by A. B. Bloom
Wildly, I glanced around in front of me, not quite sure what I was seeing.
Girls, more girls than I could head count, silently waited in front of me. I tried to make them out in the dim light; the ones I could see looked half-starved and neglected.
They watched and waited as I stared back at them.
What on earth had I walked into?
One thing was for sure. I was definitely not alone.
Chapter Ten
If I could shut my mouth, I might have been able to get some words to form. Instead it hung open, flapping uselessly.
The longer I stared, the more I could see as my eyes swiftly adjusted to the dim light. It wasn’t as completely black as I first thought, there were small torches flickering in sconces against brick walls.
“Who are you all?” I asked.
A tall woman, probably around my age, peeled herself away from the crowd. Her hair, a dark red, was weaved into a thick plait that swung over one shoulder. Although her clothes were ragged there was little avoiding the strength contained under her smooth skin. She reminded me of Sarah Connor in the original Terminator movie, like she’d been doing chin ups to stop herself from going crazy.
“We are the girls he didn’t want,” she stated.
What, all of them? I swept my gaze back out into the gloom. “How many of you?”
“Hundred and eleven, including you.” Her dark head cocked to the side, and she shifted her powerful frame. “Although the rumour is, you’re the one he is seeking.”
“Uh. I don’t think so.” It was a lie.
She smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Your arrival in here was gentler than ours. I think you hold an interest for His Eminence.”
As I’d been thrust through the door onto my hands and knees only a moment before, I didn’t really want to know the way in which they’d all arrived in the gloomy prison.
“I’m Mae,” I said, standing and brushing at the dust clinging to the white dress.
“Zafina.” She nodded. The other girls all watched, some of them whispering behind their hands. “Back to practice,” she commanded loudly, and the gathering of girls evaporated out of sight.
“How long have you been here?” I stepped closer to the light trying to get a good look at the others and where we were.
The ceiling was high and cavernous above our heads and I could sense a fresh breeze darting from somewhere although I couldn’t find any obvious sources.
“I’ve been here six months,” she said, raising her chin a little and nodding to the walls. Simple marks had been scratched into the stone—a calendar.
“Six months?” God imagine being here for so long. I shuddered but tried not to let it show. “And the others?”
She shrugged. “Some longer. Some less.”
“And what are you doing here? Why are you here?”
Her eyes were slanted into an almond shape and even in the low light I could sense their deep green. “The Emperor seeks power.”
“For what? He’s the Emperor. How much more does he want?”
She edged closer, coming alongside me and whispering. “I know only what I’ve managed to piece together from the others. We have all been delivered here, all of us given over as some prize, some appeasement to the Emperor, yet none of us are what he wants.”
My stomach chilled. He really did want me and what I contained. But, how did he know about it? How did he know what Mae had?
“And you are only girls?”
She nodded. “Yes. He is looking for someone with the magic of the earth. That’s all I know.”
The magic of the earth? Well I guess that counts me in. Although right now my golden thread of warmth and energy was very far from running in my veins. Maybe if I could shut it down long enough, I could survive this place?
“But why everyone? Surely there aren’t that many people running around with the magic he seeks?”
We still stood where I’d landed when I’d been pushed through the door.
She laughed and it bounced off the walls. “Let’s just say we all have our own skills set, but none of it has been enough. He gets bored of us eventually once he realises that we don’t have enough to move mountains, or make trees grow, or shape the nature of the world around us.”
“Well I can’t do that, either.”
Zafina tilted her head again, her gaze watchful. “Yet.” She reached for me. “Come, I’ll show you.” With a gentle grasp on my elbow she guided me down the first arched passageway. At the end of the tunnel was another room. This one had been laid out with pallets on the floor; woven blankets and animal skins made bedding. Wow, that’s a lot of girls all sleeping in one place.
“And he leaves you all down here when he realises you aren’t who he wants?”
She nodded. “Mostly. Sometimes he will call on his favourites and we get taken up. It’s been quiet the last few weeks. That’s how we knew to expect someone else. Here.” She motioned to a pallet by the wall. “This is for you. I’ve put you next to me for now.”
“Thanks.” My mouth was dry, nerves and adrenaline wreaking havoc on my responses. “I think. I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
“No? What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. The last few weeks ran around my brain like a freight train out of control. I’d probably never get to see a freight train again. With an almost startling clarity, I knew I would never get to my own time again. Not now I was here. Out on the surface, even on the road to Rome I’d always sensed an escape was possible. That maybe I’d learn who I was and then be able to flee. But these one hundred and ten girls told me otherwise.
“Were you offered as a prize?”
“What?” I glanced at Zafina in surprise. “No. I was taken. The Roman Army, they came searching for me.” I stopped myself from saying, for her.
“I was given as an offering. My people, they thought I was cursed at birth.”
“Cursed?” I cast a quick glance over her. There wasn’t much about her that looked cursed.
