by L. J. Stock
He waited as a guard passed behind him, barely turning his head when another stopped beside him and opened the door.
“Cassandra.”
“Grigori,” I said in greeting, nodding as I stepped out from the corner.
“Are you hungry? I brought you some food,” he said, offering me a plate with meat and potatoes. Considering the diet of bread we’d been on, the offering looked delectable. I wasn’t a fool, though, and eyed the plate with suspicion.
“You trying to drug me again?”
“No.” He laughed pleasantly. “Just food, I promise. Your guard has the same.”
I took the offered plate and sat cross-legged on the mattress, my back against the wall as I used the fork-like contraption to eat. There was no knife, which didn't surprise me, so I picked up the meat and nibbled around the edges as Grigori took a seat in the small chair and watched with fascination.
“May I enquire as to how you slept?”
“You may. I slept very well, thank you,” I replied with the same formality after swallowing a mouthful of meat. It wasn't anything special, but to my palate anything was gourmet compared to the bland cheese and bread.
“It seems so. You're in a better mood this evening.”
I noted the reference to the time of day and gave him a small, polite smile.
“It happens occasionally when I’m treated like a human instead of a badly trained animal. Although, as luck would have it, my guard just distracted me from a rather cruel episode of claustrophobia.”
“Claustro—”
“Phobia,” I finished for him, and demonstrated with my hands while balancing the plate in my lap. “It's when the walls feel as though they're closing in on me.”
He nodded and looked down at my plate as though encouraging me to eat more. I was happy to oblige. The protein had hit my stomach and was craving more with enough violence to issue a punch of demand. It was an added bonus that the heat of it made me feel a little better.
“I apologize about your quarters but I'm afraid it's the only place we can keep you safely. It's not just to keep you from your precious elements, but to also keep you safe. You killed quite a few men in the fight at Dullhurt. There are those who would like to offer vengeance for their fallen comrades. There are also a couple of veneficus who are quite... curious.”
Fear spliced down my spine. Of course these animals wanted retribution for their dead. If they thought the way Grigori did, they likely blamed me for not only the deaths of their family and friends, but for the whole mess. They believed I was the one who was attempting to end the world. As ludicrous as that notion was, there was nothing I could do to change their way of thinking. Especially when Ras and I had taken out a large portion of their ranks in battle.
“I'm good here for now,” I said defensively, shifting back on the mattress so my back was flush against the wall. “So tell me, are you the head honcho here, Grigori?”
“I'm not sure I understand the question.”
I fought the inclination to roll my eyes in frustration and took a small forkful of potato while I tried to get the words right in my head. For some reason I had a feeling I would have to simplify things for him. He seemed to only understand the things that had been fed to him, because even the people in the palace could decipher most of the language I used on a day-to-day basis.
“What I'm asking is whether you're in charge of everything here?”
“No. I am one among many.” He smiled as though my explanation amused him, but there was a hint of pride and I wondered whether that was due to my assumption. “There is a chain of command as in any army.”
I nodded and continued eating. I was trying my level best to become friendly with him, but I couldn't think of a question to ask him that wouldn't seem like I was digging for answers or trying to manipulate him by stroking his ego. It was like walking on broken glass. I was trying to gain his confidence, but not raise his suspicions. Maybe my original behavior was better. Being combative with him was so much easier.
I stayed silent as I ate, and I knew that Rasmus had to be curious as to what I was doing in here with the man who had not only assaulted and kidnapped us, but had also allowed one of his men to try to separate Ras' head from his shoulders. I knew I would feel much the same way if the situation had been reversed. I hadn’t forgiven his complacency in the attack on Rasmus either.
“May I ask you a question, Cassandra?” Grigori asked, interrupting my thoughts as I set the plate to the side and pulled my knees to my chest. Thankfully, the dress I was wearing was designed to give way to my legs, otherwise it would have been an awkward action.
“That was a question.”
Smiling at me, he tipped his head to the side as though studying a puzzle. I was beginning to feel like a bug under a microscope, but realized he was enquiring after his original question. Once again I was forced to fight the inclination to growl in frustration.
“I suppose that depends on the question.” He looked taken aback for a second and I couldn't help the sigh I emitted. “Go ahead.”
“Have I offended you in any way?”
“No,” I answered, offering something as close to a smile as I could in his presence. “I was just realizing that I'm going to have to teach you the art of sarcasm.”
“Oh, your response was playful?”
This time I genuinely laughed and felt a tiny ice shard fall from my defenses. His innocence had caught me by surprise and I found it oddly endearing, which was disturbing, too. I didn't want to get lost in my own deceptions here. I was trying to convince him we were friends. Not myself.
“You can ask me your question.”
He nodded thoughtfully, his small smile still in place. “Could you explain what you meant last eve when you said that the evidence was right in front of me?”
