by Cora May
Addy’s mind went straight to Chanta. She had proven herself able to open portals very quickly. Addy’s stomach sickened for a moment as she wondered if her own roommate was the one leading this whole scheme.
But no, that wasn’t even possible. Chanta had not even been at the school for a full week. Addy had examined her wrists upon first meeting her and found no scar across them, and she wore no stone on her body. She seemed genuinely confused when Addy and Brin explained to her the nature of the school. There was no way she had done any of this. If she was involved, it was as involuntarily as Addy herself was. But that gave her another idea.
“We could find a way to mess with the portal,” she said. “I’m not sure what we would do, but somehow close it or at least make in un-enterable. That’s one option. The other thing we could do is to find out who is making them. If we can somehow sabotage that person, rather than ourselves, we could potentially render our hypnosis useless. We might still be under a sort of spell, but we would have nowhere to go, no portal to step through.”
Everyone carefully contemplated her suggestion. She looked around the room, searching for a friendly face that might side with her, but she found nothing but serious contemplation. They were at least considering the idea, she supposed. It was better than nothing.
“Isn’t Nessi the one opening the portals?” Kameron finally said, trying to poke a hole in her plan. “How are we supposed to mess with her? Not only is she going to be in her own quarters for the day, but she is also the one who has control of us.”
“Nessi can’t open portals,” Addy told him bluntly. “She’s a Jasper Warrior, just like you and me. There have to be far more players in this operation than we are aware of, because it’s not possible for the Jasper Warriors to conduct this whole thing by ourselves. Why else would she have so many different types of professors on her team? She can’t do this alone.”
“Who, then,” Viktor said, “do you think it is?”
Addy chewed on the inside of her cheeks.
“I believe it is another student,” she confessed. She watched as various emotions flashed across her peers’ faces—anger, confusion, an annoyed eye roll from Kameron—before she continued. “You all believe this is Nessi carrying out the operation, right? We all know she’s a fan of using students, then. I mean, look at her army. I don’t even think I recognized a single senior in that meeting that I was a part of. It seems she likes the younger, naïve ones the most. If you guys are right about her being in charge of this, too, then look around the room. She still uses students. So why wouldn’t she find another student capable of opening a portal and put them under the same hypnosis we are under?”
The room grew very still as everyone contemplated her theory. The quiet boy had perked his head up ever so slightly, as if he could hear better that way, Chaz had begun to scratch the stubble on his beard as if it would help him think better, and Kameron’s brow furrowed as he searched for a reason to call Addy insane. He came up with none, though.
“Another student…” Viktor pondered out loud.
“Think about it,” she told them. “The professors in charge are two Warriors, a Soother, a Burner, and a Healer. Each and every one of them is just as capable of opening a portal as we are.”
“And we’re not very capable at all,” Viktor said, as if it wasn’t obvious. Addy turned and gave him a friendly—if patronizing—smile. He was trying to offer her help in a room full of people who didn’t entirely accept her. It was deserving of at least a small smile, she decided, even if she didn’t understand why he was doing it.
“Exactly,” she said. “One of the professors already made a student open a portal for some of us to go through, in order to speak with the Anam. It certainly didn’t go as expected.” Addy paused, grimacing as she recalled the details Chanta filled her in on. “If you guys are right about the implanted stones being the way to control us, she could be in as much danger as we are. Professor Thurien forced her to implant her true stone inside her arm, and if he’s done it with one student, who’s to say he hasn’t done it with others?”
“Professor Thurien?” Liz asked with shock. “It couldn’t be him. He helped me adjust in the beginning—and I’m not even a Burner. He took the time to make sure I understood everything and that I was okay with what was going on. He’s a gentle soul. You must be mistaken.”
“No,” Jace said. “I was there that night. She’s right—it was definitely Thurien.”
“I’m not sure any of these professors are who we think they are,” Addy told the group. “I looked up to Professor Nessi the entire time I’ve been here. She was my hero. Semester after semester, I strove to prove to her that I was the best. I trained with her after hours. She mentored me in school if I asked. I was determined to prove myself to her, and that’s why I eventually put the stone in my arm. I thought she was the greatest mentor on the face of this planet, until the day she found the stone in my arm. When she inducted me into the army, it was under a coerced threat.”
She saw a few solemn nods around the room. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one who had been coerced. That was a good feeling. It was a comforting feeling.
“I don’t think it’s that far of a stretch to say that other professors might not be who we thought, either.”
Again, there were more nods. They came slowly, but as the students gave her words some thought, they agreed with what she was saying.
“So then, you think that there might be other students that have been coerced into this whole thing?” Chaz asked. “Like, what kind of students?”
Addy clenched her teeth, thinking about her next words. She was lucky, though, because Viktor decided to step in for her when her silence came.
“It has to be the Psychics. Or maybe the Communicators,” he thought out loud. “Right? Those are the only stones that have contact with the other side. With the Province, I mean. So they must be able to open a portal, right?”
“I’ve never heard of it being done,” Kameron stated bluntly.
