Chapter XIII
Mariam wakes to a splitting headache. Her entire head throbs horribly, like someone’s taken a jackhammer to it.
Her eyes flicker open, crusty and dry, as if she’s been asleep for hours, but she can’t remember going to bed.
Her every limb feels made of lead, trapped in cement.
Somehow, she brings a hand to her face and rubs her eyes.
When they focus, she sees red walls, and rotting wooden floorboards under her face…
and a pearlescent magical barrier, overlapping the walls, expanding and contracting in and out of them like a beating heart.
She’s been sleeping face-down on the floor in some room she doesn’t recognize.
There’s a strange, almost searing sensation in her chest. It feels like her heart is on fire, literally. But it doesn’t hurt. And it’s not just her heart. It’s like a rope extending out of her, pulling her to…
Sable! She hears a pained snarl coming from the next room, rising above what she now recognizes as loud piano music. She remembers now—Jimmy brought dinner, but when Sable opened the door, he wasn’t there. Sable was concerned, but Mariam talked her out of it and they ate…
Panic rising but still groggy, she tries to lift herself up onto her hands, but falters and nearly faceplants into the splintery wood under her.
Shit, she thinks, we were drugged. He has us now.
Was Jimmy working with Caedren? She doesn’t want to think that of the kindly old man, but… Her head is swimming.
It takes a minute to get her legs to respond to her well enough to sit up. Her heart beats unevenly and it’s definitely not helped by hearing the love of her life scream in agony.
She can’t even stand… but she still has her magic.
Drawing on half-remembered medical knowledge, she directs her healing to her innards, to where she thinks her liver is, willing it to clear the poison from her system quicker.
A soft yellow glow fills her hands as she settles them onto her belly, before it spreads to encompass her entire body.
She tries to drown out the sounds of Sable’s screams and just focus on returning the sensation to her legs…
She swallows as she feels her supply of magic run out before she’s done, and the glow fades.
She tries to move her legs… She can’t. Then Sable cries out again, and something comes over her. She forces her way to her feet. Her legs are barely working, but it’s enough. She collapses against the wall and holds herself up against it.
Then she turns, and nearly has a heart attack.
There’s a hulking man standing in the corner with a dead look in his eyes.
He’s not even looking at her; it’s like he’s unconscious.
She blinks, thinking perhaps she’s looking at some kind of mannequin, but then he turns to look at her.
She almost falls down. But he doesn’t move.
“Hello?” she says, her voice warbling with fear.
She sees the man better now. Despite his size, he looks younger than her.
He has a baby face, with acne scars. And something’s not right with him.
He’s not just acting creepy; he looks lobotomized.
She has a nasty feeling that this person is another victim.
She reaches out with the last thread of her magic and she sees it—a crown of blue thorns on his head.
She’s never seen anything like it, but she recognizes that it’s some kind of spell that’s been placed on him.
“Hello,” he says, so long after she spoke that it startles her again. She waits, watches him, but he doesn’t move again or say anything else for a long moment.
“Can you help me?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says blankly. Mariam waits another moment for him to start doing something, but he doesn’t. Then Sable cries out again. Whatever is going on with this man, it doesn’t seem like he can help, and Sable is her priority.
Mariam realizes there’s a door behind him. She missed it earlier between the darkness of the room and the strobing light of the magic barrier. Sable must be in the next room. “Excuse me,” she says, and tries to shove past him, but the man is like a brick wall. “Could you move, please?”
“Yes, Master,” says the strange man, and he steps aside robotically.
Mariam tries the handle, but of course it’s locked.
She musters as much strength as she has to try and break the handle off…
The door is dilapidated, but the handle holds.
Sable could probably just punch through it, but Mariam isn’t strong enough, especially not with this poison in her system.
She turns back to the man, now standing in the corner watching her.
He called her “Master”… It hits her. Caedren must have been using some kind of mind control magic on him, but he’s distracted with Sable now, and his control has slipped.
The man is in a suggestible state. He would do anything she asked.
“Can you open the door?” she asks. “It’s locked, but…”
The man doesn’t answer in words. Instead, he calmly walks up to the door, punches a hole in it, and then sticks his bleeding fingers through the hole and pulls inwards.
