Withhold

by Andrea Pearson

  Azuriah’s gaze focused again and he began breathing heavily.

  “Are you okay?” she whispered.

  He didn’t respond for a moment, then nodded, licking his lips, looking like he desperately needed water. “I—I—have been commanded to leave. I won’t ever be able to return. You’ll be here alone. I’m sorry, Nicole.”

  “Did they say what will happen to me?”

  He nodded. “They’ve claimed you as their slave. They say they’ll know the moment you try to leave, and they’ll destroy you if you do.”

  Azuriah turned and grabbed both her arms. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you. You are brave and good. You have fought hard for your loved ones, and even for people who despise you. You have fought hard for everyone.”

  “I’m sorry for my behavior too.” Nicole was surprised when her voice didn’t catch—she was struggling to hold back tears.

  Azuriah gave her a small smile. “You don’t need to apologize to me.”

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but before he could, he disappeared.

  Nicole was alone.

  The sticky, moist air was difficult to breathe. Her heart felt like it was pulsating inside her chest, like it was about to pop through her ribs at any moment. She looked around. Were the tentacles going to hold her here until the Great Ones returned?

  Nicole gasped, sensing Onyev bestow guardianship status on Azuriah. She closed her eyes as a sudden relief rushed over her. She wouldn’t have to bear the burden of Shonlin alone any longer. If she died, Azuriah would take up the task of protecting the magical forest. The relief that continued cascading down her head and back, making her skin tingle, told her just how stressed she’d been by that assignment.

  If Azuriah had been granted guardianship status, he must be safe now. Nicole breathed another sigh of relief. She cocked her head—Azuriah hadn’t exited the city the way he’d entered it. Was Abel still waiting for her? Did she have a chance? Would she be able to escape? Even if it meant sure death, she had to try because staying here definitely meant death.

  Nicole startled when the tentacles hoisted her into the air, carrying her from the huge room. They took her down several flights of regular-sized stairs and into what appeared to be a dungeon. The cell they put her in was huge and had no furnishings. The tentacles released her, writhing their way back down the hall and presumably up the stairs and to the throne room. The last of them shut the door with a loud, metallic clank before leaving.

  Was she alone? No, she could sense other beings in the dungeon. She didn’t want to take the time to find out if they were friendly or not.

  She turned to the barred window opposite the cell door. It looked out over the rest of the kingdom, so the dungeon must have been on the second or third floor of the palace, judging by how high up she was.

  Nicole heard the sounds of approaching footsteps and turned to face the cell bars. She groaned inwardly when she saw it was Rebecca.

  The woman chuckled. “Who’s a prisoner now?”

  “How did you get in here?” Nicole asked.

  “I might be a servant of the Great Ones,” Rebecca said, “but they allow me freedom to move wherever I want in their kingdom.” She narrowed her eyes, staring at Nicole. “You still have your powers, don’t you?”

  Nicole reached out to her magic. It was difficult to sense here, but it was there, ready and willing to help her. Could she break the wall down?

  Rebecca seemed to see where Nicole’s thoughts were taking her. “Don’t try to escape. They’ll just come find you again.”

  Why had the Great Ones allowed her to keep her magic? It didn’t pulse the way it used to before she took the potion. Had the Great Ones sensed the change in her and assumed she was no longer magical? If so, why hadn’t they said anything to that effect?

  With just a brief touch of her thoughts to it, the sphere turned in Nicole’s hand, out of sight of Rebecca. The Great Ones hadn’t taken it from her. Why not? Was Onyev’s sealing that powerful?

  “What do you want, Rebecca?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “To torment you. To destroy your life the way you destroyed mine.”

  Nicole frowned. “I didn’t do anything to you that wouldn’t have happened anyway.”

  Rebecca opened her mouth to respond, but just then, the floor beneath them quaked, and an expression of terror flitted across the woman’s face before being replaced with glee. She glanced at Nicole. “If I were you, I would hide.” She cackled. “But then, you have nowhere to hide, do you?”

