by R. K. Thorne
She smiled, her dark eyes glinting. “I’m going to… Hmm, no. You’ll see. I’ll give you a minute or two to get closer, then I’ll move the dungeon wall, then it will come not long after. Wait for… the next loud noise after the earth stops moving.” He nodded. She shut her eyes.
Aven straightened and strode to Derk and Thel. “Let’s go.”
The bright moon of the night might have made it easier to spot them, but none of them were particularly experienced at creeping silently through the underbrush in complete darkness, so it was probably for the best. They were relying on the distraction to hide them, not stealth.
Aven crept first, keeping low as he moved from cover to cover. Derk followed, then Thel. Aven might have rather had Dom at his back—they all knew which one of them was burly from wrestling dogs and which one of them had… extremely dexterous fingers from repeated page turns? Aven snorted to himself. Thel would be blessed when he found the lady who cherished these unique facets of his personality. Aven wasn’t entirely sure how effectively his brother would be watching his back, but at least it gave them a chance of catching Derk if he tried to betray them.
Because how much could they really trust Derk? He had never given Aven a specific reason for worry, besides his attitude. And, well, his interest in Miara.
They reached the side of the white marble palace and ducked behind a hedgerow.
Aven listened. Nothing but the normal sounds of the night—the slapping of water against the bank, the wind rustling willow branches against each other, an animal lapping up water not so far away. Muffled voices emanated from inside, like a large, festive gathering. What in the hell was there to celebrate? But no loud cacophony met his ears.
Was something wrong? Was Jaena able to do what she’d planned?
He risked a peek around the corner of the building along the dungeon wall and—earth moved as if some giant mole beneath the ground was digging its way out.
Thel appeared beside him, peeking around as well. Aven almost elbowed him back for leaving their cover, but no one was in sight. Thel’s blue eyes were wide as saucers.
“So… I could do that?” he whispered in Aven’s ear.
Aven shrugged. “That’s what they tell me. If Jaena survives this mission so we have someone to show you how.”
Thel looked irritated at his practicality but gave him the slightest nod. He understood. “I forgot to tell you, we did find one book in the library on earth—”
“Not now, Thel.”
The moving earth stopped, and Aven was glad for it. He had been completely unable to quell the notion that the earth would never move that way unless some giant creature was about to rise up upon them.
A slight thud, now. Then another, then a decisive crack.
Rock flew from the wall and splashed into the pond. Gods, he hoped that wasn’t the distraction.
But he need not have feared. The sound of the cracking to follow was much, much louder and behind him. He didn’t wait to see what she was doing exactly, but it sounded like the building itself was coming apart.
He rushed around the corner, the two other men in tow, and through the blown-out wall. Two men had stumbled out into the clearing but were too busy looking at the other side of the building to slip inside. Six men in shackles leaned at various points along the wall. The little girl was not there, and none of the men seemed to be the one that had accompanied her. The prisoners were apparently all in one cell, the door of which hung open. The guards must have entered the cell to see what the commotion was about.
“Any of you named Tharomar?” Aven raised his voice as loudly as he dared.
Several eyebrows rose, but one man frowned. That had to be him. Aven rushed toward him.
“Who sent you?” the man demanded as Thel helped Aven get the man to his feet.
“Why does that matter if we’re getting you out of here?” Derk said.
That only deepened the man’s frown.
“A man and a young girl—have you seen them? Damn it, they’re not here,” Aven said instead.
“Was she youngish, maybe eleven?”
Aven nodded.
“He took them. The leader.”
Aven swore. “Wearing all black?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it. Do you know where they went?”
“No. Well—he said he was going up to the ball. Would he have taken them with him, or just moved them somewhere else? Who are they?”
Aven looked from Thel to Derk to the men outside. “Friends of friends. Thel—get Tharomar back to the others and see if you can get these shackles off. Derk, you and I will go in.”
“In?” Tharomar started. “You’re going up there? And I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who sent you.”
“Jaena sent us. Come on, this way.”
Tharomar’s jaw dropped, but that didn’t stop any of them from rushing back out. Aven had hoped to slip back along the side of the building, but one of the guards had unfortunately realized how thoroughly he’d abandoned his post. Spotting them, he cried a warning to the other guard, although Aven wasn’t certain the man heard anything.
The soft rumble of voices from inside was gone, replaced with more frantic voices, cries, and a strange, deep, grinding noise. But Aven had no time to discover the origin of that sound. The one attentive guard rushed at him.
“Get him over there,” Aven barked.
“Hurry up and get those shackles off. Shift just his hands,” Derk added.
The guard appeared to be unarmed. As the guard reached him, Aven crouched slightly and dove for his attacker’s midsection, using the momentum to hurl him up and over. The guard flew through the air and narrowly missed Derk, thanks to a small sidestep on the mage’s part. The guard landed with a thud on his back.
Derk surprised Aven by being quick with a dagger. He had it at the man’s throat before Aven had barely blinked.
“Don’t do it. I’ll cut you and roll your body into this pond, and no one will know the difference.”
