by Wendy Wang
She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. He flinched. Mistake. Mistake. Mistake, her mind cried. She pulled away, fully expecting him to scold her for her impetuousness. Instead, his arms went around her waist, drawing her to him again, kissing her deeper. She relaxed against him, wrapping her arms around his neck, memorizing the softness of his lips.
After a moment, she came up for air. They both laughed softly and he gently stroked the hair glued above her lip. “Remind me to give you a shave before we do that again.”
“You don’t like it?” Neala taunted. “Just remember that later.”
“I am always clean-shaven,” he teased her. She gently brushed the back of her hand across his prickly cheek.
“Not today, Chief.” She grinned. “But that’s all right. I like it.”
“I like you. In any form.”
Down the hall, the guard yelled at the coughing man, “Shut up! Shut up!”
They froze in place. He clutched her against him and they listened, barely breathing.
The guard stomped down the hall and banged something against the bars. “Shut up!”
“Get me a healer,” the man said between bouts of coughing.
“You want a healer? Here is your healer!” The sound of keys rattling and the squeal of the rusty hinges pierced Neala’s ears. She squeezed her eyes shut against the sound of something hard connecting with flesh. The man screamed between coughs until a loud crack echoed through the cellblock and the man fell silent.
Cai pressed his lips to her ears. “We have to go, now, together.”
Neala nodded and pulled out of his arms. She grabbed his hand and he stepped onto the canvas. Just before he disappeared her fingers loosened, releasing his hand. It was too late for him to stop and as he faded into a misty nothingness, his expression ran the gamut from fear, to shock, to anger.
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed, but he was gone. She sighed and folded up the canvas, tucking it inside the binder. She waited until the guard left the cell down the hall, watched as he walked away from his post and out through the door leading to the stairwell. When the door slammed, she crept out of the cell and down the hall towards the dissident’s holding area. The feel of Cai’s lips lingered and she touched her fingers to her mouth, praying he would find it in his heart to forgive her. She willed the metal hinge not to give her away as she opened the door and went to find the answers she needed.
Sixteen
“Four stones up from the floor,” Andes said. “Two over, left and one down, right.”
Neala touched the tip of her dagger to the wall in sequence. She held her breath as the tip of her blade scraped against the stone and she gave it a command. Open. Nothing happened.
“You sure that’s right?”
“I – I…” He scratched his head and closed his eyes. “Try it without the blade. They used their hands.”
Neala touched each stone brick with her right hand, following the cycle again. As her fingers grazed the last block, a long rectangle of joined stones dragged inwards, scraping along the floor, revealing an opening to another corridor. Two torches lit the long hallway, casting deep shadows in places along the wall.
“I’ve gotten you in,” Andes whispered harshly to her. “Now will you let me go?”
“Of course. You’re free to go back to your cell at any time,” she said. He clenched his jaw and blew air out through his nose.
“You don’t play fair,” he whispered.
“Do you want to get out of here? Or not?” she said. The knot in her belly tightened. Had she done the wrong thing sending Cai home? He would have at least been better company.
“Of course I do.” He grit his teeth, keeping his voice hushed.
“Good. This is the way out.” She pointed at the long shadowed hallway. He scowled and doubt filled his eyes but he entered the corridor with her and they stuck to the shadows as much as they could. She passed two doorways, peeking inside the darkened rooms. Both were furnished identically with a long bank of cabinets against one wall and a metal table in the center of the room. Her blade glowed blue, lighting an array of test tubes and instruments on the tops of the cabinets. Memories choked her for just a moment. Her arms and hands twitched. She leaned against the door jamb. She’d been here before.
“Are you all right?” Andes touched her shoulder.
“I’m fine.” She shrugged him off, shaking her head, clearing away the memories. “Let’s just keep moving.”
Soft crying echoed through the hallway and Neala picked up her pace. They followed the corridor, turning a corner to find another, even longer passageway. At the end, she saw a rectangle of bright light. Sunlight. At least there could be a way out.
The scream came from one of the rooms halfway down the hall. It made the hair on her body stand at attention and drove an icy shard of panic through her chest. The cry reminded her of her nightmares—where the screams were always hers. It only lasted a moment before it stopped abruptly, as if the person had been unnaturally silenced.
“There, there.” A man’s voice reverberated down the hall. His words were meant to calm but nothing about them offered comfort. Neala’s skin broke into a sweat and she recoiled. That voice. That voice had spent a great deal of time piercing her body with white hot needles and bleeding her until she was so weak she couldn’t move. Why had she sent Cai away? How stupid of her!
Andes poked her in the side and whispered, “What are we doing?”
Neala scrubbed her hand across her lip and the glued moustache slid from its place. She peeled the prickly hair away and rubbed her sticky upper lip. “I don’t know. Just stop talking and let me think.”
“We can’t just stand here.” He glanced back the way they came.
“Fine,” she whispered through gritted teeth. Her eyes scanned the opposite wall and landed on a different door. She crept towards it, commanding its lock to open. They slipped inside and she eased the door shut, leaning her forehead against the cool wood.
“You don’t have any idea what you’re doing, do you?” Andes said.
