Foretelling, page 6
“So, tell me...did you enjoy it?” The Carpathian took a step closer, grinning right in Dylan’s face. “I’ve heard some people surprise themselves. Was it all worth it in the end?”
A sudden punch threw him back, but that was the end of the ranger’s strength. The sedative couldn’t be shaken through sheer force of will alone, and he was already swaying on his feet.
“It must have been hard for you,” he panted, rallying despite the odds, “watching her in secret, fighting for her all those years. All that time, she never gave you a second glance. Then I show up one day, and the next thing you know she’s inviting me to her bed.”
The Carpathian lunged forward with a roar, but Dylan stepped quickly out of reach. A taunting smile played across his face as he shook his head with mock sympathy.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve forgotten the whole thing—”
A hand closed around his throat, lifting him in the air. Katerina let out a stifled shriek as he clutched the Carpathian’s wrist, gasping for breath. The man held Dylan for a moment, watching his silent struggles. Then, with a terrifying smile, he leaned closer and whispered in his ear.
“I have a feeling she’s going to help you remember...”
AND that’s how the gang ended up in a hole in the ground.
Katerina sat in the middle of the dirt, legs folded beneath her, gazing up at the circle of sunlight above. The pit was a decent size. About fifty feet in diameter. But the sky seemed to get farther away the longer you looked at it. Like the earth itself was swallowing them whole.
“Have I mentioned that I’m sorry?”
“Shut up.”
The answer came back at Dylan from every side, echoing faintly against the curved wall. It wasn’t the first time he’d apologized. And it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten such a rebuke.
He was spared by only three people.
Cassiel—who was still sleeping.
Aidan—who had not been thrown down with the others.
And Katerina—who was sitting silently in the patch of sunlight, playing back what had happened over and over in her head.
She’d thought the Carpathian commander was going to kill him. He threw him to the horde instead, letting each of his soldiers have their bit of fun, before dragging the entire group out of the courtyard and into the wasteland behind the fort.
It was an experience Katerina would never forget.
The Carpathian guards didn’t ‘escort’ them the way the sailors had. She could scarcely bear to remember the way they’d been ‘escorted’ at all. Ironically enough, she’d found herself wishing for a swift death by the time they were lined up at the edge of what looked like a mass grave.
“This is where we part ways.” The commander had gestured grandly, like he’d dug the crater himself. “Watch your step. It’s a long way down.”
Katerina remembered staring into the pit, wondering what the words meant. Had she guessed it correctly? Was this a burial? Or were they simply being left for the elements to finish off?
None of the friends moved. All were staring with the same expression into the hole.
“Such serious faces!” The commander laughed loudly, ruffling Kailas’ hair. “Don’t fret, my lovelies. We’ll see you again soon.”
“Very soon,” one of the soldiers promised, stroking a finger along Serafina’s lip.
She stared into the pit, looking dead already.
“Why don’t you just get it over with?” Dylan said quietly. He wasn’t staring at the ground, but was keeping his eyes above it—locked on the horizon. “What are you waiting for?”
The commander stepped into his line of vision, blocking the sun from his eyes. “Let me put it this way...I’ve served my queen for thirty years. Thirty years. And I’ve never seen her excited about anything like she is by the prospect of killing you.”
Dylan held his gaze. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
A hand slammed into his chest, then he was falling into the abyss. Katerina leapt after him without thinking, and the others were thrown over the edge. They landed in a pile on the bottom, staring up at the soldiers above. Then the commander did the worst thing of all.
“A parting gift.”
He tossed the bottle of terium into the pit.
If they’d been standing closer, they might have caught it. If they hadn’t already been in its cloying grasp, they might have gotten there in time. As it stood, they simply watched as the porcelain shattered in the middle of the circle. A cloud of vapor hissed up in its wake.
It was hard to remember much of anything after that. It was hard to stay awake. The friends faded in and out of consciousness, losing all grip on time. When Katerina finally opened her eyes for good she crawled to the middle of the sunlight, a single thought dominating her mind.
Aidan.
The Carpathians had left him in the courtyard, lying by himself in the sand. Not a single man had been left behind to guard him, which Katerina took as a terrible sign.
Where is he? What are they doing to him?
“Very sorry,” Dylan said again, staring at each in turn. “I’m very sorry for what happened.”
In a flash of anger she pushed to her feet, marched across the ground, and slapped him right in the face. His hair flew back and his eyes widened in shock. A hand lifted to his cheek.
“Unexpected, but—”
“That’s for antagonizing the people trying to kill us!” She pulled back her hand and slapped him again. “And that’s for Cassiel, because I’m sure he would have hit you himself!”
“Fair enough.”
A strained silence fell over the pit, one made all the worse by the fact that the friends had nowhere to look except each other. Katerina pulled in a breath, then gestured to the walls.
“Now go make yourself useful and find us a way out of here.”
...so I can check if I broke my hand on your face.
She’d thought it was a grave, but it wasn’t. It was a holding cell of some kind. Years before, a particularly cruel desert tribe had apparently fashioned the pit as a kind of outdoor dungeon. There were doors cut into the walls. Chains and manacles strewn across the floor.
