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The prince leaned casually against the dungeon wall; his arms crossed over his chest. He peered at the other, younger prisoner with reddish brown hair whose nose was dotted with freckles, sitting on the tiny wooden bench in the corner of the room twiddling his thumbs. They exchanged a very slight nod. Their other cell mate, the old man, continued to lay perfectly still on the ground, flat on his back. His eyes remained shut, his chest unmoving.
“GUARDS!” Regulus bellowed from between the black iron bars, holding them tightly. The sound of running feet hitting against the stone ground met their ears, and a fat guard appeared, rather out of breath, in front of their cell. “Sadon,” Regulus said with relief, recognizing that Sadon was pulling a double duty, with dark shadows beneath his eyes. “I think this man is dead.” The prince tilted his head down at the old man stretched out upon the floor.
Sadon's eyes grew wide, he slipped a large silver ring from his belt, which jingled with at least two dozen sets of keys. He spun it around in his thick fingers until he found a particularly long, thin key. Sweat dripped down his ruddy face as he plunged it into the hole and swung open the creaking iron door. Regulus waited patiently, leaning against the bars as the guard followed protocol, closing and locking the door behind him. Sadon hobbled over to the old man and leaned down to feel his pulse.
A sudden burst of wind swirled ferociously around the guard. He flung his arms into the air to protect his face; the keys flying out of his hand and across the cell, clanging against the bars, as his black cloak billowed around him. Regulus and the other young prisoner immediately sprang into action. The prince snatched the heavy key ring and ran up to the door, unlocking it and pushing it open amongst the blowing chaos. Regulus sprinted over to each cell, unlocking them one by one. The other man followed him, ushering all the prisoners down the corridor. The wind continued to fling Sadon's cloak around him, completely blocking his view, as he tried desperately to pull it down.
“HELP!” Sadon screamed, finally shoving the cape away from his face and yanking out his sword, but it was too late. Regulus had already unlocked the rest of the cells, the prisoners flooding out from them, some of them looking terrified, others with growling faces and burning eyes. Sadon sucked in a breath of air and screamed, “PRISONERS ESCAPING! PRISONERS ESCAPING! REPORT TO THE DUNGEONS!”
“THOSE OF YOU WHO CAN CONTROL YOUR GIFTS, FRONT OF THE LINE!” Regulus bellowed above all other sounds echoing and bouncing against the dungeon walls. The gusts of wind suddenly died down, as the person responsible, the old man who lay as though dead on the dungeon floor, pushed himself up to his feet with surprising strength. His face was lit in a huge, gapped tooth smile as he turned his palms to the guard, who gave him one last bewildered, terrified look. With a flick of the old man’s wrist, the guard shot straight up into the air, and then flung back against the wall, sliding down into an unconscious heap. The old man giggled with glee, did a little dance, then ran off with the rest of the escaping donatus.
Regulus rushed up in front of everyone, quickly setting the prisoners up into rows like he had done with his knights when training for battle. He instructed the healthy adults who knew how to handle their magic to stand in the front line, to be first to face the knights and guards that were making their way down to the dungeons that very minute. Regulus was for once appreciative of his father's currently insane state of mind. The castle was severely short staffed, and a majority of the prisoners had powers, which gave them the upper hand.
He raised his finger and pointed straight down the path as the sound of a dozen footsteps came pattering down from the floors above. “LET'S MOVE!” Regulus boomed, his voice bouncing off the dungeon walls.
The young freckled man who shared his cell ran up to the prince, catching his breath. “You're the only chance this kingdom has of having a decent future, Regulus. If you die, we will have no one left to protect us. Please, for the sake of your people, go back in the cell and fake innocence. We will not see it as a weakness. I can take it from here.” Regulus looked at him uncertainly for a second, but the man straightened his posture and was already making his way to the front of the line. Regulus quickly grabbed his shoulder.
“Wait- what's your name?” the prince asked the prisoner.
