It turned out that LoVelly wasn’t the worst driver Mez had ever been in a vehicle with, which was saying something. She wouldn’t even go so far as to say he was proficient now, he was just certainly better than a lof ago when they’d started. Tevvy’s really weren’t that complicated once you got the basics down and what better an opportunity than a long, empty road to practice on?

She leaned up against the window, an extra shirt from LoVelly’s bag balled up under her head to keep it from slamming into the window when LoVelly overcorrected the controls or hopped a raised patch of ground. She definitely wasn’t asleep but her eyes were closed at least and it was better than driving, maybe, probably. The other bonus to having LoVelly drive is that he was quiet while he concentrated on keeping the Tevvy on the road. He wasn’t obnoxious but he was chatty and while he was driving she felt less pressure to keep up the conversation if he didn’t. She let him quietly focus on the road while she tried to rest.

The worst of the swerving subsided after a few eides and it was mostly just hiccups here and there as LoVelly figured out the sweet spots between the lift and acceleration which were, admittedly, the hardest parts to master. She was glad he seemed to be getting the basics of it; if they were going to stick together for now they’d need to be able to trade off. It also gave her peace of mind knowing that he could drive in an emergency.

They drove for lofvs in relative silence, only the barely-there hum of the engine and occasional pitter patter of tall grasses reaching up to brush the bottom of the vehicle. When LoVelly’s voice rang out in the cabin it startled her enough to jump. “Oh! I see it!” He pointed through the window out ahead of them. Mez sat up, rubbing at her eyes and blearily looking out the window for herself. Sure enough there were buildings rising up ahead of them.

“Great,” she yawned, “we actually made it.” Her voice was scratchy and she went to dig into the bag at her feet for the water bottle LoVelly had refilled before they'd left. “Good job.” She smiled over at him and LoVelly briefly glanced at her before looking back to the road.

The buildings in the distance became buildings right in front of them far too quickly and she still felt groggy from her almost-nap. As they got closer LoVelly slowed the Tevvy, lowering it to hum just barely off the ground. The farm road became less of a road and more of an open yard with smaller paths that branched off of it. The area was sparsely populated with squat little sheds, houses near the edges and two large buildings that might be warehouses but otherwise it wasn’t much to look at. There were people sprinkled about here and there, mostly headed inwards just like they were. She spied an area where several other people had parked their vehicles, some of them still had boxes of supplies loaded in back and others were empty like their own.

“How do I park this thing?” LoVelly asked as it became clear that they wouldn’t be able to take the Tevvy much further. She directed him to take it over to where the others were and they managed to not hit anything in the process. Mez reached over and flipped the switches to disengage the thrusters and they felt the craft set down in the grass with a soft thump as the engine hummed while it powered down.

They both tumbled out of the tevvy with legs cramped from sitting so long and Mez slung LoVelly’s pack over her shoulders. LoVelly came around to hand her the ignition chip. It had a cord tied through the hole in it and she looped it through a belt loop on her stolen pants and tucked it into the pocket. They both started to walk toward what looked like the main street, the same way that most of the other people they’d seen were headed.

“Where to now?” LoVelly turned to her, his pleasant little smile back in place.

“Well…” She looked out ahead of them as the street became more populated, watching as people popped in and out of small shops and houses around them. “If I had to guess I’d say the town center is our best starting point. If the temple isn’t already there we can definitely ask someone. I’ll bet there’s a market too.” LoVelly had had a small coin purse in a pocket of the pack and while there wasn’t much in it she’d counted it out on their long ride so they knew exactly what they were working with. It was enough for food at least. If they were frugal, very frugal, they could get some other supplies as well. She wasn’t even sure what they needed. She wasn’t sure what their next move was past finding the town’s temple. She guessed that it all depended on what kind of help they could get here.

They walked toward the heart of the city and nobody paid them any mind as they threaded through the growing crowd in the streets. Dressed as they were in farming clothes, like many of the other locals, they fit right in. Children hollered and laughed as they chased each other down alleys and through the streets. Wolkieve’s chittered overhead as they glided between buildings and down to the ground to scamper between people’s feet, looking for crumbs and other snacks that might have been dropped. She spied several mien curled up on stoops or in windows soaking up the low light of the drievet. There were even a few scant weather fae posted up on the peaks of tall roofs, huddled together and watching everything below with strange, unblinking eyes set deep into their uncanny faces.

Mezalie led the two of them along and looked around above the crowd for a building that looked like a temple. She stumbled when a hand tugged her back by the elbow sending a whip of condensed thought and emotion across her mind- confusion, excitement, wariness and a sense of dread all mingling together. It was a lot to process at once and she blinked several times before her vision came back into focus. She saw LoVelly pointing to a shop across the street.

“Whatever they have over there it smells amazing. Can we stop there?” he asked, eyes pleading. The scent of cooking dough and herbs hit her as well and they quickly crossed the street. A bell jingled as they entered and a stout old man greeted them as he bid the man in line a farewell and sent him off with a crinkling bag of goods. The smell was even stronger inside and they both heard LoVelly’s stomach rumble in request making them both laugh.

