Thyma sat on the stool before Grevail’s cell, lips split in a crooked smile. “Don’t you worry about me. Joszi doesn’t care if I come to visit you…he probably doesn’t even know. What would he do anyway? Throw me in there with you?”
“He could,” Grevail grumbled, though she scoffed at the suggestion. If Joszi knew what happened on the night of the Sprouting, he very well could lose his temper with Thyma. Grevail adjusted his position on the hard stone bench that gave him a backache whether he slept or sat on it. “Do you know where Joszi went?”
“He doesn’t tell me where he goes or why.” Thyma shrugged and winked her white eye. “The Purifier, or a few Keepers usually go with him, but not this time. Makes me wonder what he’s up to.” She furrowed her brow, as if contemplating it now, but another warm grin soon pulled at her lips. “The jailer might let me bring something special tonight. The cook at the barracks owes me a favor or two.”
Grevail waggled his head. “Please don’t, Thyma. You’ll get in trouble.” He betrayed her kindness once, he would not do it again.
“Nonsense! The slop they have in here isn’t fit for an Esh! Joszi is only making it harder for you to forswear and serve the Paragons. Compassion heals all wounds, not time, as my mother used to say. After all, what good is time if nobody tends the wound?”
Nasos snorted from where he stood behind Thyma, leaning precariously on his spear with half open eyes. Grevail scowled at him. If the guard wasn’t sleeping on his feet, he was sleeping in one of the other cells. Nasos’ ripping snore echoing in the dungeon was a familiar sound.
The dulled clanging of a key being inserted into the lock interrupted whatever else Thyma was about to say. The door creaked open and thudded against the wall. Nasos straightened with a gasp and lowered the spear to his hip.
Lyphon stepped into the dungeon, bronze helmet shining on the strap at his waist. Tucking thumbs into the chest of his leather jerkin, he studied Nasos and chewed his lip, as if thinking of a suitable punishment. Nasos averted his eyes and swallowed, wrenching nervous hands around the spear. Lyphon’s gaze dropped to Thyma. “Would you excuse us?”
Thyma twisted her lips at the order and included a roll of her eyes for the Purifier, but rose to leave anyway. She murmured a goodbye to Grevail and brushed past Lyphon to the door, closing it behind her.
Lyphon ignored Nasos and took Thyma’s place, pale blue eyes like mid-day sky studying Grevail. “Is she planning to break you out? She told me yesterday that Joszi and I,” the Purifier cleared his throat and adopted a shrill voice, “have no idea how to help a young man come to the Paragons.”
“Did Amma find someone more worthwhile to ask her questions of?” If Eukriss wasn’t quizzing Grevail on what it meant to be Sacar, Amma was interrogating him about the cube. She would come nearly every night, and sometimes spend all of it on the stool Lyphon now occupied, asking countless questions. Grevail’s answers were never different, no matter how many times or in what way she asked. No, the cube hadn’t moved. No, he hadn’t felt anything else. Yes, he was sure he had told her everything.
“She hasn’t been seen.” Lyphon grunted and his eyes fell to the floor, as if the omission puzzled him. “Nobody seems to know where she is…though I’ve asked.”
“Are you her replacement…or have you come to convince me to be a Purifier?”
Lyphon’s lips quirked in a dry grin when he met Grevail’s eyes . “Have you changed your mind?”
“No. Why would I?”
The Purifier raised an eyebrow at the bars between them. “I can think of a few reasons.” Nasos yawned, and Lyphon cast a glare over his shoulder that made the smaller man jump. “It’s better than wasting away in here or a work camp, isn’t it?” he asked, swinging back to Grevail.
Yes, but that wasn’t the deal! Grevail swallowed a growl and stood, walking to the bars. “Joszi might get away with breaking his promise to a mudrat, but shouldn’t that mean something to you? I led you to it. You’re a Purifier after all. What good is washing away whatever you think happened in the past, whatever it was the Emberfolk did that was so bad, if you replace it with your own?”