“Miles,” the man replied simply. He threw the prince a quick sideways grin before rushing up to the swelling crowd. Regulus ducked back inside of his cell where the guard remained slumped over, shoved his arm between the bars to lock it from the inside, then threw the ring of keys across the dungeon with a bouncing clatter just as trundling footsteps burst through the dungeons.
He watched in suspense as a dozen knights and guards appeared from around the corner, drawing out their swords and running straight into the crowd of prisoners. The front row of donatus held their palms out, as a fantastic blast of wind and fire burst from within them, the ground itself trembling with the power of earth.
Miles raised a fist high up into the air, higher than everything around him. “FOR FREEDOM!” His echoing call was louder than any sound in the room, quickly repeated by several others, as they ran on top of the pile of guards and knights they had knocked out. Regulus clutched on the iron bars and watched until the very last donatus, a little girl grasping onto a woman's hand, disappeared around the corner.
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Lord Pileus froze in his tracks, the sound of the warning bells suddenly banging from deep within the citadel, echoing across the entire city of Trigonus. The high ringing clanged endlessly within his ears, as sweat started to form upon his brow. He swallowed and knocked six times on the Doctrine's door.
A pair of blue eyes peered anxiously between the crack and immediately opened farther to allow Pileus in. The Doctrine stood straight up; his chin held high. “Are you here to arrest me?”
Pileus shut the door and bolted it tight. The Doctrine's eyebrows rose in surprise. Pileus faced him, a frown forming beneath his curly golden hair. “No, I’m here on the prince’s orders. He’s been arrested.” The Doctrine stuttered to respond but Pileus held his hand up to stop him. “There’s not much time to explain. He has asked me to continue his work for him. I know he's been helping the donatus hide and escape, I'm here to collect the two you have and bring them safely out of Trigonus.” He looked up to the ceiling, the warning bells clanging as loud as ever.
“Why are the bells ringing?” the Doctrine asked, as he hurriedly made his way to the spare bedroom to open the door.
“I'm not sure,” Pileus responded. “I haven't received any news; something must've happened after I left the castle.”
The Doctrine ushered out an incredibly old and frail looking woman along with a middle-aged man sporting a clothed bandage around his arm. Their eyes both widened in fear at the sight of the light blue cloaked knight standing in front of them.
“Lord Pileus will be escorting you out of the city tonight,” the Doctrine explained. He hustled around the room, throwing things in two separate packs. “Take these,” he thrust the packs into their hands.
The man stared at Pileus. “Where will you be taking us?”
Pileus glanced over his shoulder at the door, the bells clanging relentlessly outside, as though trying to make their way in. “The prince said to bring you up north, to the mountains. He believes there may be a Rejicio campsite around there that would take in people like you. But we must hurry.” The two donatus followed Pileus to the door, tying their packs to their leather belts.
“Thank you, Lord Pileus,” the Doctrine said with a solemn bow. “I am most grateful.”
The entire house shook as something slammed against the door from the outside. Pileus threw his arms out protectively in front of the other three, as the tiny wooden door splintered and burst open, revealing a guard standing in the doorway holding onto a thick branch, flanked by three others. They all stared at each other in silence, and then-
“ARREST THEM!” the guard in the front ordered, all four of them whipping out their
swords and storming into the house. Pileus raised his hand up instinctively, sending out a wave of vibrations through the floor beneath the guards' feet, surprising himself just as much as the guards. His gift had awakened. The guards hardly had a second to look up at Pileus in alarm before the ground beneath them shook and crumbled, and they were thrown from their feet and out of the house in a wave of wood and stone.
Breathing fast, Pileus grabbed onto the middle-aged man and old woman and motioned to the Doctrine with his head. The four of them crossed over the fallen, grumbling guards and took off into the night, the city shaking as the warning bells tore through the twilit sky.
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The fire blazed heatedly, the smoke clouding the clear air around them in the dark of the woods. An owl hooted softly from above. Lord Ulric looked sideways at his fellow knights, watching them laugh easily, passing around plates of roasted deer and cheese they had brought from the castle, their faces reflecting against the crackling flames. He snarled when a plate was offered to him.