“Provoto,” she identified the smell as they peeked around a woman in line ahead of them at the pastries packed into a case behind the counter. “That’s what you’re smelling,” she informed him. It was a staple in inland towns like this. They tasted best when they were fresh but the meat kept for a long time if treated properly and you could freeze the pastries for a soltzet.

When it was finally their turn to step up LoVelly happily ordered one for each of them and Mez dug the coins out of the purse in exchange. LoVelly didn’t wait to make it out the door before digging into his, releasing an appreciative moan before he hissed out the steam on a few breaths. She laughed at him as he went for another bite despite it trying to burn him. She had the self control to wait a few tes before digging into her own.

“I think I saw a sign that said town center back that way and I’d bet that’s where we’re going to find our temple,” she announced as she steered them in the direction she’d seen the signs. LoVelly nodded and kept chewing as he followed after her. By the time she finally pulled her own pastry out of its wrapping to take a bite LoVelly had finished his.

“What do you think they’ll be able to do? At the temple.” LoVelly asked, wadding up the paper wrapper in his hands.

“Not sure,” she said around a bite of pastry. “If nothing else they have books on rituals and fen we could try.” She didn’t miss the way a woman passing them gave them a look as she went by. Mez waited a few tes before glancing back but the woman didn’t look back at them again. It felt strange but she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t about to run after the woman though. It would be best, perhaps, to keep vigilant of their surroundings, she thought.

“Hmm. I guess it’s better than nothing right?” LoVelly brought her attention back.

“Right,” she agreed.

They meandered through the streets, backtracking more than once when they had to, until the path they were on spilled out into a large open square. It was flush with people and as Mez had expected there was a market filling up a large portion of the pace. There were dozens of stalls full of produce and goods. People shuffled between them and between each other trying to get where they needed to go, haggling for what they wanted with stall keepers.

There, in the far corner across the square was a grand looking building. It had a beautiful filigree carved into the stone face and a pillar at each corner. Around each pillar a climbing flower had snaked its way to almost the very top, its dark vines sprawling around each one like long spindling fingers holding tight. It had a long line of beautifully colored glass windows lining the front.

LoVelly must have recognized it for what it was too because his eyes widened and he perked up, pointing to the building in excitement as he looked at her. She nodded, following after him as he made his way across the square. She tucked her pastry back into its paper pouch as they approached the great ornate doors, too nervous to eat anything else. Her stomach was already churning. The temple had a large double door and from the way the ground was worn before it, it looked like they were often propped open, but now they stood closed. She reached back and stuffed the pastry bag into the small side pocket of the bag and hefted it more comfortably as they stepped up to the door. LoVelly was the one to reach for the handle and pull the great door open for them.

Inside, the temple was well lit both with the soft light coming in from various windows and from softly humming lights dotting the hall occasionally. It smelled amazing, like flowers and warmth, the aroma drifting through the open space inside. Someone must have heard them enter because before they could wander far enough down the entry hall to the main worship hall a woman popped her head out of a side room to greet them.

“Hello!” she said, bright and chipper. “Welcome, welcome. Can I help you?” She had long, long hair, at least down to her hip, as many temple oracles did, and she wore it unbound and it spilled over her shoulders in curled silver waves. Mez put on her best polite smile.

“Hi, thank you.” She stepped forward to meet the woman halfway. “I…” She choked on what to say. What could she say? How could she summarize what she’d been through in the last driev? The woman waited with quiet patience as she worked through the words trying to spill forth from her. She hadn’t even realized she’d worked herself up to near tears when she felt the gentle touch of LoVelly’s hand at her elbow, a grounding touch. She sniffled once, pushing the tears back town and willing the heat in her eyes to simmer down.

“We were attacked,” she choked out finally. “My family and I,” she clarified. “They downed our TVE and I…we’re the only ones who made it out and we need help.” She finished softly. Saying it still hurt too much, made it too real. The woman’s face was washed in grief as she took in Mezalie and her story.

“Oh you poor things.” Her eyebrows drooped and the woman looked like she was moments from her own tears. “Come, let me get someone.” She swept her arm out, toward the main hall and ushered them forward with her.

At the end of the entryway was a small room just before the worship hall. They could see the beautifully carved details that ran along the edges of the ceiling and the colorful designs painted along the walls, no doubt a community effort. “Here, why don’t you get comfortable and I’ll come back once I’ve got someone you can talk to,” she said with a smile.

The room had a door at the front where they entered and a door at the back. There were two chairs on either side of a little table which was centered. The room was small enough that each seat was pushed flushed with the wall behind them, just enough room to slip between them and the table in the center. The silver haired woman waited for them to settle before beginning to leave but she stopped, just inside the doorway.

“What did you say your name was dear?” she asked.

“Mezalie,” she looked over to answer.

“And LoVelly.” LoVelly added, taking a seat across from her on the other chair. The woman gave them another smile before she closed the door behind her, leaving it slightly ajar. Mezalie leaned down to rest her elbows on her knees, head in her hands.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do after this,” she bemoaned. They were finally at the only destination she’d planned so far, she had no plan beyond this. “I don’t have anyone left. Nowhere to go,” she whispered it into the space between them.