Best of all, they had the skeletons of their predecessors to keep them company. Katerina moved discreetly away from the remains of a human ribcage as Dylan went off to investigate.
The doors were of particular interest. Eight of them in total rusted over and cut directly into the stone. Dylan tried to open one of them, then jerked his hand back with a gasp.
“It’s silver.”
Of course it is. Because things weren’t already bad enough.
“Let me try.” Kailas’ voice was low and hoarse. At some point along the journey, the terium cloth had been stuffed into his mouth. “And you can take my cloak for your hands.”
“He can use his own cloak,” Tanya snapped, glaring murderously across the cavern. “Or, better yet, Dylan—you can just press your face against the door and see if it moves.”
His eyes narrowed as he met her gaze. “This wasn’t my fault.”
“Then why did you apologize?” she demanded.
“I was trying to make everyone feel better!” he fired back. “They took us to a giant hole in the ground, Tanya—we were always going to end up here. I was just trying to give you guys a place to put the blame!”
“It worked. I blame you.”
“That’s enough,” Kailas interjected quietly. “There’s no point in blaming anyone. We need to find a way out of here before they come back—”
“Well, that’s convenient.” Tanya crossed her arms over her chest. “That the Damaris prince is advocating we forget about things like blame and consequence. You’re pretty much banking your entire life on that premise, right, Kailas?”
“Tanya!” Katerina stepped quickly in between them, glaring at the shifter while deliberately avoiding her twin’s eyes. She’d hoped their time spent tied to one another on the ship would have broken down some walls. That was clearly not the case. “He happens to be right. Who knows what they still have planned for us. If we’re still here when they come back—”
“Enough—all of you!” Serafina exclaimed. “Just open the freakin’ doors!”
“That’s what I was trying to do,” Dylan muttered, turning back to the wall. “I’m sorry it happens to burn my skin off. It also might be easier if my hand wasn’t broken in three places—”
“And whose fault is that?” Kailas interrupted, his temper getting the better of him. “Katy’s right. They might have just thrown us down here and left, but you had to go mouthing off—”
“I love how you call her Katy. Like you weren’t trying to kill her most of your adult life.”
“And here I thought that blame didn’t matter,” Tanya said innocently, rounding on the ranger as well. “But he isn’t wrong. You can never just let things go, Dylan. And I swear, you make it all ten times worse whenever you open your bloody—”
A jagged stone went flying through the air.
“—mouth.”
The friends looked down in amazement to see a tiny snake behind them. It had been speared through the belly, but its fangs were leaking streams of venom... just inches away from Tanya’s shoe.
Their heads lifted at the same time to see Cassiel, his arm still raised from the throw.
“I take it we’re no longer on the ship.”
THE ARGUMENT WAS FORGOTTEN. The plan to escape was temporarily put on hold. Instead, the five friends gathered around Cassiel, helping him sit up weakly.
“Easy, now...easy.” Dylan placed a supportive hand on his back, fussing even more than the fae’s girlfriend and sister—both of whom had already taken a turn. “Don’t try to rush it.”
Cassiel rolled his eyes but slowed his pace, handling himself gingerly as he cast a quick look around the cavern. “Well, this is cozy.”
They launched into the story at the same time, interrupting each other as they hurried to fill in the gaps and get the fae caught up to speed. In hindsight, it was probably a bit much. His eyes leapt from one to the next, following along in a daze as the sedative continued to slowly work its way from his system. A few of the minor details might have been lost, but he definitely latched on to the all the key points. He showed his first bit of emotion when they said the word ‘Carpathian’.
He absorbed it as best one could, nodding slowly as he tilted his head to the sky.
“Is it dawn or dusk?” he asked softly. “I can’t even tell.”
So Katerina hadn’t been imagining it. There was something strange about this place. From the wasted ground, to the way the very sun travelled across the sky.
“It’s dusk,” Dylan replied gently.
The fae looked surprised. “So it’s only been a few hours?” A faint tremor ran through his fingers, and he smoothed them straight. “It feels like much longer...”
Definitely missing some of the details.
Dylan and Serafina shared a quick glance before she took her brother’s hand. “Not a few hours, Cass. It’s been at least two days. I can’t be sure, as they’ve been pretty liberal with the terium...”
Two days.
Katerina hadn’t put it together until that moment. Before long, the guards wouldn’t need the terium at all. A few more hours without water, and she and her friends wouldn’t be going anywhere.
“How’s your back?” she asked quietly, speaking for the first time.
While the others had clamored around him, she’d kept her distance. Not because she wasn’t thrilled that he was awake. But because she was feeling more than a little guilty as to why he’d been sleeping in the first place.
His eyes focused slowly, finding her in the crowd.
“It’s fine,” he started to say, then he lifted a tentative hand to his shoulder. “It’s...strange.”
“The sailors bandaged you.”
Of course, the Carpathians had stripped the bandages away. They’d done a bit more than that, but Katerina didn’t feel the need to share it with Cassiel.
