Chapter 18
Aliya
Aliya’s magic writhed in her chest as she followed Zadé through the narrow halls carved into the rock cliff face at the back of the prison.
The sound of their footsteps echoed off the basalt surrounding them, emphasizing the absence of other life.
But the passage was free of the dust or cobwebs that would indicate the structure had been abandoned for any length of time.
This couldn’t be good. Her feet were even heavier than they’d been when she approached the castle to turn herself over to Malkov. Had that only been a little over a week ago now?
“Princess, keep up!” Zadé called, glaring over her shoulder.
Aliya hadn’t realized she’d been slowing down. “Sorry.” She dragged her offending legs in a shuffle until she was at the other woman’s back once again.
Peering around Zadé, Aliya caught a glimpse of yet more iridescent goo covering the wall.
“Careful,” Zadé said as they got closer. “I don’t think yeh should touch it.”
Aliya swallowed past her dry throat. She hadn’t been planning to. When her instincts were screaming this hard, the smart thing to do would be to wait for reinforcements.
Zade grabbed her arm, tugging her forward.
She’d come to a stop and was staring at the changing colors surrounding the tunnel on all sides.
“Come on, princess.” Zadé tugged her out into a cavernous room that rivaled the size of Aliya’s Great Hall. “We need ta rescue anyone who’s left.”
Zadé turned her focus to the room and froze.
Aliya slammed into her. “What the…” Standing on her tip toes, she peeked over the other woman’s shoulder as her voice faded.
In front of them lay several iridescent tables, each with a body lying on top of it.
Zadé reached behind her, as if to grab Aliya and shield her from the sight.
Forget that. She dodged her friend’s grasping hand and stepped to the side, giving herself an unobstructed view of the space.
The giant cavern was packed with row upon row of bodies. She counted at least twenty rows, ten slabs deep. Each platform was covered with more of the prismatic goop.
She moved closer to one. Pointed ears peeked from between the man’s tresses.
It looked like someone had suctioned his tissue to his body.
His eyes were sunken, the hollows beneath his cheek bones unnaturally pronounced.
His fair countenance was a ghastly grey-white as though all his blood had leeched out of him.
His hair hung in thin strings that reminded Aliya of the oldest humans, but his skin was unwrinkled.
She reached out to touch him, but Zadé grabbed her wrist, jerking her back. “No, Princess. Don’t. We don’t know what did this to them, and don’t want it to infect you.”
Infection? She furrowed her brows as she squinted at Zadé. Was that something they needed to worry about? “I don’t see any evidence of sickness here.”
Zadé’s lips thinned. “They’re all dead. Something happened. Until we know what, we can’t risk doin’ something that’ll kill you, too.”
Aliya sucked on her lower lip. Fair enough.
Extricating herself from the other woman’s grip with a slight nod, she stepped up to examine another corpse.
This one appeared to have melted. Copious amounts of loose skin sagged off the unfortunate elf’s bone-thin frame.
As a sun elf, her complexion had been darker tan in life but was more of a greenish tone in death.
Neither body showed evidence of a fatal wound, but they looked as though they’d literally had the life sucked out of them.
Aliya focused on the churning feel of her magic in her torso and frowned. Perhaps they had.
Wrenching her gaze from the corpse to the rest of the room, she met Zadé’s eyes. “What did this?”
Zadé shrugged, stepping down one row. “Dunno.” Her foot nudged something metallic that rolled further down the aisle. Ripping her attention from Aliya, the other woman spat an unfamiliar Elven word.
Aliya’s heart leaped into her throat. She stepped forward, craning her neck as if that would provide enough of a change in her vantage point to let her see what Zadé had kicked.
Zadé bent, picking up a familiar silver cylinder.
A Whisperer.
Aliya’s blood froze. No.
Her gaze drifted over the two hundred slabs in the cavern, each holding a corpse.
Brooks had been here, and he’d used one of his stolen Whisperers to wipe out the entire population of Brisimin.
Aliya’s thoughts dissolved into white noise as the possible repercussions assailed her from every direction.
The elves and the dwarves, when they found out, would consider this an act of war.
The discovery of the Whisperer’s loss would shred their fragile alliances to ribbons and plunge them back into yet another conflict.
There was no way the humans would survive.
But she’d never be able to keep something this huge under wraps.
Two hundred elven prisoners, massacred in a war crime.