I blew out the air in my lungs and brushed the loose strands of hair back from my face. I hadn't expected my comments to get to him as much as they had already. I'd been upset when I'd yelled at him. I hadn't even conceived my plan at that point. It had been in the heat of the moment when I’d felt vulnerable and angry. Knowing that he'd been thinking about what I’d said made an inkling of hope well in my gut. Maybe I could do some good here. I wasn't sure that all of the others in this base of theirs had the same naivety he did, and for the moment, I didn't really care. There was something in this black magician that was now questioning everything he’d previously believed, and I had to grip onto that with both hands and work on him until I could see the fissures of his base beliefs cracking with my own eyes.
“Are you sure you want me to answer that?” I asked, imagining Rasmus and his curiosity listening closely at this point. I hadn't been able to tell him anything that had transpired the night before when he’d been unconscious. This would be the first he’d heard of the conversation between Grigori and I.
“Please, I am certain. I have thought on it quite a bit since then, and I can't seem to put the meaning in any context that makes sense to me.”
“We're peaceful people, Grigori. We don’t want war. Haven't you noticed that you're always the ones engaging us in battles? All we want is to be left alone to look after our people and live our lives the best way we can. We’ve never wanted a war. We don’t thrive on violence. We never wanted to hurt anyone else, and we don't kill your people unless you attack us first. We've spent so much time trying to make our people happy and safe, and that security is all destroyed by you each time you invade our lands. You don't see us coming at you with our armies. We don’t hunt your men down like dogs or steal your women or children.”
“You have in the past. You all have. You took our mothers from us,” he said with a little more passion. As impassioned as his speech was, I could see another flicker behind his eyes. It was the same emotion I'd had trouble reading before, and I still couldn't put a name to it.
“No, that's emphatically not true. The nymphs asked us for help. Your people kidnapped and raped them to create children with nymph blo
od so you could continue your bloodlines. There are very few who are here with you and your men voluntarily. You have to see that.”
“This is not true,” he growled. I had to blink a couple of times to see the pain behind his eyes. I couldn't figure out whether he was upset about the nymphs or that I'd accused them of keeping them there against their will.
“I'm sorry, Grigori. I didn't mean to upset you, but I’m telling you the truth here. I just wanted to have a life, make the lives of my people better. I was in that village to—”
“Steal their children?” Grigori finished for me. “We're not completely ignorant.”
Apparently they were if that was what he believed. My own thoughts were mirrored in the form of a snort in the cave further down from my own. It wasn’t as though I could react that way in front of Grigori. It would undo everything I'd already accomplished, but the ridiculousness of the statement was just insanity.
“I don't know where you heard that, but it's untrue. My party was there to check on the water system we developed to feed fresh water into the village and to check on the crops we'd had the villagers grow for themselves or to trade. We're trying to make their lives easier not harder.”
“You must think me a fool,” he spat, and there was a small trail of smoke rising from his palms as he glared at me. I was insulting him even though I was telling him the truth, so I knew I had to back down.
I couldn't believe how brainwashed these soldiers were. Grigori seemed smart enough to me, but his belief that we were in the wrong and inherently evil told me that he was confused. The troops who had stormed the palace had been relentless killing machines. I'd watched them murder Penthea without so much as a blink. They couldn't all think the way Grigori did. How did they manage to accomplish anything if that was the case. He had a conscience. He believed they were the ones protecting people.
“Please, I didn't mean to offend you,” I said, cringing away from him as though I was terrified. For added effect, I wrapped my arms around my knees and buried my face in my skirts.
“Well you did,” he bellowed, blinking away all of the kindness he’d afforded me only minutes earlier. It was like looking at the polar opposite of him. “I am not an idiot, Princess. Just because I live my life in this stronghold does not mean that I do not receive the reports from our troops on the battlefront. I may be serving my punishment beyond Grenalide, but that does not mean I am ignorant to what goes on there.”
“I never said you were ignorant,” I spat back, raising my head. Fear obviously wasn't making me endearing to this animal. I had to try meeting him toe to toe again. “Have you ever considered that you're being lied to?”
He laughed bitterly. Not the genuine sound that he'd given me the last time, but a harrowing laugh filled with evil and contrition. He was pissed. I'd gone too far too fast and I'd made him feel like an idiot. It certainly hadn't been my intention, and I wasn't sure I could fix it.
“What are you being punished for?” Rasmus called from the other cell. He was pulling Grigori's anger from me to himself.
I knew he was trying to help, but if he got himself killed, or killed Grigori, the last of our hope for escape would be gone. We would be someone else's charge and from what the man in front of me had said, there'd be no guarantees we'd make it out of this alive.
“Stop it, please,” I said, louder than I'd intended. When Grigori turned to look at me, I took a deep breath and tried my best innocent face. “I know you're not stupid, but you have to understand that there's a war going on out there. People lie. They twist things.”
“Why would they lie to their own people about this?”
“Because I believe that you're inherently good people, Grigori. You can't consciously kill people without a reason to do it. So they make us out to be the villains. Paint a target on our backs so you have somewhere to aim all your anger.”
He thought about that for a moment. He wasn’t stupid at all. If I’d had to label it, I would have said he was ignorant. This was all he’d ever known. He’d been bred for war. “None of them want to kill.”