She thought of her conversation with Klia that nente on the TVE, of her thoughts of leaving the Pod. She thought of her admission to Vell. Even then, she had never thought it would be goodbye forever. It would have been temporary, the knowledge she could rejoin her Pod, her family, any time she wanted, anytime she missed them. Her eyes went far away, looking past him.

Before LoVelly could respond the woman returned both with two glasses of water and a man behind her. Beneath his open clergy robe he was dressed in simple clothes just like the oracle, just like themselves and everyone else in the town. He looked more like a farmer than a Wizard of the temple.

“Ah, Mezalie was it?” the man addressed her. She nodded. His eyes flicked to LoVelly and he smiled at him before returning his gaze to Mezalie. “Would you mind joining me?” he asked, motioning back out into the hall.

“Just me?” she asked, looking over at LoVelly who met her gaze.

“Rest assured we will be right back. I understand you’ve had a terrible time recently. I would just like to get your story on record individually.” He nodded again toward the door before stepping out into the hall, the woman following after. Mezalie looked again at LoVelly and nodded as she stood and followed after the man.

He led her into the worship hall, past the seats, past the main altar and to a door at the very back. Through it was another small room where several people already sat around a large oval table. There were a couple of open seats and the man directed her to any one of them. Once seated she felt awkward as the other occupants looked on at her and the man crossed the room and took his own seat around the table. Finally, he took the lead once more.

“Okay, can you please tell us what happened?”

So she told them about the men in uniform, the green-clad wizards, the holes in the TVE. She told them about her murdered family and friends. She didn't tell them about the monster and she didn’t tell them about the man whose clothes she was wearing or the kindness his wife had shown them or how she’d repaid them. Those she kept for her alone.

Her and LoVelly, she supposed.

She didn’t know why but when they asked about LoVelly she lied. She said he'd been with her on the TVE and had escaped with her and nobody seemed the wiser. The details were hazy and unclear, she played up the memory loss to her advantage, unsure about disclosing everything just yet.

The longer she sat telling her story and watching them watch her, the less sure she felt that this had been the right choice. Many of them seemed indifferent to the horrible things she described and they occasionally whispered among themselves, regarding her with strange interest in their eyes.

When she was done she waited a moment, waiting for a reaction she felt was appropriate to the situation but all she got was a barely-concerned, “we will deliberate on what you’ve told us”.

She didn’t wait for anyone to excuse her, she just got up and left the way she’d come.

***

When Mezalie stormed back into the room some time later, LoVelly could feel the agitation rolling off of her before the slam of the door told him what kind of mood she was in. She paced the small space at the front of the room, wall to wall. LoVelly stood up too, he didn’t know why but he felt like he should. Mezalie’s frenetic energy had him feeling antsy.

“They are deliberating,” she said with a scoff and enough sass to fill the tiny room.

“Deliberating what?” he asked. He considered sitting back down, but the energy kept him rooted to the spot he was in. He watched her stalk the length of the room a few times, not that it was far.

“I have no idea,” she huffed. “I don’t know what there is to deliberate. I told them what happened, and the clear course of action is to hold those who did this accountable.” She threw her hands up, “but half of them didn’t even seem to be listening to me.” She hissed and flailed her hands around like she needed to, like she needed a way to release the energy before she exploded.

LoVelly watched her continue to pace. It made him feel awkward to stand there, but the room wasn’t big enough for them both to pace around. Finally, Mezalie threw herself down into one of the chairs with an audible thump before turning to sit sideways in it, her legs slung over one of the arms. Now that she was seated, he felt even more awkward to just stand there, so he took his own seat once more.

He leaned, placing his elbows on his knees and holding his face in his hands, mirroring her position from earlier. He watched her fume for several moments, unsure of what, if anything, to say. He didn’t know how to discuss anything about their very odd situation. He watched her pick a fuzz off of her pant leg and then fuss over her hair for a moment, gathering it all over the chair arm so that she wasn’t lying on it. Finally she crossed her arms and did what LoVelly could only really describe as pouting.

They sat in silence for a while. It wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable but LoVelly wasn’t entirely comfortable in the situation either. The uncertainty made him feel jumpy. Finally Mezalie released a heavy sigh and tipped her head to look over at him. It made her hair poof up funny where it got pressed beneath her face.

“What do you want to do when we’re done with all this?” she asked.

She looked at him so seriously that it made him feel like he should know the answer but all he could say was simply, “I don’t know.” She stared him down a few moments more before tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling.

“Think about it then, I guess. We have time.”

He really hadn’t had time to consider it yet. Everything had happened so fast and so violently that he’d never stopped to think further than the moment he was in. Everything was strange and he didn’t even really know where to begin.

“I don’t…know what there is,” he said. “I mean…I don’t know what I would want because I don’t know what my options are.” He stared hard at the floor. The more he tried to think about it the more that jumpy feeling started to roll around in his body and mind. The closer he tried to get to his memories the more jumbled his thoughts became.