“But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t,” Viktor argued.
“We don’t know what they’re capable of,” Jace put in, “with the stones in their arms. We’re capable of a lot more, who’s to say they aren’t, too?”
“A stone in the wrist means the ability to open a portal?” Liz said with an eyebrow raised.
“It makes more sense than a Healer or a Burner,” Viktor argued his point.
“If anyone can do it,” Jace agreed, “and someone has to be doing it, the Psychics and the Communicators make the most sense.”
It was an uncomfortable moment of silence that followed. No one seemed to want to come to a consensus, but no one was able to form a solid argument.
Nobody, that was, except for Addy. She knew the stone that made the portals was Douglass’. She was sure no one else was able to do it, whether or not they had their stone implanted in their wrists. This whole conversation brought up two very real possibilities that she had never thought of before: Either implanted stones were giving certain people far more power than they needed—and, by extension, the people that controlled them even more power—or there were more students with Douglass’ Blessing in their wrists, because Chanta came too long after the huntings began.
So, Addy sat there in silence with the rest of the students, everyone lost in their own train of thought as they tried to figure out what their next move was going to be and what they wanted to believe. Even Addy herself was struggling with what she wanted to believe. It seemed that even the easiest possibility would be no walk in the park.
“So, then,” Jace began, tentatively breaking the silence as he tried to feel everyone out, “we find the students?”
Addy didn’t dare say a word. She didn’t truly want to be a part of the decision making. She looked around the room at the other students, who seemed to have the same line of thought. It was Viktor who spoke up.
“We find the students.”
CHAPTER TWENTY: BRINZIEL
&
nbsp; S he couldn’t have imagined anything worse. She thought she might die from heatstroke at the very best—and she had come to wish for that. If not that, then she hoped that Madam Sorenna would finish working her to death, because she certainly seemed to be trying. But Brin knew—if she died in this place, then what were the chances of leaving? She had to keep her human body alive long enough to escape.
Working in Hell’s Brothel, as it very much was, meant long, humiliating hours. Brin found that one can grow very hungry in this place. It wasn’t just her human body, either. She would watch as every girl clutched her stomach in hunger at various times, begging the nearest ear to bring them some food. Some of the girls even tried to act like it was a fetish and get the other Anam to bring them something in their next session, promising that they’d eat it in front of them. Their stomachs seemed to growl more often than Brin’s own. She wondered if that was some part of the body of an Anam Dorcha, to give them further suffering in their afterlife, or if it was just because she still didn’t feel like eating.
The Anam who came in to Sorenna’s beds were allowed to do whatever they wanted to the girls. Some of them brought torture devices. Others used what was on hand. Brin had watched as several of the girls got whipped, and she shrank into the hard mattress as far as she could go, hoping those specific Anam never found her.
It was a long time, as it so happened, before anyone noticed her at all. Sorenna kept reminding her of her debts, and each day, as Srilla predicted, those debts grew. Sorenna told her she must work if she wanted to see them paid off, keeping close tabs on how many of the Anam were attracted to Brin and how she hid from them. She pointed out how the other girls presented themselves—and, in fact, they did, pushing their breasts up, sprawling out on the bed, beckoning the Anam men in any way they could—and suggested that Brin do the same.
In answer, Brin had spit on her.
That did earn her a beating from Orak—and that beating cost her. Her debt grew, as if the beating was some sort of service he supplied her with, but Sorenna had left her alone for a few days after that.
Days? Months? Hours? Truth be told, Brin had no idea how long it had been. Time did not pass in the Realm of the Dark as it did elsewhere, so keeping track of it all seemed moot anyway. She just knew the torture was endless.
Escape seemed futile. She looked for every opportunity to get out, but very few seemed to present themselves. In fact, nearly none at all. The one time the guards were not at their stations at the door, it didn’t even matter because the chains were too heavy and too tight around her wrists. She noticed that even the girls who were not chained did not try to run away, and she wondered why. None of them enjoyed it, and all of them knew that their debts would never be paid off, and yet, some of them worked very hard to please the Anam who walked through, eagerly calling for them and doing what they wanted.
One day, Brin and Srilla were eating together—dry meat from some animal Brin could not recognize and a couple of berries that were overripe, producing a bit of an alcoholic effect—when someone came in. All of the girls’ heads snapped up from the meal as he entered.
Brin was expecting the normal frenzy of “yoohoos” and whistles from the girls as they pushed their breasts out to the Anam. But this time, no one seemed to move a muscle. They froze right where they were, with various amounts of food in their mouths and in their hands. Everyone just stared at him as he hovered in the doorway, surveying the room with a sadistic grin on his face. Brin wished that she could shrink back into her mattress like she usually did, but with the room being so still, she feared that even that small movement would draw attention to her. This seemed like an Anam she did not want touching her.