Without a word she stole across the sleeping area to where an empty bracket hung on the wall. Holding out her hand she concentrated on the iron fitting.
“What?” I gasped loudly, smacking my hand across my mouth in shock as a flicker of fire kindled in the small grate. “You can make fire?”
“Sometimes.” She turned and grinned.
“And that wasn’t enough for the Emperor?”
“No. He wants all the elements, but more than that, he wants the ability to be able to create what he wants.”
“What can the other girls do?” It was just us in the room with the beds, but out there were a hundred other girls who might all have unimaginable skills.
“Some not much, sadly for them. Others can make water move, metals bend even. Others had no skill.” Her face flickered, her eyebrows pulling together. “They were sold by their people for peace.”
“Sold? Jesus Christ,” I exclaimed.
“They didn’t have peace when they died, I can assure you, and neither did their loved ones. The Emperor does not like to be made a fool of.”
“No.” My head swam a little, the room spinning as I contemplated the enormity of the lion’s den.
“Who is Jesus Christ?” Zafina’s gaze was direct.
“Oh, uh. Someone I know.” I needed to be careful.
She looked at me long and hard. “Are you the one he’s been looking for?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about myself.”
Her face relaxed and a wide grin stretched across her lips. “Down here is the place to find out. Come. See.”
She led me into another large room. This one was brighter and warmer than the sleeping area. The other girls were all sat in different groups, spaced into circles where one of them seemed to be demonstrating to the others. I stepped closer and watched mesmerised as one girl flickered a flame in the palm of her hands while the others sat with their hands up, expressions of sheer
determination painted on their faces.
“You are all trying to learn?”
Zafina shot me a wry look. “Unfortunately, not all gifts can be learnt, but we are working to try to get out of here, and for that we need as much combined power as we can summon.”
My mind skipped back to Scotland and the tree roots who had willingly performed my commands. The wooden sword which had slid out of the earth just when I needed it.
How much could I help these girls if I could control my power? How much could I learn here?
Maybe this was where I was meant to be after all.
Gut instinct and all that.
“The general who brought me here, he told me my power was connected with desire.” I flushed a little. “That he had been able to unlock it.”
Zafina pursed her lips tight together while she contemplated her answer, her head tilted to the side. “As is the way with a lot of our skills, as we have found. But.” Her gaze settled on mine, direct and unforgiving. “If you can resist the charms of the Emperor, you may be able to keep what you have to yourself.”
I humphed.
“He killed my soulmate, well; his harpy Mage did, and instructed douchebag Augustus to trick me into sparking my energy.”
“Oh, so you do have magic!” Zafina grinned and threw her head back.
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s confusing. I wanted to learn it.”
Something I said must have been very amusing because she started chuckling until her body was almost shaking, and considering she contained about ninety percent muscle that was a whole lot of laughing.
“What?” I demanded.
“You came to Rome to learn your magic?”
“Sort of. It’s a long story.
“You couldn’t have come to a more wrong place. None of us here know what are doing. We are all just trying to survive one moment to the next.”
“That sounds like my entire life.”
“Come. Where is your natural instinct? Let’s get some training in before you get taken back upstairs.”
I swallowed hard, she made it sound like it was inevitable.
Zafina patted my hand. “It will happen. But the more you know about yourself, the more you will be able to control and hide it.”
“But if I hide it, he might kill me anyway.”
She chewed on her lower lip. “What if you have what he wants, and he uses you to kill lots of people?”
I hadn’t thought of this. Or anything.
“I seem to be good with plants and trees.” I shrugged but didn’t miss the light in her eyes.
“We don’t have any of those yet.”
Well that didn’t fill me with reassurance. I was just on my own. Again.
“But maybe you can work with water?” She pointed to where a group of about fifteen girls were all sat, a shallow dish of water in front of them.
For a moment I longed for the river of home, the rush and power that would fly through my fingertips.
I remembered when I’d sat by the water with Alana and it had pulled me in. I’d been safe though; I’d never had any doubt.
“Water could be a good start.”
“As I thought.”
I went to walk away, ready to go and introduce myself to the water witches, but I stopped with a question burning the tip of my tongue. “So, you’re our leader?”
Her face, beautiful and strong was deadly serious. “No. We’ve been waiting for her.”
My stomach dipped again, reminding me I hadn’t eaten, but also that I had no clue what I was doing.
“I hope she comes.”
Zafina chuckled to herself and then walked around cross-legged girls until she found a circle where small flickers of flames danced in the air.
I stared at the vast room for a moment. Lots of women, lots of concentration. So many girls with no homes, no life; all sat here, sold or traded, stolen even.
Tristram’s last cry echoed in my head one last time and then I stepped closer to the girls with the bowl of water.
In a room full of possible witches, maybe, just maybe, I’d finally found my people. I thought of Phil and how she would have loved this, how her eyes would have been wide behind her glasses as she nudged me hard in the ribs. “Looks like you weren’t imagining things after all, Mae.”