“Not hungry, Ulric?” Lord Rowan asked, his dark eyebrows raised upon a handsome face.
Ulric glared at him, not wanting to reveal the fear that had been creeping up on him like a snake since the king sent him out on this miserable mission. “I'd rather preserve food for the journey. We may be gone for some time.” His small, brown eyes slid quickly back to the flames while the rest of the knights laughed him off, continuing their easy conversation.
The king did not hold Ulric in as high of a position as he was led to believe. He had assumed, since Lord Animus had died, that he would take his place as the king's right-hand man, seeing that he was the highest ranked knight after Animus. King Tribus had primed Ulric into thinking he was above the rest, above the duties of the others, above the law itself. But the king made it rather clear that morning, that even Ulric was a pawn to be spared in his game of cat and mouse. Lord Ulric glowered as a slight breeze blew the fire in his direction, casting smoke and ash upon his face; wondering exactly how far the king was willing to go to find his runaway bride.
5. GUILT OF THE QUEEN
The straw poked through the thin cotton sheets, as Mythia tossed and turned upon the lumpy mattress on the cold, hard floor. She pulled the withered, wool blanket up to her chin, but the frosty air still managed to creep its way in. The long nightgown she had borrowed from Bello was not thick enough to retain much warmth. She shivered slightly, squeezing her eyes shut; willing herself to fall asleep despite the extreme discomfort the bitterness was bringing her.
“You'll get used to it,” Ventus's voice whispered from the dark, across the floor of the spare bedroom. Mythia nearly jumped; she had thought that Ventus was asleep.
“Why can't we have a fire?” Mythia asked desperately. “Bello lit one to cook supper.”
Ventus shifted around in the dark, propping herself up on her elbows. “Large fires can cause the mountain rock to crack. If this house caught fire while we slept, the entire city could be destroyed or filled with enough smoke to force us all to evacuate. So, we're only allowed fires when we're awake and the flames are being carefully watched.”
Mythia sighed. “Understandable. Makes me wish I slept outside by a fire though. I miss the warmth... and the light.”
“Well, I'm glad you decided to stay here,” Ventus replied, her voice suddenly small again. “It's been lonely, not having anyone to talk to.”
“But what about Bello? And all the Rejicio you've been training with?”
“Bello is... I don't know, intimidating, I suppose. It's hard to talk to her. And the other Rejicio... I can't seem to relate to anyone around here. Maybe because I was raised in the castle serving noble families, and they all seem to hate anything to do with royalty. Or maybe I'm just too busy training to speak with anyone for long enough to actually make friends.” Mythia could hear Ventus laying back down, the sound of her blanket ruffling in the surrounding silence. “It's hard for me. To make friends. It's hard for me to open up enough… to trust.”
Lord Ulric's sneering face and pointed nose floated in front of Mythia in the dark. Anger flooded her cheeks with heat. She waited a minute for the anger to release, wondering how Ventus could possibly cope with it. “Ventus?” She paused for a moment, but Ventus simply remained quiet. “How do you deal with it? With the anger and the pain from what he did to you?”
Ventus didn't have to ask who Mythia was referring to. She had revealed to Mythia during her time as a serving girl in the castle, that Lord Ulric had abused her in the past. “It took time. At first, I blamed myself. I felt dirty… diseased. I felt like I had done something wrong to deserve it...” Mythia found herself blinking away tears. Ventus continued, her voice growing stronger. “But then I realized, I didn't want to be the victim anymore. Being the victim was what put me there in the first place. My weakness had prevented me from fighting back, from defending myself. So, I became the predator.” Mythia swallowed, watching the outline of the young woman with her choppy blond hair and wide gray eyes hardly visible in the darkness. Had it only been one summer ago when she flitted around Mythia's room as a timid and terrified serving girl?
