by Tom Hansen
Synol helped her get back into line and catch up with the two who had started across the large expansive room.
In the back of the massive castle foyer, between the stairs leading up, was an immense staircase leading down.
Nora led them down deep into the earth. The stairs were wide enough that half a dozen horses could ride side-by-side with ease, and tall enough that, well, Ynya didn’t know of any animals that were taller than a frost bear on its hind-legs, but three bears stacked on top of each other wouldn’t be tall enough to hit their heads.
“Into the depths of hell.” Nora stated, before sighing under her breath and descending the stairs.
Ynya glanced at Finny, who now held hands with Synol. “You ready?”
Finny’s gaze was locked onto to a spot down and to the left. She nodded to the affirmative, her lips set. “Yes. I must do this.”
Every step down increased the smell. It became clear to Ynya that this was where they stabled all the animals.
Hundreds of horses, sheep, and other animals were locked in pens down here in the depths.
She supposed it was an effective means to keep animals safe from the howling winds of the outside, but the work involved to carve out such a massive cave system had to have been draining.
Then again, the Queen didn’t have to do the work, she just tortured her subjects until they did it for her.
Lub-dub.
There was no escaping the Queen’s mandates for her subjects. The ease at which Ynya fell back into the Queen’s all-encompassing beat was testament to that.
The room was at least four times the size of the one upstairs, though the ceiling was significantly lower.
Nora turned left and led them past the sheep pens and a couple dog kennels before turning down a narrow hallway on the left wall. She stopped, coming to a thick iron door with a single viewing window at eye-height.
Nora turned around. “Go ahead. It’s waiting for you. I assume you and he have a lot to discuss.”
Finny dropped Synol’s hand and took two steps to stand in front of the door. She grabbed the handle and paused.
“Do you want one of us to go in there with you?” Synol asked.
Finny let out a slow breath, a tinge of sadness creeping into her face. “I–don’t know yet. I’ve heard him calling for me for so long, I am not entirely sure what I’m here for.”
“I don’t hear anything now.”
It was true. No sound came from the other side of the iron door.
Finny tapped her head with her middle finger. “He stopped once we started coming down the stairs. I hear him breathing in there.”
Nora spoke up. “If it’s any consolation, he’s in a cage.”
Ynya flashed a look at the Skarmyord, but Nora hadn’t bothered looking up at any of them. She looked bored, leaning up against a wall and examining a speck of dirt under her fingernail.
“I better do it,” Finny said. She paused for a second to flash a weak smile at her two older sisters before proceeding.
Rusty hinges squealed in anguish as Finny opened the door and disappeared into the blackness beyond.
A caustic, rotten, hot air blew out of the room, blasting Ynya in the face and blowing back her hair.
Her stomach lurched, threatening to upturn her recent breakfast onto the stone floor, but she clutched her middle, pinched her nose, and took a moment to calm herself before stepping thorough the doorway. Synol followed behind, looking fairly green herself.
Inside was terribly dark, and Ynya lit up a portion of her hair to bathe the room in a soft warm glow.
What she saw looked to be a mixture of the concentration camp’s experiment room, and an animal cage.
In fact, that’s exactly what it was.
A large iron cage with bars bolted through the floor and ceiling stood in the center, with a half-dozen tables, chairs, and desks surrounding the outside.
Every damn time, the victim is in the pen in the center while the tyrants ring the outside.
But inside the cage was just as horrifying.
A lone creature huddled in the center. Its skin was mottled black and grey, much like Finny’s hands when she held back Nora from attacking Ynya. It hunched over on all fours, the blackened skin pulled taut over a bony frame. Thick talons graced its hands and feet, and sharp spines protruded from its head and down along its back. Its cheekbones were hollow and sunken, with white cloudy eyes that seemed to glow in the low light.
It looked like a cross between a feral dog, a human, and a porcupine.
Synol gasped and ran out of the room.
Ynya turned to follow Synol, but the creature’s eyes pulled her back.
Something about those eyes drew a second, more careful study from Ynya. They both stared back, unblinking in the darkness, but they didn’t contain the expected feral look of a wild predator. No, what Ynya saw was recognition, and possibly compassion.
Flashes of snow shook Ynya’s memory, but she couldn’t quite place them. She allowed the memory to wash over her but it quickly dissipated before it stuck, eluding her for now.
A shudder ran down Ynya’s spine, but try as she might, she couldn’t take her gaze away from the beast.
It’s almost like I know it, but how could that be?
It whimpered, raising a clawed paw to the cage and lowering it slowly.
Not thinking about it, Ynya replied with the same motion using her own hand. It was both scary and familiar. She didn’t know which was the more prominent of the two emotions.
Ynya hadn’t forgotten her first impression of seeing her sister strapped to the table.
Finny took a cautious step toward the cage.
“Be careful,” Ynya called softly after her, finally breaking the gaze of the beast.