Lyphon’s brows hardened over a cutting stare. Grevail struggled to keep his calm under that steady gaze and worried he might have went too far, but the Purifier only scoffed. “We can’t be sure it is in the house you pointed out. I don’t agree with everything Joszi does, but we must find that relic. If it continues to exist in the wrong hands, another Long Dark will happen.”
“We’ll all die from another Long Dark? The relic, the relic, the damn relic,” Grevail groaned. “You promised to let me go if I helped you find it. I did my part, now do yours.”
Lyphon released a breath that held a touch of frustration. “I know what was promised, scamp. I will do what I can to see our promise upheld, you have my word, but only when we lay eyes on it, and not a moment before.”
Nasos’ spear clattered to the floor, the sound reverberating in the stone room. Lyphon twisted in his chair to stare at it, then with a curse, stood and jabbed a finger at the guard now slumping against the wall. “I’ll have you brought before the Roybal, Nasos! If you can’t—“
Nasos slapped a hand to his head and wavered on unsteady feet. In a sudden jerk, his back snapped straight and his arms dropped to his sides. Staring over Lyphon’s shoulder with dead eyes and an emotionless, slackened face, he looked as if he were under some kind of hypnosis.
“What is wrong with you? Have you been drinking?” Lyphon stepped toward Nasos, as if to grab the man by the shoulders, but stopped in mid-stride and stumbled, like he’d been struck by an invisible club. The Purifier staggered backward and slammed into the bars of Grevail’s cell.
“Lyphon?” An uneasy feeling came over Grevail. “Are you alright?”
“Listen to me…” Lyphon breathed. “Grevail…you must focus…do not let it change reality…”
Nasos, straight as a board, spun toward the door of the dungeon. The man’s movements were unnatural, but subtly so, like a swaying marionette.
Grevail watched Nasos march across the room in bewilderment. “What are you talking about? What is happening?”
Lyphon growled as if he were struggling against some unseen force. “Focus on the world around you…do not let it change, focus on reality! The colors!” The Purifier’s back went rigid and he became still, like a statue.
Nasos reached the door and opened it, eyes boring ahead out of a face etched from stone. A woman swept around him and into the room as if she’d been invited. Dark curly hair spilled from her hood, surrounding a handsome face. Plump lips curled in a smile when her eyes landed on Grevail. She sized Lyphon up and her grin deepened as she stepped across the room to put a hand on his bicep. “A Purifier…” she cooed. “Such strong resistance. How I’d love to have him moored for a night.” Lyphon did not react to her touch.
The woman pointed an index finger to the ceiling and Lyphon popped onto his toes, as if suspended from a string. She swirled her finger in a circle and Grevail looked on in horror as Lyphon twirled a pirouette at her direction. When Grevail caught a glimpse of the Purifier’s face, it was slack and emotionless, just like Nasos’.
“Do you want out of here?” the woman asked. Smoldering black eyes probed Grevail, but flicked to Lyphon, still spinning, as if checking on a pet.
It took a moment for Grevail to realize she was asking him a question. “W…who…who are you?” he stammered. “What are you doing to him?”
The woman snickered. “Do you want out of here or not?”
“Stop doing whatever you are doing to him!”
“I can’t do that,” the woman said, arching an eyebrow in amused surprise. “I’m offering you a way out…isn’t that what you want? Do you want to be held here? Is he your friend? Is that why he holds you prisoner?”
Lyphon did not cry out in pain, nor show emotion on his face, but Grevail felt as if he were being tortured. “Leave him alone.”
“Interesting.” The woman stared at Grevail, and though her hand dropped to her side, Lyphon continued circling like a top. “I want you to show me where it is.”
“Where what is?”
“Please, don’t be silly. I know it is near…but I can’t quite find it. I’m afraid I need your help.” Her face tightened as if she hated to admit such a thing.
Watching the woman’s dark eyes run him up and down, Grevail had the eerie feeling she knew what he was thinking. “How do you want me to help?”
She centered a knowing and confident gaze on him. “I want you to find it. I know you can sense it…and so can I, but not like you can. Amma was kind enough to share a trove of details about you.”