  Rebecca scurried away, her footsteps fading until Nicole couldn’t hear them anymore. She was left alone to face whatever approached.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The floor vibrated again. Nicole looked around the cell, but Rebecca was right—there weren’t any hiding places. A cold sweat flooded over her. Anything that made Rebecca afraid would be something Nicole didn’t want around.

  She scurried into the corner of the room and squished her back into it, curling her legs up and holding them close. The vibrations in the floor grew stronger and stronger, and a massive pulse of magic pounded into her. She trembled in the corner for several moments before realizing that the most powerful beings in this dimension—the Great Ones—were already gone. Nicole might not be physically powerful, but she was now stronger than almost anything she’d met, magically. Was she powerful enough to defeat this new challenge?

  Rather than cower in the corner, Nicole rose to her feet and strode to the center of her cell, arms relaxed at her sides. She took a deep breath and raised her chin. After everything she’d been through and done over the past couple of years, this she could handle. What could be worse than a Shoggoth?

  She faced the huge hall, refusing to allow herself to feel intimidated or frightened by the vastness of the pulses that continued reverberating through the stone. The floor underneath quaked as the creature drew nearer. What exactly was it?

  She didn’t have to wait long to find out. The beast that stepped into view made her gasp. The torches that lined the huge hall illuminated what looked to be hundreds and hundreds of mangled human bodies pressed together, all smashed into one. They were shifting and moving, and for a moment, she wondered if they were alive. But no—they were completely lifeless, their bodies making up one huge monster.

  Her lip curled in disgust as the creature stepped closer and she got a good look at it. The thing was covered with blood and gore. She shuddered. Hundreds of legs formed each of the monster’s four legs. The arms were the same, but instead of legs, they were created by arms. The head was made up of tons and tons of heads from humans, all of them rolling and mashing and blending together. The eyes on the visible faces were open, staring in random directions. Even though they seemed lifeless, they blinked as one, as if they were being controlled by a single entity.

  The beast took another step forward, and at once, all of the eyes focused on Nicole. A huge maw opened, and a great bellow emitted from it. Nicole felt herself getting pulled to the creature. She didn’t have anything to hold on to, so she dropped to the floor, trying to grip the cold stone, using her shoes to push against the force that yanked her toward the beast. She wasn’t strong enough to stop her forward momentum, though.

  Changing tactics, Nicole pushed out with her magic, trying to control the dead bodies that made up the monster. They didn’t respond. Were they not truly dead, then?

  The force grew in strength until she slammed into the bars, her body being sucked toward the monster. The bars began cutting into her, the pressure so great that the wind was knocked out of her lungs.

  Nicole screamed as she was pulled even harder into the bars. It didn’t take much to realize that this beast probably had the magical strength to pull until her body broke enough to reach it.

  About to black out from the pain, Nicole knew she had to do something to save herself. Not knowing whether her actions would backfire, Nicole sent her magic to the stone floor that supported the beast. She commanded
it to collapse.

  The resulting chaos was magnificent. The floor plunged downward, taking the monster with it. That wasn’t the only thing that gave out—several pillars crashed down, along with the ceiling and most of the opposite wall.

  Dust billowed up from the crevice, and Nicole heard people screaming and crying. The pressure pulling her against the bars stopped, and she jumped out of the way just as that entire wall plummeted into the hole.

  The crying stopped.

  Nicole cautiously stepped to the crevice and looked down. The parts of the beast still visible weren’t moving. Was it dead? She wasn’t going to stick around to find out. She looked up and down the hall, trying to figure out how to get out of her cell.

  Taking care not to step on any cracks—she couldn’t tell if the floor was safe where the cracks were—she walked to the right side of her cell and saw that a few bars had created a sort of bridge when they’d fallen. She used a little of her magic and coaxed the bars farther to the right to complete that bridge.