“Hey.” Mezalie interrupted his frantic thoughts and he looked back to see her watching him again. Her expression was softer this time, less absolute. “It’s okay to not know. We can figure it out as we go.” She gave him a small, reassuring smile. It occurred to him that she had said ‘we’ and that settled some nerves he wasn’t even aware were upset. This whole world was new to him and he didn’t want to be alone in it.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Thanks.” He looked her in the eyes. “You know you’re not alone either right? You’ve got me now.”

Mezalie made a face that he couldn’t quite read, like she was looking at him but she wasn’t quite seeing him, or she was trying to see something past him. He wasn’t sure.

“Thank you,” she said softly, just a whisper.

She looked like she was about to say something else when there was an audible click from the door. They both turned to look but the door didn’t open and nobody else appeared. Mezalie swung her legs down and immediately went to the door, turning the handle but it didn’t turn. He saw her attempt to turn it either way but there was no give.

“What-'' she beat her fist on the door a few times. “Hello? What’s going on?” She turned back and LoVelly was already on his feet again.

“It’s locked,” she clarified.

“That seems bad,” he said bluntly. For no other reason than it was something to do he crossed to the door at the back and tried that handle and sure enough, the door did not open. The both of them stood there dumbly at their respective doors, staring at each other.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“What about your fen? You said you thought you used it to get us off the beach. Can you do it now?” She crossed half the room toward him, panic seeping into her voice.

“I…I don’t know.” He looked down at his hands, palms up like they somehow had the answer.

“Now would be a really good time to know something LoVelly,” she hissed, curling her fingers into her hair and raking them back. He could see the sweat beading at the edges of her brow. “No no no…I can’t-” she gasped, “I can’t do this again.” She was breathing too fast and too shallow.

She crossed the small room to him, throwing herself onto him as she hugged him to herself, still breathing too fast. She laid her cheek on his forehead trying to take deep, calming breaths. The contact sent a zing through the both of them and the comfort was immediate. LoVelly took his own deep breaths as his mind swam through panic that was not his own but he felt all the same. It was a strange feeling, to feel the thrumming in his head but not his veins.

“I’m really sorry, Mez. I don’t know what to do,” he said, muffled into her neck.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” she repeated, though he wasn’t sure if it was for him or for her. She took deep, shuddering breaths that he could feel. “It’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine.” LoVelly realized he’d started breathing in sync with her as they both took a deep breath in.

“Maybe I can just…try my fen?” he offered. He made to pull away and Mezalie released him so they could untangle from each other and LoVelly looked around at himself, looking for what, he wasn’t sure. He quickly shook himself out all the way down to his fingers. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes and then…tried?

He clenched his fists, his eyes and he just…tried. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do exactly. He thought that it would be second nature and that despite his memory loss he’d just know how it worked, innately somehow.

“This is embarrassing,” he finally sighed.

“Yeah it is,” she agreed. He gave her a look of betrayal, mouth agape. “You said it first!” she defended, giving him an unimpressed look.

“Fine. But I don’t think we should count on me for this.” He didn’t mention it but he noticed that her breathing was back to normal now and she didn’t seem like she was about to crawl out of her skin right this moment. He counted that as a win, even if they weren’t necessarily any better off for his less-than-stellar performance.

Mezalie looked thoughtful, her brows pulled together as she squinted down at the floor. She lifted one boot and stomped it down a few times. LoVelly wasn’t sure what she was doing but she did it a couple more times with the other boot before turning in a circle, looking intently at the floor. She seemed to see what she was looking for as she made for the corner of the room near the chair she’d slung herself over earlier. She pushed the chair over, against the other one and once she had the clearance she pulled the rug on the floor back, flipping it onto itself. Beneath the rug was a stone floor that looked slightly different from the tiled stone of the rest of the flooring. She reached a hand down to touch the stone before recoiling.

“It’s not you, it's Nolstone,” she hissed.

They both startled as the handle at the back of the room rattled and they both whipped their heads towards the noise. The door opened and a man quickly stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. LoVelly didn’t recognize him. Mezalie left the carpet flipped up as it was and rose, pointing an accusatory finger at the flooring.

“What is going on?" she demanded, stepping toward the man. Whether it was intentional or not, she loomed over him, her presence and anger palpable. LoVelly felt it like a pressure that almost made his ears pop. The man threw his hands up in an act of surrender under Mez’s suffocating glare.

“I’m so sorry to alarm you both. We were afraid you might be in danger so we thought it best to secure you,” he explained, shrinking back on himself. Mez didn’t let up on him.

“And you didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell us that?” She nearly shouted it, the panic still there at the edges of her voice. LoVelly reached a hand out to brush his fingers over her forearm. She jumped slightly at the touch, head whipping to see him but she didn’t pull away. She took a breath and huffed.

“I’m so sorry. I’m here to escort you to another part of the Temple,” he said and he moved to open the door he’d come through. He moved aside and let Mez through the door first. LoVelly made to follow but the man cut between them. Mez looked back to him briefly, catching his gaze and he could see the hesitation in her dark eyes.