Grevail struggled to wrap his head around what was happening. Did this woman do something to Amma? She could sense the cube too? Lyphon still spun on the edge of Grevail’s vision. If she could do that to a Purifier, what could she do to him? What was she doing? He cursed himself for the urge to rescue Lyphon. He wouldn’t keep his word, why sacrifice yourself to save him! Yet even as the reverberation of that thought faded from his panicked mind, he recalled the sympathy in the Purifier’s now emotionless, uncaring eyes. Sympathy and understanding when he’d hardly ever known either, much less from a Thavan. He wanted to save me, ashes and embers if I know why, but he did. “Let him go and I’ll show you where it is.”
A merciless chuckle escaped her pretty, blood red lips. “I told you, I can’t do that.”
“If you won’t leave him alone, I’ll never show you where it is.”
Their eyes locked. Lyphon stopped twirling but continued to stand as if being suspended from a wire by the top of his head. Grevail eyed the open door beyond the woman. Someone has to come down here eventually. If she’s after the relic, she’ll grow gray waiting for me to tell her where it is.
The woman’s lips curdled, as if she could read his mind. An incredible pain gripped Grevail’s skull, like a giant hand digging searing fingers into his head. He lurched forward, grabbing at the bars of his cell to stay upright. Nausea hit him in a sickening wave, but at the same time, elation and joy, interspersed with swells of intense sadness and dread. It was as if he felt every emotion one could feel at once, howling across his soul like a gale. The claws in his head dug ever deeper.
The color evaporated from the world, scoured away like a film of water drying in the sun. The woman’s green cloak turned gray, and the orange glow of the lantern on the wall behind her became a blinding white ball. He struggled to fend off whatever was happening to him, but felt like a babe, mewling and helpless at the feet of a wolf.
The woman’s confident smile struck him like a slap to the face. “If you will not see sense, you are no use to me. I would rather your talent die with you than the Thava make use of it.” Her cutting, frigid voice sliced through the pounding in his ears.
Grevail stared aghast at the drab dungeon through watery eyes. The staggering pain in his head burrowed deeper, into the depths of his mind, down to the very core of who he was. He was losing a battle he didn’t know how to fight.
The last color winked from existence and his back snapped straight, though not of his own doing. His limbs simply refused to do what he what wanted, as though they’d grown a mind of their own. The woman sauntered to the cell door, a bemused chortle accompanying her swaying movements. Grevail jolted into awkward motion toward her, like a newborn calf taking its first steps, his feet moving of their own accord.
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She reached a hand through the bars and stroked his cheek. “Poor fool. You can’t fight me. Not even your Purifier could fight me.”
No matter how he struggled, he could not recoil from her hand. He couldn’t avert his eyes from her cold gaze nor move the muscles in his face to sneer at her patronizing smile.
“Don’t you believe me?”
Grevail watched in wild horror as the skin on the woman’s face moved. Her once pretty features became blocky and misshapen, like a hunk of clay-like flesh. With snapping limbs and distorted features, the woman’s body contracted into a disgusting ball that hovered in the air beyond the bars of his cell. Curves and lines formed on this sack of floating flesh. Some areas grew, while others shrank, until a triangular shape ballooned to fill his vision. A snake’s head dangled in the air before him where the woman had stood. Shining, diamond-shaped eyes regarded him. Like the crack of a whip, a forked tongue darted from the jaws and slithered between the bars, scraping against his face. He wanted to turn away or close his eyes but stood unmoving, heart thumping against his chest.
In the middle of a gem-like golden eye, the snake’s slit pupil centered on him. “I can make your nightmares come to life,” it hissed. The jaws cranked open until it was all Grevail could see. He looked down the beast’s throat, past the writhing tongue into a hole black as night.
The jaws closed with a thunderous crack and the snake began to melt as if it were wax, splattering to the floor where it formed a revolting, fleshy stalagmite that bubbled and ebbed like a hot-spring in the swamp. Striking white bones formed in the oozing lump, and these bones disappeared when glistening tendons and muscle strapped across them. Veins forked across the disturbing mass, filling with dark, rich blood. Skin stretched over the muscle, crawling and growing across the raw, bloody insides. The transformation happened in the blink of an eye, and when it was over, the most beautiful woman Grevail had ever seen stood looking back at him, naked as the day she was born. Her emerald green eyes were mischievous and she quirked a playful smile, as if relishing the shock on his face. She brushed fiery red hair over a delicate shoulder and spoke in a voice sweet as sugar. “Or…I can make your wildest dreams come true.”