“Just shut your mouth. I got you out of that cage, didn’t I?” She rounded on him, and he flinched away from her and pointed at her hand. Her fingers had caught fire, flickering light into the room. She closed her fist, squelching the flames. Light still glimmered in the dark room. Her eyes searched for the source and her whole body numbed at the sight of several canvases hanging along the wall. All paintings of the realms—Cassilladin, Iberebeth, Ethavia, and of Tamarik. All of their subjects moving in some way—a breeze blowing through grassy pastures, people walking through a busy city plaza, deer grazing in a field, and her rocks. The outcropping of boulders overlooking the city of Tamarik. The boulders where she and Cai had spent so much time the last few weeks, talking. Where he first taught her how to pull the fire from within.
“Jerugia’s crown,” she muttered. Holding her hand above the painting of Tamarik, her fingers tingled with the energy of all five elements. “He has a painter.”
“What are these?” Andes asked. His fingers brushed through one of the canvases and he jumped back as if he’d been bitten.
“They’re passageways,” she said.
“Wha—what?”
She punched her fist through the painting of Cassilladin and part of her disappeared. “I could cross over to Cassilladin through this one. Or Iberebeth and Ethavia with those.” She yanked her arm out. “He’s using them to move back and forth through the realms. Bypassing the folds of security.” Neala pulled the painting of Cassilladin from the wall and turned it over. She scratched her nails across the blank, white backside of the canvas. It was solid. She plunged her dagger into it and dragged it from corner to corner, leaving the canvas with a gaping, frayed wound.
“What are you doing? We could use these to escape.” Andes reached for the dagger. She elbowed him hard in the chest and he backed away, rubbing the spot where she’d hit him.
“We are going to free that woman before we go a
nywhere,” Neala said.
“You are crazy.” He turned and grabbed the door handle. It jiggled but would not open. “Let me out.”
Neala was across the room, with her hands on top of his, in a matter of seconds. “No, I’m not. If you go out there, and they find you, they will kill you. You’ve seen too much.”
He stopped struggling with the door handle and cast his wide, dark eyes at her. “Who are they? Atraxis’ men?”
“Worse. Atraxis’ enemy,” Neala said. “And Tamarik’s and ‘s and Ethavia – you get the point.” Andes nodded. “I have to destroy these paintings, so that when we cross over, he can’t follow… or at least not easily. He probably has more of these somewhere.”
“Do you have an extra blade?”
“Why?”
“It will go faster with two–” he said. Neala nodded. She took a deep breath and pulled a small folding knife from the holster strapped above her ankle. Her hand trembled as she placed it in his palm and he brushed his fingers over hers. Calm enveloped her as she met his black eyes. Healing energy. An Earth Kael. That’s why he couldn’t fight. He bowed his head and his lips curved up slightly. “Thank you, Highness.”
“How–?”
“I know my Queen and I see her in you. Am I wrong?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
Andes smiled, opened the knife and took the painting of Iberebeth from the wall. He plunged the blade into the back of it, destroying it.
******
When all of the paintings had been sliced, Neala opened the leather binder and pulled out the painting of home. She held it up for Andes to see.
“This is how we’re getting out of here.” She folded it up and tucked it into her pants pocket. Calling up fire through her dagger, she touched the tip to rough edges of the exposed canvas, setting each one aflame. The room filled with thick, choking smoke as the two of them filed into the hallway, closing the door, leaving the passageways to burn. Neala pointed to the room where they’d heard the woman crying earlier.
Andes crossed the hall and peeked inside, before signaling to Neala. The sound of blood rushed through her ears, drowning out all other noise as she entered the room.
The room was set up as the others had been—a center table with a bank of cabinets along the wall. Glass tubes and shiny metal instruments glinted in the flicker of torches hanging from the wall.
The woman was strapped to the table with simple jute ropes. The skin on Neala’s wrists prickled with memory. A man with slick, silver hair hunched over a shallow bowl filled with a thick, red liquid. Blood. The man took a glass dropper and sucked up some of the blood, dripping it across a needle several inches long lying on a metal tray. The blood disappeared, soaking into the metal needle as if it had just become part of it.
“Now,” the man said. He picked up the needle and turned to the woman on the table. “Let’s try something a little different.”
His smug simper made something inside Neala explode. She would not let this continue. It had to end here and now. She stepped between him and the woman. “Yes, let’s.”
“What are you doing in here?” The man’s leer faded as his eyes dragged back and forth between Neala and Andes. Neala raised her knee and slammed her foot down hard over his exposed toes. He screamed out and she struck the old man hard across the jaw with the hilt of her dagger.
“Untie her!” she shouted to Andes. He’d been watching in frozen silence and her sharp tone made him jump into action. The man howled in pain and she wrestled the needle from his hand. Her vision clouded with red. Five days. He’d tortured her with needles—hot needles, freezing needles, sharp needles, broken needles. All of it came cresting over her, drowning her. She shoved the sharp tip of the needle into the cap of his shoulder. His legs buckled and he fell to his knees, screaming. With the snap of her wrist, the metal broke into two pieces—half of it still in his shoulder. She glanced behind her to see Andes struggling with the ropes.