The fae nodded again, then glanced around their prison. “Where’s Aidan?”
Katerina flinched. It was the same question she’d been asking herself on a loop for the last hour. Right along with, ‘how the hell are we going to get out of this hole?’.
“They kept him at the fort,” Tanya said quietly, slipping her hand into his. “He still hadn’t woken up by the time we left. We don’t...we don’t even know if he’s alive.”
There was a tense pause. Then Cassiel turned to Katerina.
“Yes, we do.” He stared at her with quiet attention. “You should be able to feel it.”
“I said I was sorry,” Dylan muttered.
The fae shot him a look.
“I wasn’t saying it to punish you.” He turned again to Katerina, holding her accountable with those dark eyes. “Is he alive?”
A strange feeling came over her as she considered it for the first time. Thinking not of the question, but of the answer. Was he alive? Was he out there somewhere, still breathing?
“...yes.” Her voice was small, but she spoke with absolute certainty. He might be sleeping, he might be surrounded by Carpathians wishing for death, but Aidan was still alive. That much was certain.
“How do you know?” Tanya asked curiously. There was dirt smeared across her face, but her eyes sparkled in the dimming light as she stared in quiet wonder at the queen.
“I’m not sure,” Katerina confessed, shifting slightly under Dylan’s gaze. “I’d just... I’d know it if anything happened to him. I’d be able to feel it if he died.”
It might have been a completely bizarre thing to say, but the others accepted it without question. Even Dylan nodded to himself, looking relieved.
“In that case, it’s a shame he’s missing all this.” Tanya kicked miserably at what looked like a human skull, and it shattered into pieces. “Great accommodations, huh?”
“What did you expect?” Cassiel pushed carefully to his feet, testing out his limbs one at a time. “We burned the last ones down.”
All things considered, he didn’t look too terrible. A little pale, a little unsteady. In desperate need of a drink. His hair spilled loose around his face. He felt for the band, but it had broken.
Katerina remembered when the soldiers had done that, too.
“This is my fault,” Dylan said suddenly. Despite their previous argument, it looked like he actually meant it this time. His face flushed as his eyes dropped to the ground. “I provoked them.”
Cassiel stared at him for a moment before continuing his examination. “They took us to a giant hole in the ground, Dylan. We were always going to end up here.” Without knowing it, he quoted the ranger’s exact words. “That being said, I’m sure you didn’t help matters...”
Tanya folded her arms with a triumphant smirk, but Cassiel looked at him with concern.
“Are you okay?” Strangely enough, the question didn’t seem to have anything to do with the damage he’d sustained to his face. It was something far simpler. “You didn’t see the snake?”
Dylan flushed again, kicking it away with his shoe, and Katerina felt the sudden need to defend him. “Give him a break, Cass. It was, like, two inches long.”
“It is now,” the fae replied, still watching the ranger. “But that’s a Hypache viper. It’s highly venomous, and they get much bigger.”
Something about how he said it made her pause.
“How big?”
He flashed her a look.
“Big.”
Before she could begin to process this there was a sudden movement on the ground above them, and the friends lifted their heads—staring at the patch of open sky. It was hard to see much of anything as the sun fell rapidly beneath the horizon, but the march of heavy footsteps shook the very walls of the pit, rattling off chunks of dirt and stray stone. The friends instinctively clustered closer together, but less than a moment after it started the marching suddenly stopped.
A heavy silence fell over the little clearing. Katerina found herself holding her breath.
Then a beautiful woman appeared above them, her pale face framed by the dusky evening sky. A woman who’d haunted each of their dreams since the last time they’d seen her. A woman Katerina suddenly realized everyone had been referring to, when they spoke of the elusive she.
I’m such a fool. Why didn’t I think of it before?
“Well, isn’t this a delight?” The Carpathian queen pulled back her lips in a terrifying smile, flashing every single one of her pearly teeth. “Looks like the gang’s all back together again.”
Chapter 6
When the dust settled after the battle with Alwyn, when councils had gathered and the first of the great meetings had been called... everything had been laid out on the table.
Katerina remembered walking them through each day that had passed. From the moment she left the castle, to the moment she ended up back at its gates. Every person she’d met, every turn the journey had taken, every random bit of hurt or kindness she’d experienced along the way.
It was a fantastical tale, one that sounded even more unbelievable the more times she said it out loud. The rest of her friends were brought in to deliver a similar recounting, and by the time their patience frayed and they refused to tell it another time the legend had already begun.
Worlds had opened up. Old kingdoms had reawakened. New alliances were in order.
Aidan made a passionate plea for his people. Upon his request Katerina had downplayed her experience with the vampires on the road, and it was decided by all present—coaxed along by Petra’s strong urging—that he should be sent as emissary to bring the vampires into the fold.
Many had resisted the idea. Many had argued fiercely against it. But Aidan had staked his very life upon it, and no one sitting around the table was in any position to be turning him down.
After the vampires came the nixies. Then the goblins. Then a dozen other supernatural creatures who’d once had strongholds in the ancient lands. One by one, they were all offered a chance to unite under a single banner...until the question of the Carpathians arose.