Again, the thing changed in a sickening blur of skin, blood and muscle. Facial features and body parts disappeared, were rearranged, grew and shrank until the woman who walked through the dungeon door stood at the bars again, sporting a knowing smile.
“Now, let’s make our escape,” she said. Nasos spun toward Grevail’s cell, key in hand.
A groan echoed in the cold dungeon. On the edge of Grevail’s vision, Lyphon struggled to take a step forward. He did take one…then another. The woman whirled toward the Purifier, a look of intense concentration contorting her previously assured features.
Color crept into the edges of Grevail’s vision. She can’t control all of us, he realized, still fighting the fear of what he’d just seen. Lyphon’s words ripped through the tumult of panicked thoughts in his head, like a drowning man resurfacing for a desperate breath. Focus on reality.
The stool at the woman’s feet, the one Lyphon had sat on. He imagined what it looked like before this creature took hold of his mind. The metallic shine of the nails, the battered, dulled wood. The woman’s gray cloak was once a deep green and her lips blood red. The stones of the floor, the black of the cell bars, the shine of the gold in Nasos’ uniform. He was in a dungeon, a dungeon, a dungeon. He’d been there for days.
Color exploded across his vision and the pain gripping his skull vanished. The woman’s shocked gaze fastened on him, but then her wide eyes tightened in anger. Grevail focused on what was around him, holding every detail in his mind and searching for any change. Focus on reality. Lyphon was firmly under her sway again, standing still and silently.
The woman rolled her shoulders. “Impressive. I didn’t expect that from you of all people, though no one can escape me forever. You will come one way or another. I haven’t done all this for nothing.”
The rasp of Lyphon’s sword flying from its sheath sent Grevail’s heart into his throat, but instead of attacking the woman as Grevail expected, the Purifier spun the blade toward his own chest.
“No!” Grevail shouted. “If you kill him I’ll never tell you anything!”
“I tire of these games.” The woman said with a sigh, pursing her lips. “Tell me where it is…or he dies.”
Grevail licked his lips, wondering if he dared lie to her, then wondered if he dared even think of lying to her. These thoughts roared through him like a swollen river after rain, a rushing wind in a storm.
“Well?” The woman asked. She raised a hand and Lyphon’s blade crept toward his own chest. “What will it be?”
“It is inside a house along the north wall…a house with a fox on the gate.”
“A fox?” The woman tapped a nail against her cheek and studied Grevail with narrowed eyes. “So you say, but still, I think you must direct me in person.”
Lyphon’s sword clattered to the ground. He spun stiffly and teetered into the cell opposite of Grevail. Nasos crossed the room and closed the door, locking it. He remained standing at the cell door with the key in his fist, face slack and emotionless.
The woman furrowed her brow at Grevail. “Why do you care for this Purifier who holds you prisoner? Tell me—”
Grevail interrupted her with a snarl. “Who are you?”
“I’m Azouel,” the woman said as if it hardly mattered, “…an Aelfic. Perhaps you’ve heard of my kind before?” She smirked at the look on Grevail’s face.
Nasos jerked like a bobbing puppet and came to the door of Grevail’s cell. After shoving in the key, he swung it open.
“You can come willingly,” Azouel suggested. “If not, I can motivate you.”
Grevail forced himself to leave the cell, imagination running wild with what this woman was capable of. Nasos slapped an iron grip around his bicep, though the man’s eyes still looked straight ahead.
Without another word, the woman turned and walked through the open door. Nasos jerked into motion, dragging Grevail along by the arm, fingers digging into his flesh. As they left the room, Nasos turned and pulled shut the door before following after Azouel.
“Here!” Lyphon’s muffled voice echoed into the hallway. “Aelfic in the Refuge! Here!”
Azouel laughed as if she were at a party. “Such fiery passion these Purifiers have.” Her voice dropped to a disappointed whisper. “A shame I have to leave him behind…and alive to boot. It’s been so long since I’ve had a Purifier moored…a hundred years if not longer.”