I didn’t exactly believe that either, but if it was what helped him sleep at night, who was I to disillusion him. I was trying to appeal to his humanity, not give him a reason to hate us further. I pushed up from my place on the mattress and approached him slowly, unsure that I wouldn't get smacked or be slapped with some magic when I did. I knew I was taking a chance, but I needed him to start trusting me, and the only way to achieve that was to start showing him that I trusted him, even a small amount.
“Please understand that I have only encountered your troops once before this, but they can kill for pleasure, and they do. I've seen it with my own eyes. They attacked us in the palace while we were unarmed amidst a celebration. They killed one of my ladies in waiting when she walked into them with her palms open in surrender. I know you don't want to believe that of them, but the men you’re in league with are capable of killing in cold blood.”
Grigori took another look at me, his square jaw rigid with tension. Then he was gone, his physical being swept away in a fading fire.
“Son of a bitch.” I sighed, leaning against the wall.
“What happened?” Rasmus asked from his cell.
“He's gone.” I wanted to slam my skull against the rock in frustration but thought better of it. “I pushed too hard, too fast.”
“Are you sure about any of this?” he asked, trepidation coating his words so I could practically see his frown.
“No.” I huffed, wandering to the bars again. “But what else is there? You know, I honestly think he believes that we're the ones trying to make the dimensions collapse.”
“Then he's in for a big surprise,” Rasmus said solemnly. “How was your birthday dinner?”
“Better than bread and cheese, but a glass of wine would have been nice.”
Rasmus chuckled from his cell and shuffled around until his breaths audibly came in small spurts. He was doing push ups again. Feeling lazy and suddenly competitive, I dropped to the ground and started my own reps, hoping that it would keep the dread from rising in me again.
Chapter Eight
Grigori didn't return for days after my accusations. Our food had returned to the same borderline stale bread and dry, chalky cheese it had been prior to the one decent meal we'd received on my birthday. Rasmus and I had no choice but to continue our long distance communication and I was barely managing to keep my claustrophobia at bay, and only because I kept myself moving. I didn't think my stomach had ever look so toned in my life.
Both Rasmus and I began losing count of the days as they passed. Not being together also meant we were unable to take it in turns to stay awake and gauging the time became impossible. Hours bled into one another until time itself became indecipherable. We saw no one. Our meals seemed to be dropped off while we were sleeping, so the only contact we had was with one another from a distance.
We'd reverted to telling stories from our childhoods. Rasmus had grown up with four sisters and no brothers so his stories were always hilarious, made all the more so because of his tone of disgust. I could hear how much he missed them, even if he wouldn’t admit it. My retellings were mostly infused with the cruelty I'd suffered at the hands of my stepfather. I tried to find happy memories, anecdotes that would make me smile and cheer Rasmus up, but most of those came from my time alone with Damon when we were children. He'd more often than not been my conscience when I made bad decisions.
Rasmus was regaling me with the tale of the first time he'd worked on his brother in law's farm, when Grigori finally reappeared outside my cell. Being the prideful fool I was, I ignored him with a lift of my chin, but Rasmus refused to ignore his presence and fell silent, which gave me very little entertainment. It still didn't mean I had to acknowledge Grigori. Instead, I reverted to singing a Black Sabbath classic.
“Will you not look at me, Princess?” Grigori griped, his tone cold. He wasn't wearing his mask anymore, which was a start at the v
ery least.
I turned my head from him and rested my cheek on my knees, humming the words of the song in the parts I didn't know. Unfortunately, the acoustics in the place were great and I could hear how gravelly and off key I was. Not that it mattered. I wasn't really concentrating on what I was doing. I was more aware of the man on the other side of the bars who was now determined to have my audience.
I heard the key in the lock, the shick of the mechanism sliding into the iron as it retracted from the stone, but I kept my place, simply humming the chorus with more enthusiasm. When his feet came into view before me, I didn't look up. I stayed where I was, huddled in my little ball humming War Pigs.
“Cassandra?” he said in a softer tone, crouching down in front of me. When I didn't answer, he sat next to me, his back against the wall, and his eyes watching me as I pretended he wasn't there.
There was something satisfying in making him work to talk to me. I was highly aware of how immature I was being, but I owed him nothing, and the fear had given way to boredom in the past days of being alone in this cell. I needed some entertainment. He was my captor, my jailer. He'd done nothing for me other than ruin my life and threaten me with death. It made a girl feel uncooperative.
“I was being punished because I helped a nymph escape from Grenalide.”
My head snapped up from my knees at the words, the shock he’d been counting on stretching the muscles of my face as I studied him. Of all the things I’d expected him to bait me with, that hadn’t been it.
“So you know how things go then,” I finally said, pushing random strands of my dark hair from my face. “You had the audacity to call me a liar when you knew that I was telling the truth.”
He studied me for a while, the muscles in his jaw working as he worked through the obvious frustration at my tenacity. His eyes flickered to the bars of the cell for a moment before he dragged in another breath and drummed out a beat on his thighs.