Finny turned her head toward Ynya. Her face had begun to take on the same transformation, with white eyes and taut, skeletal features. Her skin began to mottle, and Ynya noticed the hair on her head coalescing into thicker spines instead of soft, curly red hair.
Ynya pursed her lips, hardening her features to not betray what her mind wanted to do, which was scream and run from the sight.
She couldn’t do that though, not for her sister who had gone through so much pain.
Finny’s life had been a living hell since she had arrived at Reyoarfjell all these weeks ago, and neither Ynya nor Synol had been much help to her since they left. Maybe it explained why she had been so matter of fact, or hard sometimes. She was both her old self, as well as this new creature.
Finny had been fighting her own internal battle to determine who she was and how she fit into the world now that her soul had been ripped from her body and shoved into something new and unknown.
She was half-girl, half-monster, trying to figure out where she belonged. Ynya at least understood a part of that, growing up as the only magic wielder in a family.
Or at least that’s what she had thought until she learned all of that was a ruse.
Regardless, it wouldn’t be right for Ynya to panic in front of her sister.
Ynya nodded. “Go ahead, but be cautious. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Call if you need me, even if it’s just to hold your hand or bring you water.”
Finny grunted, a guttural, low-pitched sound, and turned back toward the cage.
Ynya backed away, turning off her light and exiting through the door.
Finny and the beast needed some alone time.
Chapter Thirteen
The three women stood in the hallway, each one trying to ignore the grunts and whines coming from the room.
A soldier came down the hallway, holding a steaming mug in his hand. He stopped when he noticed the three in the hallway.
Nora spoke up, leaping from the wall with an uncanny grace and speed. “Under order of the Queen herself, I am escorting a friend for your creature in there.”
The man nodded and peered beyond them into the room. His eyes widened with understanding before turning and leaving.
&nbs
p; “So, are we going to talk about this?” Ynya finally spoke up after the man had left.
Nora huffed, folding her arms and leaning against the wall once more. “Talk about what?”
“The fact that you are our aunt. Is is true? Is what the Warden told us true?”
Nora turned her head, staring down the hallway toward the kennels.
The rage returned in a flash. Ynya stepped in front of her, building up heat in her hands. She wanted answers, and now that Nora didn’t have her special little dagger anymore, she would do anything to get those answers.
Synol grabbed Ynya’s arm and pulled her back. “Ynya, perhaps we should worry about our sister rather than someone who doesn’t want to admit she’s part of the family.”
Nora glared at Synol, turned, and walked out of the hallway. “I will be waiting for you when you are done.”
Synol smiled broadly.
“What was that about?” Ynya asked.
Synol pursed her lips, trying to contain the devious look she now wore. “Just dropping the seed of familial guilt. Whatever it takes to break through her barrier.”
Synol wore a strange expression on her face, like she knew something but didn’t want anyone to know how pleased she was with herself over knowing the thing. It was infuriating beyond words.
“Oh Gods Above, Synol.”
“What?”
“You look so much like Mama there. Like when father came home from his fishing trips and she would spend the day trying not to smile constantly. That’s what you look like now, and given how much you look like her, it’s getting a bit creepy.”
Synol frowned, but didn’t fully give her up whimsical look. “I think we can wear her down, but remember that the Queen is always watching us, so let’s just be very careful with what we say near her for the time being.”
Ynya nodded, looking around. “I think we’re fairly safe here.”
Synol nodded. “Yeah, I think Nora was supposed to be here the whole time, which is one reason I jabbed at her. I wanted to get a reaction out of her.”
“That’s what I was doing on the staircase, and I think it worked.”
Synol cocked her lips to the side. “Perhaps, but remember she’s a hardened soldier, so reacting to anger-based situations and physically violent threats is what she’s trained for. Reacting to emotional situations might make it tougher for her to keep up the facade she wears.”
Synol scratched her chin, her eyes not leaving the place where Nora had just been. “Regardless, we just need to be careful.”
A thought popped into Ynya’s head. “Hand signals.”
Synol looked at her with a quizzical look. “What?”
Ynya nodded, excitedly. “When we were caught by the Warden, he said he recognized we weren’t soldiers coming in because we didn’t use the proper hand signal. My guess is that they were forced to start using them based on something Mama did years ago. That’s my theory anyway.”
Ynya showed Synol the signal with her thumb and tapping her palm. “Like this. I learned it when I was sneaking around Reyoarfjell looking for you.”
Synol’s eyes lit up with understanding. “I like it, reminds me of the signals we used to use with Mama when we were young.”
Ynya was confused. “Mama did these?”
Synol nodded. “You don’t remember? She would use these to tell us to be quiet when we were about to say something inappropriate, or remind us to pray to the Gods Above, or, well, you remember, don’t you?”
Ynya shook her head “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Synol furrowed her eyes. “Finny, Meki, and Mother used them from time to time to communicate.”
“Wait, I remember when I stole old man Grindhill’s chicken and he was giving mama a scolding about how she raised me, you kept doing a motion with your hand and chin.”
“You mean like this?” Synol replicated the gesture.