The rotten door collapses into a hail of splinters.
Mariam stares, mouth agape. But where the door was is that iridescent magic, still pulsing eerily.
“What is that?” Mariam asks.
“A magical barrier,” he says, “which prevents sound or matter from passing from this side to the other.”
“Well, I need to get through it,” Mariam says. “Can we get around it somehow?”
The man shakes his head. “There’s no need. I can take you through it, Master.”
Mariam pauses a moment. He said it blocks sound from this side, so despite him ripping that door apart, Caedren hasn’t heard anything and still probably thinks she’s unconscious. If Mariam can do anything to save Sable, it will only be with the element of surprise.
“What’s on the other side of this?” she asks, as another heart-wrenching scream of pain comes through from beyond the barrier.
“A hallway,” he answers, “and then another room similar to this one. My other Master is busy there.”
A chill runs down Mariam’s spine. If he still sees Caedren as his master, she’s not sure what will happen when they get in the same room. Surely he will stop obeying her the moment Caedren gives him a command. But maybe…
“Carry me through,” Mariam says, “and then set me down on the other side and charge Caedren. Get him and yourself as far away from here as you can.” It won’t work, she’s sure, but it might buy her enough time to accomplish something.
She’s sick to her stomach thinking of risking this man’s life, but she has to hope he’s valuable to Caedren in some way, that he won’t just kill him like he killed Will.
The man bows to her. “As you wish, Master.” He’s surprisingly gentle as he scoops Mariam up and hoists her over his shoulder, and then he runs for the barrier.
He passes through it, and Mariam passes through it with him, and then they’re in a hallway.
The man sets her down and he barges past her into the next room.
Mariam runs after him, but he’s much faster.
She sees the horror she’s been imagining in the next room: Caedren is standing over Sable, her limbs tied to stakes in the ground, a collar around her neck.
He’s holding a barbed whip, and Sable is covered in fresh bloody lashes.
She’s conscious, though, and despite the obvious pain, she still looks defiant.
Mariam’s stomach drops as she sees the amount of blood that’s been shed.
Caedren hears the mind-controlled man coming and turns to see him and Mariam.
His eyes widen in shock and rage. “What are you doing, you buffoon?” But he’s too late—the man tackles him.
They hit the ground hard, busting through the floorboards.
Then, suddenly, they both disappear. Mariam recognizes the ripple in the air from tearing.
Did Caedren try to escape? It doesn’t matter.
She rushes to Sable’s side. “Sable! Oh, my love, Sable!”
~§~
Sable hears Mariam’s voice cut through the loud, grating piano music. She cranes her head. Caedren is gone, but what’s happening?
Mariam’s gentle hand strokes her sweaty face, and then she moves to one of the ropes binding her. “The collar,” Sable rasps. “Get the collar off first.”
She feels those soft hands come up and click the collar off of her, and then she hears it land where Mariam throws it. There’s a heady sensation as her returning powers rush through her. She reaches out to the knotted ropes with her magic and commands them to untie. Mariam cups her face.
“He told me you were dead,” she says. The strength she’d kept up under Caedren’s torture fails; a sob escapes her throat.
“I’m so sorry, Sable,” Mariam says. “He just had me in the other room, behind a magical barrier. He had some kind of guard under a control spell, but I guess he lost his focus while he was hurting you and the guard let me command him.”
“That rat-bastard,” Sable says, struggling to her feet. “Where did they go?”
There’s a quick whoosh and then a roar—Caedren has torn back in, and he looks pissed.
He’s disheveled, there are splinters in his clothes, and Sable thinks she can see snowflakes in his hair.
Wherever he was, it was very far away. His eyes dart between Sable and Mariam, realization coming over his features.
“So that’s how you’ve fucking done it,” he says, his voice ragged. He leers at Mariam, his eyes mad with rage. “I’ll kill her and make sure you never complete the union ritual!”
Time slows down as Sable realizes what he’s saying.
In the previous attack, it was her bond to Mariam that let her recover from Caedren’s dart so quickly, and it must be the same bond that got Mariam up tonight when Caedren was expecting her to stay down.
She’s not sure what tipped him off, but now he knows they’re mates.
Sable can’t let this be how Mariam finds out.