He was tall, towering in the doorway like a giant. His animal hooved feet were thick with red hair that looked matted and unkempt. The hooves themselves seemed to seep with rot, as did his horns, which sat atop his head in massive, thick curls that looked heavy enough to topple him over. He wore no shirt, revealing red hair that went from his head to his face to his chest, nearly covering him in a natural sweater anyway. It gave him the appearance of a werewolf, on top of all the other animal forms he seemed to carry. He glared at them through eyes that glowed red as he began to walk past them, very slowly, examining each girl as he went.
He did not stop until he had gone all the way back into Sorenna’s office.
Brin put down her food, suddenly not hungry for the meager, disgusting portions. She watched half of the other girls do the same before she turned to Srilla.
Srilla looked pale, even in the heat of the room. She, too, had put her food to the side, and was staring out into the doorway. Brin was sure she wasn’t actually seeing anything out there.
“Who is that?” she asked quietly, hoping the whispers would touch Srilla’s zoned-out ears.
At first, she didn’t think the young Anam woman was going to answer her. She seemed too far gone to have heard Brin’s words.
“Bad news,” she said simply, after a very long moment of silence. “Very bad news.”
“But—” Brin began, only to be shushed by everyone in the room, including Srilla. She felt almost slapped by the sound, but she did exactly as they instructed. She quieted and waited for whatever was to come.
She waited, but for what, she wasn’t sure. She felt like the seconds dragged by, ticked off by the flames of the wall as they whipped back and forth. She kept silent, just as silent as the other girls, but shrank further into her mattress where she could not be seen. The anxiety in the room was so thick that it made the anticipation so much harder to wait through. She was dying to know what was going on—dying to know who the Anam man truly was and what kind of power he held over these girls. It seemed to take far too long to get to that information.
However, when the time finally came for her to figure it out, she wasn’t sure she was really ready to face it after all. The anticipation was hard to deal with, but it seemed better than dealing with the Anam’s resurfacing.
When he came out of Sorenna’s office, she was following closely behind him. She was chatting with him, seeming relaxed and confident in her words. Brin did not miss the subtle cues, though. She didn’t miss the sweat on Sorenna’s brow—which, despite the heat, was never there. She didn’t miss the way Sorenna’s eyes darted back and forth, examining each of the girls, looking for a flaw and silently hoping she saw none. She didn’t miss the way Sorenna would bite her lip between sentences, as if she was contemplating her next words.
Still, Brin wished she could have heard those words that were spoken so low and far away.
When she looked over at Srilla and read the fear in her eyes, she wondered if she should take back that wish.
She waited for her turn to understand what was going on. She waited very patiently as the Anam man and Sorenna walked up and down the rows of bed, quietly conversing as they examined every girl.
Okay, so he was here to examine the girls. What for? Clearly, it was not some sort of health inspection to try and shut down Sorenna’s brothel. If that was the case, the other girls wouldn’t be so afraid of him. They would have welcomed his presence instead. He was not here for the girls’ sake at all, Brin concluded. But then, why was Sorenna nervous? If he was on her side, shouldn’t she be ready for this—happy for the visit, even? What could he be doing that made both Sorenna and the girls have so much fear in their eyes? Who was this man?
The question did not stop in her mind. It repeated itself over and over, along with several possible answers that never seemed to fit just right. Brin always dismissed them as incorrect or invalid in some way or another and asked the question all over again. No matter what, it seemed, she would not come up with the answer she sought.
At least, not until the couple came closer to her. And, indeed, they seemed to be approaching rapidly. As they did, the question repeated itself faster and faster, desperately and urgently searching for an answer, begging to be solved. Brin could not force an answer to fit, though, no matter how man
y times she tried to reorganize and remix it. It just wasn’t making any sense. She was going to have to wait until they came close enough to hear.
Until they came right in front of her.
Until they were saying the same things of her that they were saying of all the other girls in the room.
Her chance to catch their words was coming up, she thought with panic.
The couple was just a few beds away now, having gone through all the other rows in the room already. Brin could see Sorenna’s eyes flickering toward her now, growing more and more fearful the closer and closer the Anam man came to her. It seemed like Sorenna did not want him to see her at all.
Why?
With that question came a whole new set of questions and answers that begged to be thought out in Brin’s mind, but her brain had already ceased its train of thought. Her heart had taken over in the process of terror, as it pumped hard enough to echo off the confines of her skull and made it impossible to think even if she wanted to.
One bed closer. There were now only four beds between hers and the Anam that was so interested in the girls. Brin risked a glance in Srilla’s direction. She was panicked, too. She only grew more and more panicked as the man came closer, like she was hoping he would just leave and the closer he got, the less likely that was to happen.
Another bed closer. There were now three beds between her and the man, and two beds until he reached Srilla. Brin risked a glance at Sorenna. Their eyes briefly locked, and Brin could swear she saw a plea in those red iris’s. But a plea for what? She still had no idea what she was supposed to do, and what she wanted this man to decide of her.
Another bed closer. Now there were just two beds between her and the man, and one between him and Srilla. Brin looked around at all the other girls. The ones in line to be examined after her were looking more and more nervous as each bed passed by, just like Srilla was, and, if she was honest, just like she was feeling. The girls who had already been looked at, though—they were looking completely at ease.