.” Amelie gazed at her in wonder. “You look perfectly healthy, like your usual self. How do you feel?”
“I feel . . . better.”
Neve flexed her fingers, magic coursing through her system anew.
The fogginess in her mind had vanished, as had the pain in her body and the nausea. It was as if the Melr suddenly had no effect on her. Even her head injury had stopped throbbing.
The center garnet of the necklace pulsed with energy against her throat. She touched it lightly and smiled. “The stone has been enchanted to counteract the effects of Melr.”
The joy of discovering the trinket was bittersweet, when she paused to think about it. Almost certainly planted here by Levissina, the necklace was intended to save any mage who found themselves imprisoned in the Melr cell.
Levissina would have been grieving when she made it, having just lost Malakai to violence, and yet she still had the determination and presence of mind to leave behind a helping hand for a person she would never meet.
Then, days later, Levissina would go on to murder Davron’s family, and attempt to murder him. More and more, Neve was understanding the divide between darkness and light was not as starkly demarcated as she had first supposed. A person did not choose just one, just once.
Did these smaller, hidden good deeds count? Or was a person’s goodness measured by the worst thing they had done?
“Let’s not spend another moment in this dreadful hole,” said Neve, striding to the bars with new vigor. “We will not die here.”
Amelie snaked her arm through the bars and held up the heavy brass padlock on the gate. “The dungeon guard has the key. Do we need to wait for him to return, or can you free us?”
“Releasing a lock mechanism with magic is difficult, because it requires both brute force and careful precision. But I can certainly try.”
Grasping the padlock, she began feeding a stream of her essence into it, aiming for the tiny interior metal ridges that held the mechanism in place.
Amelie pressed her face against the bars nearest to the exit. “I shall keep a lookout for the guard.”
“I’ll endeavor to hurry, to be sure. I can feel the potency of the garnet’s enchantment waning already.”
“The necklace has been sitting in a stone wall for many years.”
“Aye. It’s a miracle an enchantment lingers at all. Enchantments can usually only endure indefinitely when the sorcerer who conjured them is alive and well, with their magic freely circulating the mortal plane. The magic contained in this necklace is but a remnant. A powerful remnant, but a remnant all the same.”
A lesser mage than Levissina would have been unlikely to leave behind the enchantment in the first place. Neve couldn’t imagine how it was done, and was struck by the sudden hunger to find out. She’d shied away from so much learning for fear of stoking the fires of her darkest powers. If she escaped the palace and Meliohr, she vowed to devote herself to the study of sorcery with a fervor she’d never dared to embrace before.
Under Neve’s glowing grip, the metal inner workings of the padlock quivered and strained. Sweat beaded on her forehead and fatigue climbed into her body. If not for the necklace’s enchantment, the Melr bars she leaned against would’ve caused her agony. Once the enchantment dissipated, her odds of releasing the padlock would plummet.
In frustration, she ground her teeth. The mechanism was on the verge of giving way, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t push it over the edge.
To her alarm, the Melr bars hummed ominously. The anti-magic properties of the metal were beginning to resume their interactions with Neve.
Tears of exertion formed in her eyes. Amelie moved closer, taking her spare hand and squeezing it gently.
“I know you can do it,” she murmured. “You mustn’t give up.”
Neve’s vision began warping and blurring. Ignoring the accelerating pain where her body touched the bars, she poured every last fraction of her energy into the lock.
“Open,” she panted. “Come on.”
Finally, mercifully, the mechanism gave way with a tiny yet satisfying click.
The padlock sprang open. Neve withdrew her hand at once, backing away from the bars. The necklace lay inert against her skin, depleted of magic. Her body trembled from exertion.
Amelie reached through the bars and removed the padlock, tossing it indiscriminately into the black depths of the dungeons with a clang. After opening the gate, she and Neve hurried to the door.
“This leads to the upper levels of the dungeon,” whispered Amelie, putting her ear against the rough steel surface. “Can you detect Melr?”
Neve shook her head in relief. Her own energy wasn’t entirely depleted, but escaping the cell had taken a toll. At this rate, she’d be useless by the time she reached the queen—if she managed it at all.
“The dungeon guard has a station at the first entrance,” breathed Amelie. “With luck, he’ll be there, not at this end of the dungeons.”