“It’ll be just to the left at the end here.” The man said as they reached the end of the hall. The walls were plain with no decoration unlike the entryway and worship hall. In comparison it was simple and unremarkable.

Mezalie had just turned the corner when she let out a shriek and LoVelly didn’t even have time to see what was happening because something was thrown over his head and he was being shoved to the ground by at least two people. He heard Mezalie scream again and it sounded like she bit someone before another shout that was definitely not her rang out.

“Mez!” He tried to shout but it came out muffled. Whatever was over his face was sticking to his nose and mouth as he breathed hard. He heard her shout out what he thought was his name before she went suddenly quiet.

“Mez! Mez!? What did you do to her?!” he shouted and struggled but he was roughly dragged to his feet by someone at each shoulder. Nobody answered him.

“Take him downstairs with the rest,” said an unidentified voice before the hands on his shoulders started dragging him. He did his best to fight back but it was useless. Whoever had hands on him was simply strong enough to fight him. He didn’t make it easy at least. They nearly lost their grip on him as he writhed around when they started down a flight of stairs but all he accomplished was giving himself several new bruises. When they reached the bottom of the stairs one of the people who had dragged him down called out.

“Got another one. Come help us. He’s squirmy.” The hands at his shoulders and arms pushed him to the ground and he heard another set of footsteps jogging over to them. His arms were yanked and his hands were bound tightly together. Whoever his captors were, they dragged him and he did his best to go limp and create as much dead weight as he could. Something was threaded through the circle of his arms and then the hands holding him were gone and he gave one final violent flail as he tried to sit up but whatever had been threaded through his arms was tied down behind him and it yanked him back down.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Settle down!” A voice yelled before a boot connected with his hip. He cringed in pain, finally going still, breathing hard.

“Where am I?” he shouted. “Where is Mezalie?” He turned his head this way and that, unsure where to look. Someone took pity on him and finally the cloth was pulled from over his head and the room he found himself in was surprisingly well lit for a dungeon.

He was surprised to see he wasn’t the only one sat on the ground and shackled. There were at least a dozen other people all around him in the room. It looked like it had been a storage room of some kind, maybe an office. It had been furnished at one time and he could see the marks from where a large area rug had once covered the floor. There were scuffs on the beige painted walls where furniture had been dragged or small dents where corners scraped. All around the perimeter of the room huge metal hooks had been driven into the walls at equal intervals and attached to over half of them was a person leashed to it just like LoVelly.

There were children.

LoVelly glared his nastiest glare as he looked back up to the people who’d brought him here. There were two men and a woman, all dressed in a thick, gray, wool uniform. He noted that one of the men’s shirts was different than the other two but he didn’t know what the significance of that was.

“What are you doing?!” He spit out, looking between the three standing around him but just out of reach of his lead.

“None of your business.” One of the men said, the one with the different shirt, as he turned to make back for the door. The other two turned to follow him and nobody bothered to answer him further. They closed the door and LoVelly heard the tell tale clicking of a key and the slam of a lock sliding into place.

LoVelly looked around himself again now that they were gone. Some of the other people were openly staring at him while others simply sat with their heads hung. It was mostly the kids that stared at him, their eyes big like saucers as they regarded him with caution and curiosity in equal measure.

To his immediate left he saw a dark haired woman and to his horror he realized now that he got a good look at her that she was pregnant, her big belly mostly hidden under a fairly dirty looking excuse for a blanket. She looked back at him with exhaustion on her face. Her cheeks were somewhat gaunt and he could see the dirt caked under her nails.

“How long have you been here?” he asked softly, not sure if he really wanted the answer or not. The woman tipped her head at him, thoughtful. She looked across the room at another woman who was watching them and said something in a language he didn’t seem to know very well. He thought he caught a word or two but he couldn’t be sure. The woman across the room shrugged at them before she spoke up.

“About three ven, I think?” the woman said finally. “Some of us have been longer.”

“What are you even in here for?” He still didn’t even know why they’d been captured. Or where they’d taken Mezalie or why they’d been separated.

“Fen.” A young man on the other side of the pregnant woman spat. He leaned forward as far as his lead let him, which wasn’t far. He was younger than the others, younger than LoVelly even. “As far as we can tell the only thing we all have in common is our fen.” His voice dripped with heat through his thick accent. LoVelly didn’t understand though.

“What do you mean?” he asked, leaning out to speak directly to the young man.

“We're all sola fentra. We've overheard them saying we've got fire in our blood,” he explained. “We all got a summons to come to the temple at request of the High Priestess and when we got here they cuffed us and dragged us down here. Won't tell us why. Sometimes they come take someone.”

LoVelly looked around again at the room full of people; elderly people, children, a pregnant woman. Somewhere, they had Mezalie.

“What about your families? Won’t people come looking for you?” he asked, looking around the room.

“If they have, we don’t know about it. Can’t imagine what kind of excuse they’ve given,” the young man answered again.

“And it’s the oracles and priests in the temples doing this?” he asked again.

“I don’t know, maybe,” the young man shrugged. “Something about ‘Modern Devout of-” LoVelly didn’t understand the rest of what the man said, the words sounding foreign and strange. The woman across the room piped up.

