Soldiers surrounded me. They pried the sword from my hand, picked up my feet, and dragged me away. The dry ground seemed to rush by forever. Sun burned in my open wounds. Dust piled up in my throat and eyes. My head, bouncing on the ground, was pounding by the time we stopped.
Abruptly, my captors jerked me up straight. They slammed my back against a fence post, shoved a fist in my stomach, and I was back on the ground.
A bucket of water in my face later, they were tying me to the post. I didn’t fight it. I was grateful for the ropes to hold me up because I couldn’t. Everything around me was distorted and blurry. The shouting in the pen behind me sounded miles away. One of the prisoners, a small child, pushed his head through the fence and stared up at me. Smudge-faced and skinny, his vacant eyes were somber. He watched the soldiers tear open my shirt and press a thick, black paste into the wound on my side. I screamed, and his expression went unchanged.
They pressed in more. Blood bubbled out with the pressure. It mixed with the Kayn’l and streaked black over my skin.
“Disgraceful,” a man said.
Blinking, I looked at him. Standing off to the side, his white, angry gaze peered out from inside the hood of his cloak. His hands protruded from the garment’s long sleeves and the flesh that covered them was a murky blend of twisted color that was in no way natural.
I shrunk when he came near me.
Grabbing a handful of hair, he yanked my head up. “Idiots,” he scolded, glancing behind him. “I wanted him coherent.” Whipping back around to me, the man’s hood fell off. He was bald underneath and his head, face, and neck were mottled in a swirling chaos of ugly, muddy hues. They were like his hands, only worse. “Who am I?” he said. I pulled away and he struck me. “Don’t do that! Look at me!”
I did. “What do you want?”
“Not this. Never this. But you brought us here, son. You destroyed us both. You took something from me when you took the crown’s power. You weakened my spells.” The painted man made a wide, sweeping gesture at the army. “Look at them! Rancid, festering…I couldn’t even resurrect them properly.” His colorless eyes tensed. “Fix it. Repair the crown, L’tarian. I need that power back.”
“Go away.”
“You and I—we lost everything. Neela is with Draken. Sienn betrayed us equally. Without the Crown of Stones, creating a new empire will be most difficult. And you, my only son, have fallen to the level of common breeding stock.” He stared at me, enraged. Then his fury died with a sigh. “Maybe it’s for the best. To truly appreciate freedom you must know what it’s like to live without it. Slavery is the ultimate magic-price after all.” He leaned close and shouted at me. “What is your name? Who is Neela Arcana? Do you know what happened here? How many people you killed?”
Panic woke me up. “I killed someone?”
“That’s right,” he said smoothly. “You’re a murderer. You’ve been found guilty and will be punished for your crimes. Only through pain will you atone and earn the gods’ forgiveness.” The colors on his face seemed to run together as he grinned. Resting my head back on the pole, he spoke to one of the soldiers. “I want a guard on watch at all times. And get rid of his horse. Send it into the desert. Something will eat it.”
He answered, “Yes, Lord Reth,” and moved off. Another stayed behind. He handed the one called Reth a wooden grip with a silver chain. I followed the chain back to where it wrapped around the neck, of a tall, thin woman in a filthy dress. Strands of bedraggled, white hair hung about her dirty face. Matted clumps stuck wet and red to a large, bloody gash on the side of her head.
Her eyes, like his, also lacked color. There was an unfocused quality about them. But when they looked at me, I had the urge to touch her.
“I’m sorry,” she said to me, slow and trembling. “I wouldn’t have hurt you. I just couldn’t let you kill him. And now…I didn’t know he was this far gone. I didn’t think he would…” she drew a rough breath. “I’m sorry. Gods, Ian, I am so sorry.”
“Sienn,” Reth barked. “I said you could see him, not talk.”
I whispered the name he called her. “Sienn.” Reth looked startled, but it seemed to make the woman feel better; hopeful, almost. “It’s alright,” I told her. “I killed someone. I deserve to be punished for my crimes.”
“No.” Teary-eyed, Sienn shook her head. The hope I saw in her, vanished. “Don’t listen to him, Ian. Don’t believe him. He lies—he fucking lies!”
“Enough!” Reth tugged sharply on the chain and led Sienn off.
But she fought him. Reaching back for me, she cried, “I’ll find a way out of this, Ian. I swear. No matter how lost you feel, just hold on. Promise me, you will hold on!”
“I promise,” I said, but I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t understand why the woman cared. I didn’t know her. I had no idea who Ian was, or why he should be so lost. None of her words made sense.