Ventus sighed. “I refuse to be weak now. I refuse to let him take away any more of my life than what he's already stolen. So, every day I train, and I train, and I train, in hopes that one day I will no longer be too weak to face him.”
Silence wove between the two friends as Mythia felt the strength inside of those words. She wondered suddenly if she had let herself become the victim. She had certainly acted like one, hiding in the woods for weeks and weeks while the kingdom around her crumbled. She had been useless, fearful, and weak. She broke the silence with a shaking whisper in a sudden whim of inspiration. “I want to train with you... I want to join the Rejicio army.”
Ventus's gray eyes widened in the dark. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I want to grow strong like you, Ventus. I want to learn how to fight back.”
“But you know how to fight, Mythia. You have unsurmountable powers. I heard the Rejicio speaking about it. They speak about you with such awe and respect around here.”
Mythia took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I do have powers, Ventus. But that doesn't mean I know how to fight.” She pulled the blanket up to her chin and laid back down. The two girls stayed quiet for a long time, until the sound of Ventus’s slow, deep breathing filled the room.
They awoke the next morning to more darkness, as the sun rose on the opposite side of the cave opening and could not reach the hidden city. Mythia only knew morning had come because she sensed it; otherwise, the eternal darkness was unsettling. She stretched beneath her thin blanket, cold sweat sticking to her skin from a difficult night of nightmares and chills. She sat up and reached her arm out through the dark toward Ventus. She found her body moving slowly in deep, rhythmic breathing and nudged her on the arm. Ventus didn't budge. Mythia pushed herself up, feeling the familiar sting sear across her entire left side. She shook Ventus gently, until finally, she sat up with a jolt.
“What's happening?” Ventus asked frantically in the darkness.
Mythia chuckled. “It's just me, Ventus. We need to get ready to leave soon, for Monoceros, remember?”
Ventus yawned loudly then shuffled to her feet. Mythia heard a scratching noise before a spark fluttered from a torch and lit up the long, cold room. Mythia quickly got up and began to change into her black pants, green leather tunic, and black vest. She strapped the elegant dragon sheath to her belt and pulled her fingers through her hair to get the knots out. Ventus's strong hands gently lifted Mythia's up and placed them down. The queen’s old serving girl then proceeded to take strands of Mythia's hair and wound them together into the intricate braid she had often requested back in their days in the castle.
She turned to face Ventus once she was done, warmth filling her empty heart. “Thank you, Ventus. I'll be honest, I've missed your braiding talent. I've never quite been able to pull it off myself.” Ventus gr
inned and grabbed her friend's hand, leading her out of the bedroom and into the dark kitchen.
A torch suddenly flickered to life from across the room, revealing Bello lighting the torches that lined the kitchen wall. She was just finishing with the last one, when she finally spoke. “As soon as we are done eating, we will make our way to Monoceros, weather permitting. I saw dark clouds across the eastern horizon when I went out for wood this morning.”
Mythia and Ventus sat quietly down at the table as Bello handed them each a silver goblet of water and an empty plate. She then bent over beneath the iron pot to light another fire and pulled out a basket of eggs.
Mythia looked over curiously as the warmth of the fire finally relieved her from the cold cavern air. “Do you keep chickens here?”
Bello glanced behind her shoulder, now cracking the eggs into the pot and giving them a stir. “We have travelers meet up with us in the Borra Forest with things we cannot have here. They don't mind the business, as our need for food has been growing with the ever-increasing amount of Rejicio and their need for customers has been getting desperate as the number of city citizens decrease from all the arrests and deaths. It complements the seller’s needs, who had been running out of buyers as the king executes more and more of his own people.” She tapped the wooden spoon onto the side of the pot and rested it there for a moment, turning to face her house guests. “We are hoping to one day find a plot of land behind the mountains, for livestock and farms. We have planted vegetables in various, inconspicuous places already. It's just a matter of keeping it hidden and away from prying eyes. That's the main problem right now.”
Mythia: and the Awakened Beast Page 5