“Yes! Just like that!”
Synol rolled her eyes. “That was for you to stop talking and let Mama handle it.”
“But I didn’t, I ended up yelling at him, stomping on his foot, and running away.”
Synol pursed her lips. “Yes, and what happened? You got in trouble and had to clean his entire house. Up to that point he had no proof that you had stolen the chicken, and Mama was working on calming him down and making him think it had run away on its own. She had already sent Finny out to grab the chicken and take it back to the pen while they argued, but you wouldn’t listen to me and got yourself in serious trouble. At that point Mama had to punish you and so you spent nearly three days cleaning his nasty hut.”
Ynya shivered, remembering how much work that place was to muck out properly.
“He needed a wife.”
“He had a wife, she lived in the hut next door. She had gotten so sick of him never cleaning anything, she built her own place to live.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me to stop?”
“I did!” Synol did the motion again. “I was telling you to stop without words!”
Realization dawned on Ynya. She felt like an idiot as she remembered so many instances in her life when she had been clued in by a family member as to how to act, but had totally ignored them and done her own thing.
And nearly every one of those had gotten her into trouble, mostly by mouthing off to someone.
“I’m done.”
Both girls whirled to face Finny. She stood in the doorway, dried tears streaked down her cheeks.
Chapter Fourteen
Ynya embraced her younger sister a split second before Synol wrapped them both in a powerful hug.
Ynya looked into the room, where she could just see the shadow of the creature in the cage. Something about his eyes told her there was still a frightening intelligence there.
A shudder ran down her spine as she watched him. He stood on hind legs, grasping the bars with his taloned hands and watching the three girls embrace.
There was still something familiar about him that Ynya still couldn’t place. It was like she had seen his face before. That can’t be right. She had never seen him in her entire life. Still, Ynya couldn’t stop watching him.
He stared back, still raised up on two hind legs.
Like a human.
The thought sent a shiver down Ynya’s spine. He had been human at some point, just like Finny, hadn’t he?
For the first time, Ynya looked past the blackened, hairless skin and the gaunt features to see that there was a person in there. Sure, he was twisted beyond recognition, but wasn’t that the entire point of Reyoarfjell?
The Queen’s concentration camp had been designed to take normal people and turn them into something they were not. Soldiers were just one transition, but Skarmyord was another. This was just the next evolution, changing not only the mind, but the body as well.
Ynya had been awake too many nights, watching her sister Finny in that bizarre bestial form of hers loping around the snow, hunting rabbits and other small prey. Despite the depravity of seeing her sister change forms, Finny tended to act like two different beings; one human, one not.
Ynya forced the line of thought out of her head. She was venturing down another dark path from where she doubted there would be any reconciliation.
Finny needed to work things out for herself, and while she had Ynya and Synol to help her when she was in her normal, girl form, Finny needed more than they could give her.
Finny needed someone else…like him. Someone who went through the same things she did and survived.
Ynya pulled back to hold Finny at arm’s length. Was she a little bit smaller than she had been?
“Finny, were you able to communicate with him? I heard the chirps and other sounds you two were making in there.”
Finny nodded. “He’s in a lot of pain, so I taught him some things Mama told us to calm our minds.”
Ynya smiled. It was amazing how many skills their mother had taught them while growing up. So many of those lessons ended u
p being useful for them now. From focusing their minds, to proper use of their powers, to–
Ynya’s mind went stark white as realization hit her.
Another, much larger shiver gripped her spine and yanked her to a new reality. The chill ran down her arms and into her hands, making them twitch with anticipation.
Ynya broke away from her sisters’ embrace and turned toward the creature in the cage.
“God’s Below and Above.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Mama taught us a lot of things, right? Like how to focus our minds, and how to both hide and use our magic properly. She taught us hand signals, and the importance of family. Remember those stories she told about growing up and the games she used to play as a young one?”
Synol and Finny nodded.
“In all of her stories, she never once mentioned siblings, but she talked about friends. She talked about helping those friends accomplish things, and one of those was helping them escape from a prison, remember those stories?”
Synol’s face took on a stricken look. “What are you getting at?”
“What if that prison she talked about was Reyoarfjell? What if her friends were her siblings? What if she wasn’t able to get them all out or they died in the process and that was why she never talked about them to us? I never told you this, but I poured over the checkin books the Warden kept in his desk, and there were four Obliques logged in, each about a week apart. Nora and Mama came in a week after two other names. Mama didn’t have just one sibling, she had three, just like us.
Ynya whirled around. “Think about it. If she had said we had an uncle or aunt we would have wanted to meet them, or at least ask questions about them that she wasn’t prepared to answer.
“I think Mama knew what was going to happen to us and prepared us all to escape from the Frost Queen. I think she somehow knew the future and predicted what was going to happen, so she made sure to teach us how to do all these things to survive.”
Tears streamed down Synol’s stricken face; even Finny’s was softened.
Ynya pursed her lips. “In fact, I think I know what Mama’s magic was and how she knew what was going to happen.”