Chapter 28 Faolan
TWENTY-EIGHT
FAOLAN
Consciousness needled in the background. Sound came before anything else. But I wasn’t where I should be. I didn’t know how, but knew it deep within. The voices, while distant, were not those of my travel companions. Did I fall asleep on deck by accident?
There seemed to be a glaring hole in my memory.
And my eyes were glued shut. I tried to pry them open, but they just wouldn’t budge.
I must have drifted because the next time consciousness returned, I was moving. Or rather, I was being moved. The slow rhythmic sound of hooves confused me. On the sea, I was not. So what happened? I made to move, but found myself unable, and my entire body ached, adding more mystery.
I tried to move a toe. It wiggled in my boot. Next, a finger. It also moved. I tried to move my arm, but it was—bound—behind my back. Panic crawled up my skin, gnawing at my throat.
I pried open my eyes but kept them slits to not alert whoever had bound me to my wakefulness. I lay slung over the back of a pack beast, tied and gagged. I tested the bonds, and there would be no wriggling out of them.
I would have to shift to free myself, but I didn’t want to do that before I assessed the situation. I listened but couldn’t make out the words the voices spoke. Scratching hisses filled the space around us, and it all came back to me in an awful rush.
“Caly!” I called out in my mind, somehow managing not to vocalize it and blow my cover.
I was met with silence. I reached for her from within, tracing the loose strands between us. I was unpracticed at the art, but even though I had avoided our bond at all costs, the Goddess created us as one, and there was no avoiding the threads that bound us.
She was there. I could feel the beat of her heart still anchored to her body, and I breathed a little easier. She was still alive. Probably still out. But now I had to figure out where she was so I could shift and grab her and hopefully get away before they could get that crossbow back out.
If I could even fly with the hole that thing ripped in my damn wing.
It would be fine, it would have to be. I’d fought it hard as it pulled me in, which meant I could still keep myself airborne then.
I had to hold on to that and hope I still could now.
I closed my eyes and listened. I counted the mules and the horses.
Then I counted the undead. My stomach turned.
There were hundreds of them. They would close in the second I shifted, so I wouldn’t have much time.
Finally, I found the beast that must be carrying her. It walked like the mule I was on, its gait a little heavier, and there were more undead around her. They must be serving as guards. Obviously, whoever controlled them was able to get them to do more than just destroy.
I couldn’t let them get us wherever they were going and subject us to what they did to Kol. It was now or never.
I pushed my body out to take the shape of my dragon, but nothing happened.
Like I was cut off from that part of myself. I could feel the shape, but I couldn’t get to it. Like my matter was stuck.
Was this how Kol felt?
Panic tingled in my fingertips. How would I save her if I couldn’t shift?
I called for my magic, which I could feel still existed, but it felt somewhere out of reach.
The wind ignored me. I pulled at the vapor, and some of it came.
I focused and called the power from the earth.
My reserves were low because of the injury.
I needed more. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t take my dragon form.
When I reached out for a ley line, they felt so far. I traced them, searching for a node that might be a little deeper but bigger and easier to draw power from. There were none.
What was this place, and why was it so barren of magic?
I growled in frustration and again tried to take my dragon form.
Nothing happened.
Oh no.
What if they’d already done to me what they did to Kol?
No, no, no.
My heart raced as I searched my mind, trying to find a solution, something else to try, even with my magic so low.
Shit.
Had I failed her?
Did my selfishness at not wanting to bond with her lead here? If we could share magic, this might be easier. Even if she was passed out, as long as she was alive and we were melded, we could exchange.
But I couldn’t do what-ifs or regrets.
I had to find a way out of this as we were.
How long had it been since they pulled me out of the sky? I inhaled deeply, and the scent of my blood was still permeating the air. It couldn’t have been that long. I was not healed enough, and if I’d been out for more than a few hours, I would have healed more.
Surely that’s not enough time to have done all that they did to Kol?
Even with a few people, the intricate magic work took time and energy.
It didn’t make sense. So what else could have made me not able to shift?
Even with low magic reserves, I should be able to.
Could it be the bolt that they pierced my wing with?
Could it have been poisoned with bane or something?
That had to be it.
Now I needed a plan, but I was being pulled under again. Every blink of my eyelids had them closing for longer and longer. I couldn’t succumb. Caly needed me.
“Caly,” I called to her mind. “C—”
Then darkness came for me.
I came to, pulled from sleep by the sound of dripping.
It was cold and damp, and the rope ties on my wrists had been replaced with harsh metal.
I squinted through the darkness, and I was met with bars.
I was in a cell. A small cell. I risked moving and found not only was the cell small, but the chains on my cuffs were short. I couldn’t even reach the bars.
I tried to shift again, despite the risk that I may end up like a sausage in too-tight casing with the bars, but like I suspected, it was fruitless. Whatever they’d done to prevent it was still working.
I searched myself for recent evidence of tattoos or injuries, fearing the worst. But other than the injury to my shoulder, which would be about where the wing injury would show up on my fae form, I seemed untouched.
I hoped the not being able to shift was the wound or that the thing they’d shot was laced with something, and it would heal.
The chains loudly clanked every time I moved, so I couldn’t hide my movement, but no one came. So I decided to inspect the bars. They ran up into the ceiling and were reinforced. I might not be able to rip them free if I could shift.
Fuck.
“Calytrix. Please be here.” I reached out again. I just prayed to the Goddess she was with me, and they hadn’t taken her to another location. We could only speak when at a certain distance from each other. I knew that much about ryder/flyer bonds.
“Faolan?” Her inner voice was weak.
“Thank the Goddess. Are you hurt?”
“I can’t tell. Everything hurts.” She groaned, and it was a little cute. “Where are we?”
“I think in cells of some sort. But I’m not entirely sure. They had us on mules…but I don’t know when that was or how far they took us.” I filled her in on what happened.
“I’m in a cell too,” she informed me, sounding far more awake. Her chains clinked as she moved, and I listened. I was equal parts relieved and terrified she was nearby.
“I hear you. You’re close by.”
“You thought that I might be somewhere else?”
“I had no idea, but you’re the important fae out of the two of us. Who knows where they might have stolen you away to?”
“Damn it, we need out of these cells,”
“I know we do.”
“Can you shift and bust us out?”
“No, thats the problem,” I told her.
“Why can’t you shift?”
“I don’t know exactly, but Kol was poisoned with doses of Dragon's Bane. Not enough to kill him, but enough to disconnect him with his dragon and his magic. This feels like that.”
“Hmmm. Well, even if you can’t fly, I still think we need to get out of here. I can’t imagine anything good will happen when they find out we’re awake.”
“How do you propose we do that? I can’t shift, and even if I could, I don’t know that I could destroy these bars without bringing the roof down on us.”
“I’ll do it, silly.”
“You’ll—what are you going to do?”
“Can you clink your chains so I can hear where you are?”
I frowned, obliging her request, not understanding how it would enable her to—”
Suddenly, she appeared from thin air outside my cell and winked.