“Whoever they are, they’re not Ellanian oracles,” she asserted. “This is not what the Ellani believe in. I’m not sure what happened to our regular priestess.” LoVelly thought about this. Trying to roll it around in his mind until it clicked in somewhere. At least he had a better understanding of what was happening, even if he had even more questions now.

“Where are we exactly?” he asked, still trying to orient himself.

“Doss. Where’d they bring you in from?” the woman told him.

“The coast.” LoVelly offered. He really didn’t know, to be honest, but thankfully nobody asked him to clarify what coast. He didn’t even know where Doss was to be honest but at least once he found Mez they had new information to go on. “They took my friend somewhere else upstairs. Any ideas where they would have taken her?” He asked to the room at large and waited but nobody answered him.

“They bagged us all and dragged us down here just like you. They didn’t take us anywhere else.” The woman across the room finally piped up. “If they didn’t bring her with you, who knows where they took her.” LoVelly huffed and gave a tug on his lead, against the ropes on his wrists.

“Hey,” a different voice came, “I see that look in your eye and I’m gonna tell you right now: We’ve tried to escape. We’ve tried a lot of things in the ven we’ve been down here.” A man spoke up from the other side of the room. LoVelly looked over at him. He was older, a long beard hung ratty from his chin. His clothes were grimy, ripped in places and his skin sallow. He looked worse than many of the others with dark bruising along one side of his face and continuing down, one eye swollen shut and crusted. He didn’t say more but he didn’t need to. LoVelly looked around at the room, at everyone and took in the grim atmosphere. These people had lost hope already and if he was getting out of this he was probably doing it on his own and he was getting out of this because he needed to find Mez.

He told himself that he ought to examine this blind commitment that he felt when it came to the woman. He didn’t think it was bad, quite the opposite. He felt like their meeting was supposed to happen, something destined, but it was certainly something that required further introspection. Something about Mezalie herself made him feel…at home, which was quite the novelty feeling recently. Mezalie claimed not to know him but they both felt the way they fell into sync and how their thoughts and emotions moved freely between them. But, if he was going to unravel that mystery he needed to get out of this remodeled basement-dungeon and find her, so he set to work on how exactly he was going to go about doing that.

***

Mezalie was absolutely sick and tired of coming to into some kind of horrific situation but she was also starting to get used to it which was its own horror. As she came to she had enough wits about her to stay still and keep her eyes closed. She wasn’t sure what they’d done to her but they’d used some kind of fen to knock her out instead of blunt force this time, which was nice in a way. It meant she didn’t wake up with a worse headache than she’d already had for the last two driev.

She registered that she was sitting up. She was tied to a chair, she thought, not even a very sturdy feeling one if the thin wooden arms were anything to go by. Someone else was in the room, they were talking but it was hard to hear them, like they were on the other side of a window, muted and warped. She waited as the sound rose and then dropped again as the voice passed close by. Finally after what felt like an eternity the voice came close and she realized it was actually two voices. They were talking to each other and then suddenly the barrier was gone and she could hear the voices clearly.

“-we supposed to do with her until they get here?” A woman’s voice was saying. She heard footsteps approaching but they didn’t come much closer, stopping several tem back.

“I think we just keep her sedated so we don’t get disemboweled,” a man’s voice answered.

“Are you sure this is enough to contain it? What about when it wakes up?” The woman’s voice sounded unsure. “You heard what happened…” She heard them move back away, keeping their distance.

“They said if it starts…I dunno getting ‘active’ we can feed it fae but I said we could just give it a couple of-” The voices suddenly became soft and distorted again. She waited until they faded completely and then she waited several more dib, making sure they weren’t coming back before she dared crack her eyes open, first just a tiny bit and then slowly the rest of the way. The first thing she noticed was that everything around her not only sounded distorted, it looked it too. She saw that she was in some kind of…dome, maybe. It was definitely some kind of fen they had her trapped inside. The barrier was in a small, mostly empty room with possibly a large desk or cabinet near the front beside the door and she couldn’t quite tell what anything else was through the distorted haze around her.

She was, as she’d suspected, tied to some kind of simple kitchen chair, they clearly thought the barrier was enough. The barrier itself seemed to swirl and reflect light in soft colors both inside itself and on the walls of the room outside of it. It seemed an awful lot like an enormous soap bubble and it was actually quite pretty. She wished she could appreciate it but circumstances required that she figure out what, if anything, she could do to get out of it.

There weren’t any immediately obvious answers, nothing besides herself and the chair within the bubble that she could see and she had to assume the bubble was there to keep her in. Seeing that she was alone in the room she turned her head around and it appeared that, like before, the flooring here was made up of Nolstone preventing her from using fen.

The thought of her fen made a swell of anxiety rise in her stomach. She hadn’t tried to use her fen since her futile attempt on the deck of the TVE... She was afraid to, if she was honest, because she wasn’t ready to face the possibility that it wouldn’t be there anymore…

She knew how people became death witches, how it changed them and their fen and slowly twisted their minds. Her fen was a part of her and the thought of its absence was like missing a limb. The thought that she might have come back wrong and strange terrified her. As the anxiety washed over her she felt a tickle across the back of her mind.