I smiled to myself. Looks like I hadn’t.
Chapter Eleven
I slept restlessly, the pallets uncomfortable, but now more so than the hasty camps on the way here. Rolling over, I stared at the ceiling, throwing my arm above my head.
I thought he would have sent for me by now. It unnerved me knowing the Emperor was up above plotting my future. My dreams here were muddled, part my life before, part Tristram. Fire Stone weaved in and out and just before waking I would dream of stepping back through the stones and finding it all gone. Everything gone.
“You didn’t sleep again?” I lowered my arm at Zafina’s gentle tone.
“No. I wait for the door to bang and for my name to be called.”
“Normally it would have been. He’s playing a different game with you.” She raised herself onto an elbow and met my gaze. “It means you’ve got to be more prepared.”
“The Mage who brought me here. She said he’s been looking at me for a long time, but he seemed young to me. How long can he have been looking?”
Zafina shrugged. “I don’t know. Come, if you aren’t sleeping and you are lying there thinking so loud, let’s get up and start training. We never know what a day will bring.”
Her words resonated with me. None of us ever knew what a day would bring. Some days were worse than most. Let this not be one of those days.
I sat on the floor, my legs crossed, and watched as one girl pulled a droplet out of the shallow bowl of water, without actually touching the surface. The droplet suspended, quivering in the air, but she only managed to suspend it a few inches before it popped and landed back in the bowl. We all sighed.
“Aunine,” one of the older girls said. “You are letting your mind wander.”
“I’m not.” Aunine pouted, but a brief smile told me her thoughts might have wandered a little.
“New girl, you try.”
It took a moment to understand the fact I was being spoken to. I’d only been here a couple of days. I guess that still made me the new girl—again. At least here I didn’t have to stand up and do the new kid speech.
I looked up at the group of expectant faces and shook my head. “I can’t do that.” I didn’t elaborate and tell them I couldn’t do anything by any will of my own; that it just happened.
“What do I need to do?” I asked. The water was surprisingly clear, considering it had been played with for hours.
The older girl, her red hair not dissimilar to mine, pushed the bowl towards me. “Just feel the water, wait and see how it responds to you.”
I knew what she was describing. It was the way the water had closed around my feet at the riverbank; the energy that flowed within its current reacted, moved almost. You think of water as a free-flowing thing, easy to part and separate. But that day at the river with Alana I’d sensed its entirety. It didn’t part because you told it to, it moved around you, it chose where to go.
I held my hand over the bowl. “I’ve never done this before.” I laughed nervously.
A smaller girl, her hair a strawberry-blonde nudged another and whispered, “Soon we shall see if she’s the one.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “I can assure you, I’m not.”
The girl, her pale-blue eyes wide, gasped. “You understand me. Only Nivra understands me. We come from the same place, far away with snow and ice; no one else can hear what we say.”
Her words muddled in my head while I stared at the bowl of water. I could sense it pushing back at me through the space that separated my hand from its surface.
I sat suspended as the girl’s words dislodged an enormous truth that I hadn’t acknowledged. Had been painfully blind to.
Holy shit.
I could understand everyone.
I hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t even thought about it, lurching as I had been from one crisis to another. In my dreams, back in Fire Stone I’d understood Tristram and Mae, and everyone else in the dreams. It made sense when thinking of them as dreams, but they hadn’t been, they’d been my repressed memories from a former life—this life. When I’d stepped through the stones, I’d understood everyone, but what must they have been talking? Celtish? Was there such a thing?
And the Mage? Where was she from?
Augustus? Was he talking… what did they talk in Ancient Rome?
The girls in my circle were watching and I could sense the weighted stares of a few in the next group, too.
“What’s your name?” I asked the girl with strawberry hair.
“Daiya.”
“Daiya and Nivra?” I glanced between the two fair-haired girls. I reckoned them to be about sixteen, possibly younger. What had they been through while the Emperor tried to find their power? They nodded in confirmation and I smiled. “I understand you. I might not be the one you are expecting, but I’ll try to help you all the same.”
They elbowed one another and nodded at my hand hovering over the bowl.
Closing my eyes, I settled down, trying to free my mind of all its many thoughts. The journey, Tristram, Phil. Alana and what would happen to her… what would happen to me while I was here.
The water resisted me, a gentle nudge shifted the air under my palm. I let it go, bringing my hand back to my lap. I needed to find the thread of gold in my veins. If I was going to achieve anything, I’d need that.
At first all I sensed was darkness, an empty void where before the gold had flowed free and strong.
I pressed a little deeper. It was in there, dormant, doing what I’d asked of it. Hiding.
Now I needed it. This was my chance to learn, but it resisted me.
“Come on,” I grumbled, and there was a ripple of laughter. I ignored it and pulled deep and deeper. I didn’t believe what Augustus had told me. It wasn’t true that my magic only responded to my desire. I couldn’t believe it.