The guard froze. Aven felt himself freeze too, realizing he had no idea if Derk was perfectly rational or a completely cold-blooded killer. Aven forced himself to take a breath.
“You had a woman, a girl, and her father in your cell,” Aven bluffed. “Where are they?”
The man’s eyes strained to turn his face toward Aven without pressing his neck against the knife’s edge. “The mage slaves?”
Aven gritted his teeth. Not for long if he had anything to say about it. “Yes,” he said instead.
“I saw no woman, but Daes Cavalion took the other two up to the main ballroom.”
“Are you sure?” Aven glanced at Derk as if giving him permission to press harder.
“I escorted him up there, I swear it.”
“How do we get up there?”
“Well, it looks like you can walk right in, with the front of the building torn off—”
Another large grinding screech finally drew Aven’s eye. He took two steps to the side, and he could see… what by the gods did he see?
Columns and stones from the palace had torn themselves apart and reassembled into a huge stone creature. The palace was lush but low, perhaps three stories. The giant towered at least five stories above the earth. The elegance of the columns and the white marble was not entirely lost, and there was something strangely beautiful about the being. Where eyes should have been, no stones rested, only dark hollows that seemed to come alive and see straight through him.
So. Distraction. Yes. That was very distracting. Even to him.
The creature reached down with an arm-like appendage to grab something. Aven forced his attention back to the man.
“Go back in there, shut the cell door, pretend like nothing is going on, and we won’t have to kill you.”
Both Derk and the guard looked at him like he was crazy.
“Like nothing’s going on?” the guard sputtered.
“Like he’ll do that?” Derk said at the same time.
Aven wanted to pummel them both. He just wanted to get on with the mission and not have to deal with this bastard.
“Get up and run, or I’ll make sure that you can’t.” Aven grabbed Derk’s shirt and pushed him away from the guard before quickly hauling the guard to his feet and shoving him in the opposite direction.
The guard hesitated. Aven raised a fist over his shoulder and took a warning step forward. The man turned and ran.
Derk snickered. “Nice, I think he wet himself. Let’s go.”
Aven was relieved that Derk seemed perfectly fine with that solution. He didn’t need a bloodthirsty bastard at a moment like this, as pleased as he was that Derk seemed capable with a dagger.
Aven drew his sword, and they ventured around the corner. Indeed, the front and side of the building were gone, as was most of the ceiling. The interior revealed a great dining hall where it seemed people had been eating. A multitude of pillows and cushions in the center of the palace suggested possibly more. Tiny shards of glass and beads of lead covered the ground around much of the outer edges. The windows must have shattered. Slabs of stone that made up the roof and ceiling edge looked unstable, and one teetered and crashed as Aven watched, smashing a table beneath it into splinters.
Seeing the interior and imagining King Demikin not so far away made his heart thud in his chest for a moment at the enormity of this act. They might not yet know Akarians were behind this, but Aven did. This was essentially an act of war, and not a subtle one. He hadn’t exactly thought of it like that when they’d been conceiving their scrappy little rescue mission. Freeing mages had been Aven’s goal, and this romp had just seemed like an extension of that.
It hadn’t occurred to him that they were perpetrating the equivalent of a direct attack on the Kavanarian king, inside his territory. He hadn’t known the magnitude of Jaena’s distraction. No point in worrying now; they were already across the threshold.
Even with his sword drawn, Aven crept unnoticed around the corner, Derk behind him. Many had fled the outer room, but some were salvaging valuables, though the marble creature seemed bent on further destruction.
Where could they be?
Wait—he could feel them, through their brands. He could look for their squirming, tormented knots of energy. He spread his senses while trying to keep moving but found he had to stop to concentrate.
He felt dozens of slaves hiding in the rooms to his left, before him, and in the levels below. He felt each of the hearth fires in each of the rooms. How could he pick them out of these masses?
“Damn it.”
“What is it?”
“Where do we start looking? I tried to feel for them, but there’s dozens of mage slaves here.”
“Maybe we should go back.”
“We came this far… We have to…”
Aven groped around again, trying to think of something. Maybe… a small group of them felt separate from the others, smaller, off in front of him and up the stairs. If Miara’s family was with Daes, then they could be alone or with only a few other servants. Might the larger groups be those in sleeping quarters or those hiding from the monster or ones who somehow worked in the castle?
He thought all mage slaves had been in Mage Hall. Why were there so many here now?
Because they’re moving them, he realized. To hide them from you.
“Let’s try this way.” Aven started forward, and Derk offered no objection. They took a nearby staircase that looked at least somewhat stable, though a large chunk of it had been torn away by either falling roof rock or the creature’s hands. The first door he opened led to a dark hallway with just one torch burning. Had others burned out? Strange.
They stalked carefully down it to the next door. Aven listened. Voices came from the other side, and footsteps—
Footsteps coming their way.
He spun away, just barely missing the door slamming into his face.
A man stalked past, leaving the door open. Voices murmured inside, but he couldn’t distinguish any of them.
Aven pivoted on one foot and spun round, entering the door with sword drawn.
Derk did not follow him.