“Let’s arm ourselves however we can, and overwhelm him.”
“There might be more than one.”
“Then we overwhelm them, too.”
“A torture chamber lies off to one side.” Amelie wrinkled her nose. “I believe it was empty, blessedly, but surely it’ll contain tools. We can use them as weapons, and to break the other prisoners free from their cells. We can’t leave them here. I saw children among them.” She paused, sweeping her eyes over Neve. “Do you have any magical reserves?”
“I could perhaps cast one defensive spell. But it wouldn’t be anything extraordinary.”
“That’s alright. We’ll have the element of surprise, at least.” She exhaled, puffing out her cheeks. “I wonder where Davron and the others are. They mightn’t know where we were taken, or that we’re even still alive.”
Amelie tugged the iron ring handle with painstaking slowness, opening the door a mere crack. A slice of yellow light fell across her face as she peeked into the main dungeon.
With the door cracked, Neve could now hear the other prisoners. There was a man shouting obscenities, people wailing, and what sounded disturbingly like the sobs of very young children.
“I see no guard,” muttered Amelie. “Gods willing, he’s at the station.”
She opened the door further, so that Neve could see through the gap.
The ceiling was made of stone, and cells ran on both sides of the narrow passageway. Sputtering torches in brackets were the only light. The cells were so full that prisoners could only stand in many.
The smell of human filth wafted through the cracked doorway, turning Neve’s stomach. No wonder the guard preferred to stay at the station—these people were being kept in worse conditions than cattle. Anger rose in her, prompting her to act.
“Come on,” she said, opening the door wide. “We gain nothing by delaying.”
Light-footed, she stepped into the passageway and straight into the line of sight of a prisoner. The little girl was occupying a cell no bigger than a dog kennel. Startled and grubby-faced, she gazed up at the sorceress. Neve pressed her finger to her lips, bidding the girl to stay quiet.
Amelie followed, falling at once to her knees at the bars in front of the girl.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she whispered. “Are you hurt?”
Tears filled the girl’s owlish eyes. “I dinna know where my Mama has gone.”
Other prisoners noticed them now, peering from their cells with wild, wounded stares. Several of the adults hissed at Neve and Amelie, trying to get their attention. Neve pressed her palms together and mimed at them, trying to communicate that she would open their cells, but they needed to remain quiet.
Amelie reached into the cell, hugging the little girl through the bars to comfort her.
“I’ll find tools,” breathed Neve into Amelie’s ear, not having the heart to wrench her away from the child.
Traveling in the shadows, Neve crept along the passageway to find the torture chamber. Her heart twisted as she was forced to ignore the pleas of the prisoners.
One cell she passed was empty, with rocks piled in front of a hole in the back wall. She realized with a start that it was the hole she’d blown in the cellar wall when she helped Danior’s children escape. Most of these prisoners were likely being held by Meliohr for political reasons, as Danior’s son and daughter had been.
The coppery smell of blood filled the torture chamber, making Neve gag. Trying not to dwell on the rust-colored stains on the tools, she scanned the racks for a chisel, to open padlocks with.
While she was making her selection, a shadow crossed the archway of the chamber. She turned just in time to see a guard stalking down the passageway, silent and dressed in brown leather. So focused he was on Amelie at the end of the corridor, that he did not notice Neve.
A moment later, there was a female yelp, followed by scuffling.
Blood rushing in her ears, Neve snatched up a hammer and ran to the archway. What she saw wiped her mind blank. The guard had forced Amelie to the ground, face down, and he was climbing on top of her.
“If ye wanted to come out and play, lassie, you shoulda just said so,” he jeered, jerking aside her cloak and the skirts of her dress. “Every lady deserves some fun before she dies.”
Amelie thrashed on the ground. She tried to cry out, but could only cough as the guard pushed her head into the dirt.
As Neve approached, the child in the cell shrank back, squeezing her eyes closed and putting her hands over her ears.
Paces from the man, Neve let the hammer fall from her hand. He must have heard her then, because he looked up, his giddy smirk still plastered across his face. She clamped her hand over his jaw and dug her fingertips into his flesh, his expression freezing in dumb surprise.
Amelie kicked her way out from under his weight, crawling until she was clear of him while gasping for breath.