Dead Witch

The softness of the voice made a shiver run down her spine.

The monster slinked out from whatever dark corner of her mind it had been hiding in since the farm house and made its presence known. It immediately made her skin feel greasy and clammy. She felt sick to her stomach at the sensation alone.

“Go away,” she pleaded aloud.

We can't stay here

The strange melodic cadence to the voice filled her with unease.

“Please go away,” she begged again.

There was no answer after that but she didn't feel the presence recede either. It created an intense anxiety that made her feel like she was suffocating. She gasped in lungfuls of air but she felt like she just could not get enough no matter how hard she tried. The feeling of a slick coating on her skin intensified, like she was sweating oil. She squeezed her eyes closed as tightly as she could against the feeling and took one final lungful of air and held her breath.

She had no idea what exactly occurred but it felt like she became an unraveling ball of yarn, like a liquid pouring through a strainer. The concept of Mezalie was absorbed into the spaces around her and unwound to become a string of information that slid into a puddle somewhere in the spaces between particles. The parts of her that consisted of three-dimensional matter became a questionable consistency as it spread back into something resembling the being that was once Mezalie.

We must go.

The whisper came again and she opened her eyes and they became eyes again, her vision blurring and spinning before settling into focus. As she looked down at herself, maybe solid maybe not- she wasn’t ready to examine that at the moment- she saw the chair and she turned.

It was half sunken into the floor. Like the floor had become liquid and swallowed it halfway up. It sat at a forward angle.

An alarm suddenly whined, strange and elongated wailing sounding from somewhere on the other side of the barrier. There was nothing she could do to stop it and there was no way to pretend to still be incapacitated so she’d better think fast.

Then it came again, forceful like a cold wind in her mind, quietly angry.

We will go now.

***

LoVelly was in the middle of figuring out if he could dislocate any of his joints in order to free himself when the outer door to the staircase opened and they heard feet hurrying down the steps. He quickly shuffled himself back into what he hoped looked like an unassuming, miserable position.

The man that appeared in the doorway was winded, taking a moment to place a hand on the frame to catch his breath. He was dressed in gray acolyte robes just like all the others but he wasn’t any of the people LoVelly had seen so far. The man’s vision swept over everyone in the room quickly before he wheezed out, “Which one of you came in with Mezalie?”

LoVelly looked around at the others and most of them were already looking at him so he figured his cover was already blown. He wiggled his shoulders, rattling the chain that tethered him.

“Where is she?” he demanded, giving the man the dirtiest look he could. Instead of answering the man rushed over to him, reaching into a pocket in his thick green robes for a jangling bunch of keys. He quickly got to work on detaching the lock holding him in place.

“We aren’t going to have much time so I can’t tell you everything but I’m here to help and we need to get you both out of here.” He pulled the chain out from between LoVelly’s arms and got to work on his other bindings.

“I’ve heard that before, recently in fact, so forgive me if I don’t believe you.” As soon as his hands were loose enough to pull apart he quickly got his arms back under him and scrambled away, pins and needles flooding his limbs. He made sure to stay facing the man.

“I know and you’re right to be cautious but right now I need you to help me get Mezalie out of here and as far away from here as possible,” the man said in a rush. He got to his feet and stepped back, putting space between them before tossing the keys to LoVelly and that did in fact make him feel a little bit better about the man’s intentions.

“What do you get out of it?” He regarded the man suspiciously, grabbing the keys and pushing himself to his feet. He rubbed at his wrists, rubbing the tingles out as best he could.

“Like I said, I'm on your side. That thing that’s in your friend upstairs is extremely dangerous on its own and even worse in the wrong hands and the people upstairs are very wrong hands.” The man glanced toward the door, toward the stairs, listening for anyone coming.

Although he still felt uneasy about it LoVelly decided at that moment that he didn’t have time to hesitate. Best case scenario the man is honest and helps him and at worst he can try and overpower him and escape.

“Fine. Okay. But I’m not trusting you.” LoVelly narrowed his eyes. “Can you help me untie the others?” He quickly turned to get started on the pregnant woman who was closest to him but the man didn’t move.

“We don’t have time for them,” he said simply. LoVelly stopped and turned to stare. He kept eye contact, waiting, but the man stayed firmly where he was.

“We’re not leaving these people down here.” LoVelly said resolutely and removed the lock and removed the chain so he could set to work on her ropes.

“You don’t understand, we really don’t have time. Plus it’ll be impossible to escape with a group,” the man insisted.

“It would be a lot faster if you helped.” LoVelly said. removing the ropes from the woman’s hands. Her wrists were red and raw and bloody, some of it was fresh and a lot of it was old, caked-on, red-brown crust. He rubbed around the wounded area for her for a moment. He could tell it must hurt but she quickly took her hands and shook them before motioning to the keys, motioning for him to keep going.

He quickly got to work on the young man next to her. He heard the man in robes sigh out the most frustrated sigh but he crossed to a woman on the other side of the room and got to work. When LoVelly got the lock open on the young man's restraints the woman he’d freed shooed him off as she got to work on the ropes, urging him to keep unlocking as she helped remove the ropes.