He gritted his teeth. That smart-assed traitor. Had he come all this way just to screw Aven over when it counted? He shouldn’t be surprised. Would Thel or Tharomar find the way to this spot and follow him? They might, but it could well be too late.
He was on his own.
“Well, well, we meet again, star mage.”
Daes’s voice threatened to make him shudder, but he steadied himself and leveled the point of his sword in the man’s direction. Aven took in the room as quickly as he could.
It appeared to be an ordinary royal sitting room. A man and a girl stood to the far left, near Daes, who sat stiffly in a dark brown armchair.
“Brown, I see? Changing up the color palette a bit?”
A hint of a sardonic smile curled Daes’s lips. “It was the closest to black they had.”
In the far right corner of the room, King Demikin gaped out the window, a guard on one side and a woman in a red velvet gown on the other, her hand on his back. At Aven’s voice he turned, his eyes wide.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Are you responsible for this?”
Aven did his best to look incredulous. “Do I look like an earth mage? It seems you’ve mightily pissed one off, though, I must admit.”
“What do you want?” Daes demanded.
“Miara’s family,” Aven shot back.
“Not going to happen.”
A flicker of awareness caught in the eyes of the man and girl now. And was that hope? Or greater despair? They hadn’t realized this mess was about them.
“Where is Miara?” Aven demanded.
Daes tilted his head and looked mightily amused. He didn’t know. Wherever Miara was, Daes had heard nothing of it.
And maybe had had nothing to do with it.
Although those dead bodies hadn’t just shown up in Miara’s rooms on their own. At least… he didn’t think so. Daes had probably had something to do with that.
“You don’t know? That’s… Why, how entertaining. Demikin, Marielle, we’re getting quite the show with dinner thanks to these Akarians.” He said the last word with notable disgust.
“Let them go, or I’ll run you through,” Aven demanded.
Daes’s gaze flicked to Miara’s family. “Defend me from this lout,” Daes said to the man. Face twisting, Miara’s father moved between Aven and Daes.
Damn. He hadn’t counted on that. Now what was he going to do? He shifted his weight from foot to foot, trying to think. The older man didn’t look like much of a fighter, and Aven could probably subdue him without any permanent injury, but that would be a chance for the others in the room to get the drop on him. He couldn’t take them all at once, most likely. He had thought he’d have a companion. He pulled a dagger at his belt.
“The king. I’ll kill the king if you don’t let them go.”
Leaning around Miara’s father, Daes raised an amused eyebrow and smiled. “Oh, please do. Go ahead. That was my plan tonight anyway.”
For the first time, Aven realized that the guard was not protecting the king, but restraining him. Oh, by the gods. What plan was afoot here?
“You’re outmaneuvered, boy. Where is my brand?”
Now it was Aven’s turn to smirk, although of course he wasn’t going to tell Daes anything of the sort. Aven needed a plan. Perhaps if he could keep Daes talking, he’d have time to think of something. “What brand? You’ve lost something, I take it?”
“Oh, you know what brand. Come clean, and perhaps I’ll only sear you to medium instead of well done this time. We will find it, you know.”
Could Aven free them while they talked? That seemed highly unlikely, he doubted he could keep up a conversation at the same time, but what if he could? No, he’d pass out at the end by himself. It was just too much.
He wasn’t even keeping up the conversation very well
now as he struggled to think.
“You won’t find it, because it’s been destroyed.” There. That should give him some heart palpitations.
And indeed, Daes’s face turned an even paler shade of pallid. “You’re bluffing. It can’t be.”
Was the girl commanded to defend Daes too? He could probably club Miara’s father over the head and get his forgiveness in the long run, but Aven wasn’t sure he could render a young girl unconscious and forgive himself for it. But perhaps if he had no other choice.
Aven stepped to one side, closer to the king and skirting around Miara’s father and Daes.
“It has already been destroyed,” he said as coolly as he could muster. “You’ll have to get your power from actually leading people instead of enslaving them.”
That seemed to get under the bastard’s skin, and Aven felt a bit smug. Not so fast with the back pats, though. He still had no idea how they were going to get out of this mess.
The grinding, rumbling sounds outside intensified.
“Well, your lies don’t matter anyway,” Daes scoffed. “We’re making a new one.”
No. No—they couldn’t know how. Could they? Perhaps they had their own forbidden knowledge, tucked away for this very emergency. No. Damn it, he hoped it wasn’t true.
“Now you’re bluffing,” Aven said, voice as flat as he could muster. “You don’t know how.”
“It’s already in production.” Daes waved him off like a gnat bothering his wine.
He had to be bluffing. But—
The grinding sound grew deafeningly loud, and Aven took a reflexive step back.
The outer wall of the room crumbled away, white granite fingers crushing the stone. The king, who had been leaning against the wall up until the last moment, tumbled out of sight with a surprised cry and fell. The red-dressed woman—the queen?—started to lose her balance, teetered on the edge, but then caught herself on the edge of a jagged granite slab.
Aven acted quickly, using the disruption to lunge at Miara’s father and, with an inward wince, clubbed him in the head with the hilt of his sword. The girl rushed toward her father as he fell, and so did Aven.