The pain in Grevail’s head returned and the color retreated from the edge of his vision. The life of the world slowly leeched away, turning dull, sickly gray. He renewed his focus on what was around him, latching onto any detail at all in a desperate attempt to fend off whatever she was doing. The glow of lanterns on the walls, the texture of his shirt, the shape of the floor stones beneath his feet, anything to keep his hold.
“Handsome, isn’t he?” Azouel said with a nod at Nasos.
Grevail gasped at the sight of a scaly hand wrapped around his bicep and his gaze traveled up to what should have been Nasos’ face, but instead, an Esh watched Grevail with milky white eyes and a streamer of drool hanging from its chin. It gnashed black teeth, as if waiting for Azouel’s command to attack. “Stop,” he grunted at Azouel. “Please.”
“It’s not so bad, you know. You might not be a big strong Purifier, but you are handsome in your own way. Maybe you’d like to spend a night under my influence?” Azouel laughed again, this time with a sultry edge. “You’ll remember everything, and what a memory it will be. Some men tell me the lack of control is…exhilarating.”
Grevail ignored her words and instead grounded himself in his surroundings, just as Lyphon said. She’s trying to catch me off guard. He forced himself to remember Nasos’ face. The face he saw sneering as he cried himself to sleep on the hard cell bench. After a moment, the Esh’ skin seemed to smooth and the eyes went from white to black. The facial features reformed into Nasos’ until finally, the guard stood beside him again. The digging pain in his skull faded as the color returned. A wave of relief flooded over him. Whatever she is doing, I can fight it.
Down the long hallway they went, but not a soul was present this late in the dungeon. Grevail never thought he would wish to see a Thavan, but at this moment, he would be overcome with joy to see even Joszi. Not that Joszi might stand any chance against an Aelfic. They came to an intersection where the hallway split into three. Azouel paused, green cloak swaying around her legs as she looked down each. Nasos directed Grevail to the right with his vice-like grip and Azouel followed.
Ahead, the door to the garden sat hunched at the end of a dark corridor and when they reached it, Nasos flung it open, dragging Grevail behind him toward the black iron gate.
Azouel followed, pulling up the hood on her cloak. Her eyes glowed like twin embers in the darkness of the cowl.
The pain in Grevail’s skull again returned, like thick fingers digging into his brain. He groaned and stumbled forward, struggling to maintain what was around him. If he allowed her to gain any control at all, there would be no Lyphon to divide her attention and save him this time. He focused on the gate ahead, dully shining in the moonlight, dark wrought iron bars painted black. He passed a stone bench, the seat pock-marked with craters and stained green from rain. He stumbled and steadied himself with the garden wall, coated in leafy vines rippling in the breeze. A sudden pain stung his hand.
He looked down his arm to find a snake working its jaws, fangs buried deep at the confluence of his thumb and index finger. He staggered backward with a bewildered cry and flung the snake across the garden. A vine on the wall grew eyes, then scales, and coiled, hissing with a flicking tongue. The wall became a writhing mass of snakes and they slipped to the ground, slithering toward him. He closed his eyes, remembering the wall just as it was when he entered the garden, even as the hissing snakes began to coil around his feet and climb up his legs. He pictured the wall just as it was when he and Lyphon sparred here. No, they are vines! Vines!
“Impressive,” Azouel said.
He opened his eyes to find the snakes gone. The pressure in his head subsided.
“I must say, I’m amazed you handled that so well…especially if you’ve never met my kind before. You haven’t, have you?” Azouel asked as she reached the gate. She didn’t appear upset at her question going unanswered. “Not even your Purifier friend did so well. I’d love to know how you are doing it, but I sense that there is something...different about you.”
Nasos unlocked the gate and pushed it open, hauling Grevail into the shady cobble street beyond the wall. Shadows moved in the distance and in the lit windows of buildings across the way. The thought of shouting to draw attention crossed his mind.
“Don’t think about it.” Azouel said.
Grevail suppressed rising panic at the idea the Aelfic was reading his thoughts. “Hey,” Grevail said to Nasos. “I know you can hear me.”