With a rush of anticipation, Neve broke the deep, pitch-black pocket of her mind wide open and invited her deathly ability to pour out. A power more fierce than she’d ever felt coursed through her body, lighting her skin with silver and black tendrils threaded with red. She gripped the man’s face harder as he writhed and wailed beneath her, terror replacing the mirth in his eyes.
She inhaled with more than her lungs, drawing the man’s life force into her hand and transmuting his essence into a towering might of her own.
The tendrils of her power lashed at the man, like stinging whips. As she drew his life from him, he became strangely weightless in her palm. His eyes turned progressively black and desiccated, like pieces of coal, while his limbs seized up. Thick black veins extended from her palm into his jaw, spreading through his body.
She inhaled one last spirit-breath, and the man died.
At first, he was a charred statue, as if a dragon had incinerated him. Then, his form imploded, turning to dust and falling to the floor, where he became nearly indistinguishable from dirt. Amelie’s silver rose tumbled onto the small pile of dust. The guard must have had it in his pocket.
Only then did Neve register that she was levitating, effortlessly, her head close to the ceiling. Her fingertips and palms were as black as soot. Far from feeling fatigued, killing the guard had left her overflowing with strength. The power circled through her body like a great sea serpent.
“Neve?” asked Amelie in a tentative voice. Her face was streaked with tears and dirt.
Concern for Amelie jolted Neve from her state of exaltation, her feet quickly returning to the floor. She picked up the silver rose and handed it to Amelie.
The prisoners were now very quiet, standing back from the bars and avoiding Neve’s gaze.
“Are you alright?” she asked Amelie.
“Yes.” Amelie eyed the pile of dust that had been her attacker. “Did Levissina’s necklace do that?” she added uncertainly.
“No.” Neve’s heart contracted, the reality of what she’d done coming into sharp relief. She’d unleashed her darkest power. “That was me.” She braced herself for judgment. Or worse, horror and revulsion.
Amelie nodded thoughtfully.
“How extraordinary you are.” She wiped the dust from her silver rose with the hem of her cloak and gave Neve a shaky smile. “You saved me. You’re like a human Sirenstone. Come, we must hurry. More guards will surely follow.”
Her words, flippant though they were, allowed Neve to consider her abilities in a different light. Sirenstones were formidable. They were designed to destroy. And no one feared or loathed them, except those who sought to harm innocents.
Amelie retrieved a ring of brass keys from the guard station. Together, she and Neve unlocked the gates to the cells. The prisoners’ wariness of Neve wore off as they realized they were being freed. Once a few were out of their cells, they helped Neve and Amelie, releasing everyone as quickly as possible. Others were injured and would require the attention of proper healers.
“Hurry,” called one man from a cell near the entrance. “More guards will come.”
“What do we do?” Amelie asked Neve in hushed tones. “How do we get them from the dungeons safely?”
Neve pondered the question, looking around in desperation.
“Oh, of course.” She pointed at the cell where she’d blasted the hole in the wall. Fumbling through the keyring, she unlocked the door and began clearing the rocks that blocked the gap. “This leads through to the cellars. They can escape via the kitchens.”
A released prisoner with ragged clothing and scruffy hair overheard her.
“I worked in the gardens, before Meliohr had me thrown in here for speaking truth,” he piped up. “I know this place like the back of my eyelids. Plenty of us do. Worry not about us.”
“Aye,” said a woman with gray braids, putting her arm around the little girl Amelie had comforted. “We’ve allies in the kitchens. We’ll be alright.” Her eyes floated to Neve’s blackened hands. “I daresay you’re needed up in the palace. Rumors have been swirling, about the prince. They say he’s back.”
Neve and Amelie shared a glance. Secrets did indeed spread quickly within palace walls.
“We need to find our friends,” said Neve.
Amelie nodded. She hugged the little girl goodbye while Neve ransacked the guard station for her silver sword, which she found dumped in a weapons chest.
“Is it true?” asked a man with bare feet and red-rimmed eyes.
Neve slung the sword’s scabbard over her shoulder. “Is what true?”
“Has the prince returned?”
Amelie walked over, silver rose in hand. “We are trying very hard to make it so.” She inclined her head at the stone spiral staircase. “The palace courtyard is at the top.”
Together, she and Neve climbed, orange torches flickering wildly from the walls.