  Nicole had never been a fan of heights, and she refused to look down as she stepped onto the bars. They weren’t securely attached to anything. She teetered for a bit as she tried to keep her balance, then put a hand on the crumbling stone wall to her right, using her magic to encourage the bars not to move.

  Slowly and carefully, she crossed to the stone floor on the other side. Once safe, Nicole slumped over, hands on her knees, breathing deeply. That had been way too close. Her body ached where she’d been pulled against the bars—she’d definitely bruise—and her heart seriously might never recover.

  Nicole sensed as magical creatures started to head in her direction. They must’ve been attracted by the magic she’d used. She rushed down the hall, hoping to find a way out of the palace quickly. Who knew how long Abel would be able to hold the door open?

  The palace was a maze of hallways, dead ends, and dungeons. Practically the entire thing was a dungeon. Nicole eventually figured out that when the Great Ones left, the hold on their prisoners released, and most of the monsters were trying to escape. Nicole followed a set of fast little creatures that ran on claws, attacking anything they saw. They seemed to know where they were going, so she followed them, using her powers to sense when they turned corners, keeping out of sight.

  Nicole’s joy at getting out of the palace was short-lived—the streets were worse, much worse. A whole host of monsters had flooded them and were tormenting humans, and Nicole was quickly enveloped in the throng. She was jostled back and forth, her hair pulled, her skin scratched, and clothes yanked as she tried to make her way through the streets and to the door.

  It seemed that the monsters were attracted to her because everywhere she went, they turned and looked. Was it because she was alive and the other humans were ghosts? Were they all ghosts? She couldn’t tell, and she didn’t want to take the time to find out.

  Nicole battled her way physically by pushing, shoving, and shouldering. Several times, she was forced to use her magic to move creatures by grabbing them by their clothing and tossing them.

  She held back as much as she could, paranoid that her magic would give out and she would be caught in a fight, unable to defend herself.

  The familiar warmth from overdoing it never came. As a result, Nicole got more confident in her ability to push onward. At one point, the streets were so congested with monsters trying to stop her that she had to blow up everything in front of her, then use a whirlwind to plow a path through the debris. She shouldn’t have been able to do that—her powers never would have lasted long enough before.

  After she’d nearly reached the big wall, Nicole’s body finally began to fail. It wasn’t from magic, as she been expecting, but because of her lungs. The air was too thick. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen and she started to wheeze, gagging and coughing. Her muscles were burning from oxygen starvation. Why was she struggling now? Nicole knew the answer even as she thought the question. She was pushing herself harder, using the oxygen in the air much quicker than she had been earlier.

  She stumbled, picked herself up, forced her legs to continue carrying her forward. She was nearly to the door when something grabbed her, yanking her back. Rebecca. Was the woman following her? It wouldn’t surprise Nicole if that was the case.

  “You dare try to escape?” Rebecca asked. “Do you realize what will happen when they recognize you’re gone?”

  Nicole wheezed hard, the edges of her vision darkening as she gasped for air.

  Rebecca laughed. “And again, I have the upper hand! You’re unable to breathe here, aren’t you? One of the benefits of being dead.”

  Nicole stumbled to her feet, not in the mood for a showdown with her evil ancestor. Forcing her exhaustion and dizziness aside, she grabbed Rebecca’s arm. “I’m never at a disadvantage around you. I don’t care what the reason is—if I ever feel your presence again, I swear, I will seek you out and destroy you.”

  Before Rebecca could respond, Nicole used her magic to hoist the woman by the clothes into the air and fling her across the city. Then she slumped to the ground, her energy spent.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  She crawled forward, trying to force herself to calm down so she didn’t need as much oxygen.

  The door was within sight, Abel barely holding it open. Nicole started. No monsters were trying to stop her now. What was going on? Why weren’t they bothering her? She looked back. The streets were nearly vacant now, and while she watched, a handful of monsters disappeared. Her mouth popped open. The Great Ones were calling them, pulling them to the battle to fight. Did that mean they actually needed help?