“Andes!”
“They’re not responding to me—I don’t understand,” He said as he yanked again on the one tightening around the woman’s neck.
“Cut it!” Neala said.
“What?”
“It’s still just a rope. Cut it.”
Andes slid the blade of his knife between the woman’s neck and the jute. The sharp metal sliced through the braids and fell away. Andes laughed in shock. “How could I be so stupid?” he muttered, and cut the rope strapping her wrists, feet and waist to the table.
A hand clamped onto her shin and Neala kicked at it, knocking the old man off-balance. Her foot stomped his fingers, grinding them into the stone. She bent low, as she spoke through gritted teeth. “You do this to another person and I will come back for you, old man. Do you understand me?”
His crying turned into laughing. Neala thrust the second half of the broken needle into the cap of his other shoulder, driving it deep into the muscle, commanding the metal of the needle to burn with the fires of Nydia.
“Let’s get out here, now,” Andes barked at her as he helped the woman to her feet. Neala rose quickly to her feet, but could not leave before dragging her arm across the top of the counter. Glass tubes shattered and the bowl of blood splattered a messy pattern onto the stone floor.
Neala wrapped one arm around the woman’s waist and Andes supported her from the other side as they dragged her out into the corridor. A thin layer of smoke hovered near the ceiling.
“Stop!” Two of Peter’s soldiers rounded the corner, weapons drawn. A fireball flew past her head and she pushed against the woman, guiding Andes back inside the torture chamber. Yanking the canvas from her pocket she laid it on the floor.
“All you have to do is step through,” Neala said. “You’ll be safe before you know it.”
“What about you?”
“I thought you wanted out?”
“I do, but –” he said glanced down at the painting. Another fireball struck the doorjamb and it burst into flames.
“Go! I’ll be all right. Just take her with you,” Neala said. She watched as he helped the woman step onto the canvas. Another fireball hit the wall behind the cabinet, knocking her off-balance. Something sharp dug into her hip and stars exploded in her field of vision as pain ripped through her lower body. She looked down to find the old man had pulled one of the needles from his shoulder and had jabbed it into her upper thigh. A fireball flew over her head and burst above her. The old man fell to the floor, cackling. Slowly she drew the slippery needle from her leg, letting it drop to the floor.
Sparks from the explosion rained down. She swung her arm up, caught the dying embers with the tip of her blade and swirled them around, forming a fiery loop. She slung the burning lasso outward and it landed close to the open door. The feet of the first few soldiers through the door walked into the circle of fire and she tugged at it, commanding the flames to close around his ankles and stake him to the place where he stood. The soldier’s arms circled as he lost the battle with gravity and slammed to the floor. Peter pushed his way in front of the other soldier.
Their eyes locked for a brief second, and all the air left her lungs. He smirked.
“You came back,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away.”
Her fingers caught fire and her palm filled with a glowing orb of fire. She flung it at him and he struck it away with his hands. She threw another orb and then another. Each time he batted them away as if they were nothing more than pesky insects buzzing around his head. He laughed, and it echoed through her head. This isn’t happening again. He stepped towards her, his hands out, unarmed.
“I am so glad you came back.” He smiled at her as if the walls around them weren’t burning. “I promise, I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Stay away –” She shuffled backwards. A hand grabbed her wrist, yanking her. She raised her dagger to strike out, but it was Andes standing beside her, pointing to the canvas. The way home. Her blade caught fire and she touched her tip to
the edge of painting. Andes joined hands with her and pulled her onto the burning canvas. As they sank through the passageway, she circled the tip of her dagger, forming a cyclone of flames around her. The canvas burned faster and hotter, becoming smaller and smaller. The last thing she saw before the elements moved through her were Peter’s eyes, glowing red, as the room around him burned.
******
Neala lost the battle with gravity, landing hard on her knees. She put her arms out to catch herself and squeezed her eyes shut to deal with the dizziness. Her fingers trembled reflexively against the rough granite landing stone. Next to her, Andes heaved the contents of the stomach. It was not an easy trip. Cai was right. There had to be a better way to move people from realm to realm.
“Put your hands in the air!” a voice said from behind. Neala opened her eyes, focusing on a dandelion that had taken root and pushed its way up through the cracks in the rock. Its tiny, yellow petals bristled from the heaviness of her breath. When the wave of nausea subsided, she raised her hands into the air to show the wardens surrounding her that she could follow orders. Andes raised one hand just before his stomach betrayed him again. The wardens in front her grimaced but didn’t offer assistance.
Her eyes quickly scanned the faces of the wardens, looking for anyone she might know. Every one of them had his baton trained at her heart.
With as much authority as she could muster, she said, “I am Princess Neala, daughter of Riona the First. I demand to see the chief.” She hoped one of them would look beyond her tinted skin and dark hair and what was left of the goatee glued to her face. Surely one of them would recognize her blue eyes. The five wardens in front of her looked to someone standing behind her, waiting for an order to stand down. “Surely the chief told you I would be coming through.” She glanced over her shoulder at a warden with a bushy, gray beard and muddy brown eyes. His lips wrinkled into a scowl.