I was quite frankly put, tired of being cold. My tormentor had broken through my mind. Seen all of what I was, my mistress, my guild, my life. My mission.

All of it had been scoured and succumbed by that bastards abominable magic. It was unlike anything I had seen magically, or encountered before. I wanted out of my cell. I wanted the light of the sun on my face and skin. I wanted the heat of my burning soul.

Instead I was huddled on the ground of my damp cell.

The elves had been taken away. Either transferred to another holding cell, or executed, I didn’t know. What I was sure of was the cold and the frequent visits of my tormentor. The man who called himself Kiluan. Sometimes he would bring a chair and simply stare at me, his black ethereal tendril striking my thoughts like the stinger of a scorpion.

I got the sense that he rejuvenated on my thoughts and memories. Not actually eating them, but maybe the energy that comes with them.

I had noticed how my thoughts had been slower. I went through stages of sluggishness. I was still myself thankfully. I still had my own thoughts.

Yet the heat of my soul was diminishing. I was dying out, like the last embers of a cold bonfire.

The door of my cell, swung quietly inwards. The slight creak of the hinges making me flinch. Had he now come to defile my body, after defiling my mind.

I shuddered. I had of course been trained to handle torture. But when the torturer views you as little better than a meal. Well, you can see how one doesn’t really prepare for that.

“Damn…” hissed a voice I barely recognised. Blinking owlishly I looked up from where I was huddled to see the Vice-admiral I had tried to kill. Draped over his shoulder was a long blue Zarian cloak and his hand held the cell door partially open.

“Come to torment me as well?” I heard myself ask the man. Was he an illusion? Some fiction my mind summoned to taunt me. I unfurled my perception magic. Something I hadn’t dared do in the days since I’d been imprisoned here. I was certain Kiluan knew of my magic, and I didn’t doubt that he took some perverse pleasure in seeing me restrain myself.

Perception magic could be viewed as a window. But it was more of a door. I can open and shut it. Animancy, or as it could referred to as Life perception could be exploited. Had I allow my magic to be summoned to the surface during my interrogation. Kiluan tendril could’ve strolled right through and enter the house that was the essence of my being.

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“No,” the man replied, and tried to mask his surprise at my question. I saw the vital life force of his body, saw the bleak spot within his head. And sighed with relief—as awful as its sounds—when I saw the cancerous tumours on his brain.

“I’m here to break you out in fact, lass,” he said gently and we both flinched as an alarm sounded throughout the cell block. “Ah, shit. We got to go,” he muttered and crouched down to fold the cloak around me. I wasn’t exactly heavy, nor tall. Most sprites weren’t, except for those attuned to the earth.

He wrapped it around me, enveloped me in his arms and picked me up. He grunted as his back popped and I saw the brief wince across his face.

He looked more drawn than when last I saw him. The man had been spry in our brief fight. And now he looked aged, worn, troubled.

“Why?” I heard myself ask, and my voice crackled with gratitude. I did not want to stay within that cell a second more. Waiting for the Zarian specialist to come and probe my mind.

“Because,” he grunted as his shoulder hit the dungeon door and it swung outwards. He paused to look both ways and then headed right. We went down the path that had led me to that interrogation room.

“I believe your guild mistress will owe me a favour. And because something is happening at the fringe territory between Zaria and Yashrin. Something that could affect everyone.” He paused again, and I heard the distant pound of boots marching down the corridor to our right.

I remembered the cells door, the one’s I suspected held Trolls. William Hopkin’s leaned around the corner and I saw partially that a few of the cells had been breached and torn open. The safety latches unlocked.

“Is this your doing?” I asked him. He shook his head, worry creasing his brow.

“No. And that coincidence worries me,” he replied and leaned back away from the corner as a team of praetorian guards stormed around the corner. Then a deafening roar rent the air, and we both shuddered at the horrific animalistic sound.

“I need my gear,” I whispered, I knew I could little against a Troll right now should we meet one. I needed the heat unit in my gear to sustain myself.

“It’s on the way,” William breathed out, and briefly closed his eyes. All at once we heard the snap of multiple rifles coming to attention. And we leaned out once again. Around the corner and down pass the Troll cell doors at the T intersection there, a Troll barrelled into the corridor bounced off the adjoining wall as it caught up a praetorian guard and ripped it half. Its four arms beat wildly around, smashing walls and the dead guard.

Its ugly pocked and monstrous body snarled its hideous maw as it saw the few guards no more than twenty feet away from us.

“We need to go,” I urged in a hiss and William nodded. We stepped out and crossed, going pass the corridor to our right. For a brief instance, I looked past the guards and my eyes connected with the trolls. Its gaze followed us as we wobbled by.

And I swear its snarl grew even meaner. The Troll bellowed and charged the guards, I heard their weapons fire and their brief screams as they were killed viciously. The troll pounded around the corner and straight after us.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]