“How long have they been dead?” Her voice was frail and she hated its tremble.
“Can’t be more’n a day or so,” Zadé said, nudging one stiff body with her boot. “Rigor hasn’t faded.”
Aliya wasn’t sure what that meant, other than… “So, Brooks could still be close by.”
Zadé chewed the inside of her cheek. “Maybe, though yeh were pretty loud when we got here, what with callin’ ‘hello’ and ‘anyone here?’ an’ all. If he were nearby, he’d ‘a heard us.”
And he’d have activated another Whisperer and they’d both be dead.
Reaching into her pocket, she brought out the ball of wax and, splitting it in half, plugged her ears. It would put them at risk, not being able to hear someone approaching, but it would provide protection against the use of another Whisperer, which seemed far more likely at this point.
Zadé tipped her head in approval before doing the same. Glancing at Aliya, she pantomimed checking the rest of the bodies.
Aliya nodded, her twisting heart forcing an acidic taste into the back of her throat. Zadé was here to find her missing friend, after all. Aliya didn’t know if she hoped they found him or not.
Her gaze dropped to the corpse with the hollowed-out eyes and sunken cheeks as she swallowed.
Several minutes later, Zadé cried out loud enough it penetrated Aliya’s earplugs. Falling to her knees, she buried her face against the sternum of a male who, had he been human, Aliya would’ve bet was over a century old.
Licking her lips, Aliya crept closer. The man’s eyes were shriveled, and deep wrinkles lined his forehead, temples and mouth.
With a groan, Zadé heaved, trying to separate his torso from the table. Tear tracks poured down her cheeks.
The iridescent goop suctioned to his back as though it was refusing to release its prize.
Frowning through her tears, Zadé pulled harder.
Aliya tilted her head and bent down. The material was thinning and stretching from the elf’s threadbare tunic and the table. “Hang on,” she said, forgetting that with the earplugs, Zadé couldn’t hear her.
Pulling her dagger from her belt, she fit the tip at the seam between the shirt and the multicolored substance and sliced.
Something in her core snapped, like her insides had been whipped with a riding crop. Dropping her blade, Aliya stumbled back until she collided with the platform behind her. Reflexively, her hands slammed against the surface on either side of her hips to steady herself.
The seat of her magic thinned, stretching as though Malkov was above her yet again, wrenching her power from her very soul. Only this time, she didn’t have the benefit of whatever he’d used to sedate her.
Cold that burned more than the hottest flames crawled up her arms, marching to her shoulders and down her torso. When it encountered her magic, it suctioned fine filaments into the slimy substance entrapping her hands.
Aliya screamed as the edges of her vision turned black from the pain. Dropping her jaw, she gasped at the sensation of self being torn from her body.
This was so much worse than when Malkov had tried to rip her magic from her soul.
Something grabbed her, hauling her forward and against a muscular chest. The smell of pine trees after a rainstorm invaded her senses.
Elessan.
He wrenched her off her feet, spinning her around.
The gelatinous goo released her. Her magic snapped back.
By the gods.
She blinked the tears from her eyes, allowing her forehead to rest on his pectoral as she centered herself. Taking several deep breaths, she reveled in his scent as her power settled into place.
Finally, she met his gaze as he brushed a few strands of hair out of her face.
His eyebrows drew together as he leaned closer. Holding her chin between his thumb and finger, he tilted her face left and right as though checking her over for injuries.
“El?” Her voice wobbled. Damnit. Swallowing hard, she cursed her weakness.
“You’re pale,” he said, his jaw tense. “And the circles under your eyes tell me you haven’t slept for days.”
She opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say. Her mind served up the memory of one possible reason she wouldn’t have gotten much sleep recently. Tsara and Elessan, in the hallway, kissing.
She braced herself, prepared to push him away when Elessan rounded on Zadé, his face contorted as he growled something unintelligible.
Zadé jumped, spinning on him with a scowl of her own. Her eyes were red and swollen, rimmed with tears that spilled down her face as she held Dalyor’s body close, now separated from the magic-sucking goop.
Aliya removed the earplugs from her ears.
Elessan’s lips pulled away from his teeth, putting his fangs on full display, as though he wanted to rip out Zadé’s throat. “You brought royalty—the human queen—into a labor camp for prisoners of war, without a full contingent of guards? Did you even think about what could’ve happened?”