Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Torin
“Please calm down,” Story says, having awoken as soon as we returned to his world. His color has returned, and his breathing and heartbeat seem to have steadied as well.
“I’m not going to fucking calm down until someone tells me where Riley is,” I growl.
A young woman in her twenties, who introduced herself as Lark and looks almost identical to Story, gently sets her hand on my arm.
I know she’s trying to soothe me, but right now the only thing that will work is having Riley back with me.
“He was taken by the military from the capital. They were watching the Door and shattered it the second they felt someone coming through. Your friend must have come through first, which is why it separated your group.”
“Then I’m going to get him back,” I snarl.
Lark shakes her head and her dark hair falls into her face.
“Charging up there is a death sentence, especially as a god. They don’t take kindly to those with magic and even less kindly to gods.
I asked my brother to go through the Door and seek out people who are magicless and could help… not a god and two magic beings.”
Story just looks the other way.
“We will get your person back but for now, we need to hide,” she says as she swiftly leads us down an alley.
“There was another attack on the capital, which will keep them busy for a bit. Resources out here have gotten scarce and the capital is guarding them for themselves. Because people are getting desperate, there was another revolt, and the military is on high alert for anything suspicious.”
“Wouldn’t now be the best time to retrieve him, while they’re distracted?” I ask. “What exactly can a bunch of magicless beings even do to me?”
“They might be magicless, but they’re not powerless. How many times have you fought against a gun?” Lark counters.
“You think a gun can take down a god?”
“Maybe not one at full strength, but you don’t seem to be strong enough.”
Her words irritate me and make me want to show her how strong I am, but another part of me knows she’s not being malicious.
The buildings we move past are falling down, and the people who walk among them keep their heads down, clothed in near rags.
Each and every one of them is branded. Before I get a better look, Lark puts a hand on my head and pushes me through a door as Kit anxiously cries.
I pick her up and pull her in close while I wonder if we could at least get Kit to Riley.
But would they recognize her as a familiar, marking him as a magic user? Or have they already done so?
My gut clenches at the thought of what they might do to my precious Riley. I hold Kit snugly as Lark leads us over to a trapdoor that a man is holding open. They usher us down into it, and someone lights a candle the moment it’s shut.
“I’m sorry we’ve brought you into our mess,” Story says meekly.
“We need to find Riley and then we can talk about dealing with your horseman problem,” I tell him.
“There won’t be much left to deal with if things keep going the way they are,” Lark says as she stops in front of a door and pushes it open.
She uses the candle she was holding to light the lanterns around the room, immediately brightening it up.
“We can talk freely here. They can’t listen to us here.
And they won’t kill your friend. They’ll likely want to get information from him about how he got here and what his world could do for them.
They’re getting more desperate by the day. ”
“Why did you create the Door in such an open space?” Mickey asks.
“The woman who made it was dying after being attacked… she had little choice. We had built this room down here with the hope of making the Door here to freely pass back and forth. They caught on to her scheme and sent someone to execute her. She escaped long enough to create a Door before shoving my brother through. I was told she died within minutes, having done her best to lead them away from the Door. They were looking for the Door ever since and must have found it just not long before your group passed through it. We need your help. We can’t do anything against them, and yet we have to face the fact that death is looming over us. ”
Lark takes a deep breath. “You see, our world was built from the magic of a goddess.
She brought so much life to these lands—she made the ground rich for farming, filled the sky with sun or rain for our crops, and helped life prosper.
But around three hundred years ago, our leader at the time became greedy.
He wanted absolute control over the realm.
As a magicless man, he felt inferior, so he had the goddess captured.
He fought to make her submit to his whims, but she refused and cursed the people of this land, believing all of us to be greedy like he was.
She swore to take everything from us. Enraged, our former leader focused on destroying her, and she was slowly drained of life inside a small cage she could not escape from.
“Everything she had brought to life began to wither, and our leader was even more unhappy. Those with magic began to revolt against his actions, wanting to save the goddess, but all it did was fuel his rage. He learned how to remove magic from those who had it, which tore the realm apart. Those with magic were stripped of their strength and sent out into the wasteland that’d been left after the goddess had forsaken us.
And those without magic were offered safety and homes within the capital.
This tradition has been passed down by every leader since. ”
Lark stops talking long enough to reach out and push her brother’s hair off his forehead like she’s examining something there. He stands oddly still until her fingers fall.
“There was some civility between those with magic and those without… until about twenty years ago. Our resources have begun to dwindle and the crops have begun to die. Then about five years ago, our ruler at the time became so weak that he passed leadership of this hell to his only daughter, a woman as calculating as he is. We don’t see him often anymore, but people like to mock that if he hadn’t continued the practice of stripping everyone, a healer could have been the one to save him. ”
“I… don’t quite know how you expect us to save your whole world from ruin,” Mickey says.
Lark shakes her head as she looks at Mickey.
“I don’t. I merely told you this so you’re aware of what’s happening when you go to save your friend.
The prospect of starvation has caused unrest. The branded are planning to stage another attack on the wall in two days.
We’ve nearly run out of the food that they force us to grow and harvest but will not share with us.
And when our workers steal some from the fields they work to feed their families, they are punished heavily.
They plan to attack the wall during a protest. The military will be forced to intervene, and getting into the prison will be easiest then.
Until that time, they’ll be watching it closely. ”
“I can’t wait two days,” I say.
“You believe he’s safe?” Mickey asks her.
Lark gives me a reassuring look, but I’m still not convinced.
“We do have some magicless people who are on our side. One of them is a guard who has been keeping us informed. I’ve been told that they didn’t get a magic reading on your friend.
They believe he’s a regular human and have simply placed him in a cell until they understand more. ”
“If magic is forbidden, how are you using magic?” Mickey asks curiously.
She glances over at him then looks at Story, who smiles sheepishly at us.
“I’m not fully human. The brand didn’t entirely work on me,” Lark says as she looks down at it.
“It didn’t work on Story either, and in a fit of rage, they executed him in front of me.
” Her finger pushes the hair back on his forehead, revealing a scar.
“I kept him alive with my magic, but sadly, he no longer ages.”
Mickey scrutinizes Story for a long moment because whatever Story is, he’s nothing like Mickey’s undead who don’t have a heartbeat.
“Well, Lark, I’ve been on my feet for like ten times longer than I’ve ever been in my life…
I need a chair, or if you have like a plush recliner, I wouldn’t be opposed. ”
She raises an eyebrow, probably unsure how this has harmed him. “That does sound concerning.”
“I’ll get you a chair!” Story says before he darts off, leaving Mickey to recognize a new sucker to boss around. He appears pleased by it, but all the while, I can’t stop thinking about Riley.
I glance at Kit as an idea forms in my head. “Kit, is Riley looking through your eyes right now?”
The genet stares at me, and I wonder if she can even understand what I’m saying. But I decide to write a note to Riley anyway and hope that at some point, he’ll look to see what is written.