“Be quiet,” Azouel commanded, hooded head turning to regard Grevail as she walked, “or I’ll have him cut out your tongue.”
Nasos tore a knife from his belt, yet still looked straight ahead as they marched along. Grevail had little doubt that at a command from Azouel, the guard would plunge the blade into his chest. He swallowed his tongue and ripped his eyes from the knife.
They came to the curving wall of the Refuge and Azouel turned to walk along it in the moonlight until a a small gatehouse appeared ahead. A Keeper stood in a pool of lantern light at the entrance, whistling at the night.
The guard turned with questioning eyes beneath his kettle helm as they came near. He opened his mouth to speak, but before a word was uttered, he snapped straight. A look of momentary panic washed from his face as the emotionless cast of someone under Azouel’s control came over him. The Thavan stumbled toward a barrel near the Refuge wall and dove in head first. The sound of gurgling reached Grevail’s ears.
“Stop it,” Grevail said as the guard’s legs began to spasm. “Stop it, or I’ll—”
The force of the blow jerked his head around. Grevail rubbed at the bright red welt on his cheek, eyeing Nasos’ uncaring face.
Azouel laughed, a soft chime in the ringing of Grevail’s ears. “Don’t irk me, boy.”
The pain returned, but Grevail was prepared. The warm orange of the lantern above the gatehouse door. The steel gate hanging on bronze hinges. The sound of his feet scraping along the cobbles as he stumbled away from Azouel.
“What’s going on down there!” A voice broke into the darkness. High atop the Refuge wall, another Keeper looked down on them. “Where is Olen?” His eyes widened and he staggered, kettle-helm falling from his head to clang on the ground below. “Stop!” he shouted. “Help! Over—” The man went stiff as a plank and spun to fall face first out of sight. The impact of his body hitting the street reverberated into the night.
Shouts erupted inside the Refuge. Commotion came from every angle, the sound of Thavans headed their way.
Azouel sighed. “I didn’t think you would cause me this much trouble. Had I known…”
Nasos marched forward with the ring of keys in hand and unlocked the gate. Then, he grabbed the dagger at his waist and pointed the tip at his own neck.
Though Nasos had been gleeful in Grevail’s torture, he was horrified by the idea the man was about to kill himself under this creature’s control. “What are you doing? You monster!” Grevail cried and rushed at her.
Azouel only smirked and watched as he fell to the ground, clasping his head in his hands. The painful fingers digging deeper than ever before.
Nasos plunged the dagger into his neck and sank to his knees. He continued driving the dagger into his own throat, even as blood spilled down his chest and pooled around his legs. Then, he fell forward and went motionless.
“The next time we meet, I do not think you’ll be so lucky to resist me. Nobody can.” Azouel said while watching Grevail writhe on the ground at her feet. She stepped around Nasos and his blood, frowning down at the man as if he’d been so inconsiderate to die where she wished to walk. “I let you go only because I would rather you be loose than in Thavan hands. However, I will not stop searching for you. Run, little rogue. Run while you can.” She turned, green cloak fluttering, and disappeared.
After Azouel left, the painful fingers continued for a few short moments, but then vanished suddenly as if a rope had been cut. Grevail rose, disbelief gripping him at the sight of Nasos’ body. Shouts echoing off the Refuge walls pulled him back to where he was.
A man rounded a nearby corner, sliding to a stop at the sight of Grevail. “You!” he exclaimed breathlessly. His eyes widened at Nasos, then took in the guardsman’s feet sticking out of the rain barrel, widening even more. “It’s the Cythraul! He’s escaped!”
Grevail jumped to his feet and darted into the gate, leaping over Nasos’ body. Dashing down the street, he saw no sign of Azouel but did not have any time to dwell on her whereabouts. He sped away from the Refuge, ducking into several side streets until the shouts of his pursuers faded.
Turning into an alleyway, he stopped and leaned against a building to catch his breath, then slid to his rump. He would have to find somewhere to hide. When day came, the watch might have his description. The buzzing in his skull from the cube pulled him north, calling to him, just as it had from the cell.