  Nicole had to hurry—had to make it. She heard the sound of feet behind her and turned to see thousands of humans rushing at the door, obviously sensing that she was close to exiting. The anger on their faces left no doubt in her mind what they planned to do if they caught her.

  She forced herself to her feet, pushed herself onward, toward the door. Getting away from the people now chasing her wasn’t nearly as big a goal as finding a way to help the Great Ones win this battle. Filled with a burst of energy at the realization that the Great Ones might actually lose, she reached the door faster than she thought possible.

  Abel didn’t recognize her. He stared beyond her with eyes that were glazed over. His skin was ashen, his lips blue as he mouthed wordlessly. Nicole rushed to him, momentarily forgetting her own discomfort. How was he still holding the door open? Nicole wouldn’t have been surprised if he didn’t remember why he was keeping it from shutting.

  By this point, the door had almost shut. She pushed herself through the six inches that were left, smashing Abel against the tentacles that held him as she passed. When she was through, she turned and grabbed his arm, yanking him free. He tripped after her, barely staying on his feet just as the hordes of people reached the wall.

  The door slammed shut. Howling started up inside, and Nicole glanced at Abel.

  “Will the doors hold?” she asked.

  He stared at her, his lips moving as he tried to formulate an answer. “Yes . . . They’re magically strengthened . . . by the Great Ones.”

  She decided not to bring up the fact that said Great Ones were no longer there, and that their prisons had actually started falling apart in their absence. Instead, she grabbed him by the hand and rushed to the horses that were still tethered, munching on the grass that lined the path. She helped Abel into his saddle, then jumped into her own, grateful that the air outside the Great Ones’ kingdom was a little easier to breathe. She picked up the reins to Abel’s horse and urged her horse into a run, pulling his alongside hers, rushing the way they’d come.

  Nicole didn’t slow until they’d reached the link back to the Ember Gods’ dimension. The moment they passed through, she pulled her horse up and collapsed against it. Her ears began ringing and she nearly threw up, waiting for her body to adjust to the sudden increase of oxygen. Abel was unconscious in his saddle, and she herself barely stayed awake.
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br />   After a moment, knowing she couldn’t rest for too long, Nicole urged the horses onward, letting them pick the pace now that they were traversing the rocky path again.

  They hadn’t gone far when Lizzie and Jacob rounded a corner. Nicole’s stomach dropped as she watched her friends approaching, their feet heavily bandaged to protect against the sharp stones. Had they really followed her on foot?

  “What on earth did you do?” Lizzie screamed the moment she saw it was Nicole. “Why did you leave us? We were supposed to help you! What would have happened if you’d gotten killed?”

  She wasn’t the only one who was upset. Jacob’s face was purple from anger. He joined Lizzie in yelling at Nicole, and for a moment, she was so surprised, she didn’t know what to say.

  “I could have keyed you out of there! You didn’t need to go alone—we could have waited at the wall for you!”

  “Stop,” she said loudly.

  They ignored her.

  “Enough!”

  Still, nothing got through to them.

  Finally, Nicole magically stopped the sound that was coming out of their mouths.

  “Be quiet!” she said. “It’s done. I had to go without you, and it has nothing to do with me wanting to protect you and everything to do with the fact that Azuriah is a Shonlin guardian and no one else was.”

  That piqued their curiosity. They obviously wanted to know what being a guardian had to do with anything, and she released her hold on their sound as she explained.

  “Onyev told me that the only other guardian in my time is Azuriah. I knew, since he wasn’t already a guardian when I met him, that he’d eventually have to face the Great Ones. I also knew that no one else would survive an interaction with them. How did I know this?” She wanted to make sure that her friends understood. “Because no one else is a guardian. The Great Ones collect slaves. They would have sensed you near their kingdom and pulled you to them.”