Yet, something made me follow Sienn’s pale, desperate gaze until I couldn’t see it anymore. And when she was gone, I closed my eyes and saw hers in the dark.
They were sad, compelling, beautiful eyes. I didn’t want to let them go.
But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t hold onto them.
I couldn’t hold onto me.
EPILOGUE
A hand struck my face. “Wake up.”
It came at me again, and I grabbed it. It was soft and small. A woman.
I let her go. I spent a moment coughing the dust from my lungs. “I felt that,” I said, clearing my throat, “when you slapped me. Why is it strange that I felt that?”
“Can you stand?” she said. “We don’t have much time.”
I shoved the hair out of my face and sat up. Rocks and dirt covered me. I pushed the debris away and squinted at her through the haze. It was so thick I could barely see her. “What happened?”
“The mine collapsed.”
I looked around. There was nothing but dust and shadows. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Yes.” Grunting, she helped me to my feet. “This way.”
We moved into a tunnel. It was low and tight. A faint glow lit the distance.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Where are the guards?”
“Dead. But more are coming.”
“Wait.” I stopped. “You don’t belong here. Who are you?”
“That doesn’t matter now. Just keep going. We’ll be out soon.”
“I can’t leave,” I told her. “I’m not supposed to. This is where I live.”
“Here?” she snapped, spinning around. “In these rocks? These caves?”
“I…?”
She rushed toward me. Strands of long, white hair blew back from her face. Her eyes were swirling with a dozen different colors. “Do you know what goes on in this place? What they’ve done to you? What they made you do?”
I couldn’t grasp why she was upset. “No.”
“You will. And when the drug is gone, you’ll wish you could forget.”
“How long have I been here?”
She hesitated. “Too long.”
“Then my sentence is over? I’ve paid for my crimes? Reth says—”
“Jem Reth says a lot of things. Few of them are true.” The woman drew a frustrated breath. “You aren’t here because you broke the law. You’re here because you’re a threat to him, and to Draken.”
“King Draken? I know him. He asks me questions. He gets mad when I don’t answer.”
“Yes. He does.” Her head fell slightly. She made an odd sound.
“Are you crying?” I raised a hand to her cheek.
“Don’t,” she hissed, pulling away.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”
“We have a man in the prison. He’s been adjusting your dose of Kayn’l. You’re having moments of…sporadic clarity,” she said kindly. “I can’t explain right now.”
I heard footsteps. “The guards are coming. I should go find them.”
“Those aren’t guards. They’r
e with me. And they’re risking their lives to get you out of here. So you need to move.”
“You have the wrong man. Why would anyone take risks for me? I’m just a—”
“What, Ian? A slave? A soldier? A magic user?” Her breathy voice turned ominous. “You have no idea what’s inside you.”
I clenched my scarred, calloused hands shut. Blood dripped from fresh cuts across my knuckles. “This is all that’s inside me.”
“With this,” she said, squeezing my hands, “you could build an empire.”
Her eyes, I thought. I couldn’t stop staring at them. Even as she let me go and her gaze wandered, I tried to get it back. “Who are you?” I asked again.
“Sienn,” she said, quiet and reluctant. “I was here too, for a time. I know what you’re going through. And I know you don’t believe me, but...”
“Are they true? These things you’re saying about me?”
“Yes. Outside these walls, people are counting on you, Ian. They need you. They care about you. This isn’t where you belong.”
Muffled shouts escaped the gloom behind me. The sounds of approach in front grew louder. From the same direction, only closer, sparks of colored light glinted off the walls. Growing steadily brighter, they followed the natural arch of the tunnel, flickering and pulsing, to form what resembled a door.
Sienn stepped toward it anxiously. Then she paused and turned back. “I asked you once to join me. You had a dozen different reasons for saying no. But things have changed. And the Kayn’l has wiped you clean. There’s nothing to sway your decision. No magic, no love, or suspicion. No guilt or responsibility. This time you choose by instinct alone.” Sienn held out her hand. “Come with me, Ian. Take back your life. Free the Shinree. Give us a home.”
Home, I thought.
The word pulled at me. Suddenly it was all wrong; this place, me.
I felt aimless. Adrift.
Unnerved, I looked at her. “I don’t know where home is.”
“Neither do I,” she said sadly. “But I know it isn’t here.”
“You’re right. It isn’t.” I took Sienn’s hand, and I stopped drifting.
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price Page 50