Suddenly the air pressure around them dropped and LoVelly’s ears popped. It felt like someone sucked all the air from the room. In place of all the air, suddenly his lungs were full of Mezalie. He could feel her in the oppressive pressure that had flooded in and she was angry. For a moment it felt like he was suffocating but as quickly as it had come on it was over and the others in the room were gasping along with him. LoVelly quickly looked across the room, to the robed man who was already looking back at him, eyes wide.

“It’s happening,” he breathed out in horror, “I was sure she wouldn’t sleep for very long but I thought we’d have more time…We need to go,” he urged again.

“We leave together or not at all.” LoVelly hissed, getting back to work. The man begrudgingly got back to work as well, another frustrated sigh escaping him.

There came a strange noise and everyone looked to the doorway, expecting to have been caught but no footsteps came and nobody appeared. Then the young man from earlier caught LoVelly’s attention and he pointed up to the ceiling.

“Huh…” he said, perplexed, stepping closer to get a better look but still a cautious distance away.

LoVelly felt the same curiosity, unsure what he was looking at. There, protruding from the ceiling near the side of the room, were some kind of uneven, thin, wooden beams. There were no gaps or unevenness around the protrusions, as if they had always been there but they definitely weren’t there before, he was sure of that. He had stared at that ceiling for quite a while trying to decide if he could dislocate his thumbs.

LoVelly wasn’t sure what that meant but he redoubled his efforts in unlocking that last two people on this side of the room. Just as he finished up the lock he was working on, a sharp, wailing alarm sounded from somewhere upstairs but was loud and clear enough to hear in the basement.

“That can’t be good.” He said, looking back to the robed man. The man cursed and met his eyes, a pained look on his face.

“We’re out of time.”

***

It barely took a tes before two gray clothed men, just like from the beach, burst back into the room, looking straight at her and Mezalie wasn’t sure what to do with herself. There wasn’t anywhere to hide but she also couldn’t really go on the offense either, the only possible weapon was a part of the floor now. She’d tried to push the chair with her toe just to see and it solidly was not budging.

The men saw her standing there and curiously, instead of rushing toward her they kept their distance, lingering near the desk. She could hear their muffled voices as they discussed something, probably her, if she had to guess.

One of their blurry forms leaned out the doorway, looking around in the hall before returning to stand next to the other person near the desk. They appeared to be waiting…maybe for someone else, she thought. Neither one seemed to be able to turn the alarm off though as it continued to wail and even through the muffling it was starting to grate on her senses.

Go. Now.

The voice was hypnotic in her mind, the words somehow feeling so enticing she found herself automatically taking a step toward the shimmering dome. She caught herself and willed herself to pause, looking down to her traitorous feet and back at the bubble and the men outside watching her from a distance.

“How?” she said aloud. In her mindscape though, where the voice existed, the intent was clear: the barrier. What would happen if she touched it? Would it hurt her? The thoughts swirled in a way that created a clear idea and she realized she didn’t need to say anything aloud to communicate with it.

This film will not hold. They do not understand us. They underestimate.

The intent was clear to her. The voice intended to simply leave, walk out the door. She could clearly picture herself walking out but she hadn’t created the image. She still felt hesitant to the concept and she thought, what about the men outside the bubble, about whoever else they were waiting for? Presumably it was back up and she was just one person.

The voice did not seem worried about this. She felt a wisp of reassurance wash over her, like a soft touch of a hand to her cheek, comforting.

It was going to be fine.

And in that moment she believed it. She took a step toward the barrier, and then another, and then she was right up against it. The voices on the other side picked up, louder and more frantic than before. She looked up in time to see one, then two, then three more people enter the room. They were less hesitant than the ones in gray and they marched up to her, emboldened by their assumed safety. They stopped just short of the colorful film and she could see them somewhat clearer. She recognized them now, from the group she’d told her story to.

“I address the Vott, Infinite Creature,” the man bowed his head briefly as he spoke. “We are prepared to make an offering for your hunger. We humbly ask you to stay as we await a High Priestess to properly welcome you.” They seemed to be waiting for an answer but Mezalie wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. The voice wasn’t giving her any impressions or thoughts. It infuriated her that these people were acting as if she wasn’t there, as if it wasn’t her they were talking to. What did they mean by an offering? She couldn’t imagine what a ‘proper welcome’ could entrail based on the ‘welcome’ she’d gotten so far. She felt the anger light a flame in her core, molten and deadly as it threatened to overflow from her.

“If you leave right now, you might live,” she advised them. She’d briefly lent her trust to these people and it had landed her right back into the worst day of her life so far. She felt her fists shake where she clenched them. “Because I am leaving and if you’re still here when I do I’m going to let this thing do what it likes with you.” The smile that crept onto her face felt manic but she couldn’t stop it. She watched the dread and the fear wash over the faces of those on the other side of the flimsy bubble. They were right to fear her and it felt good to know it, to see it clearly.

She took the final step that allowed her to lean into the barrier and she felt a crackle across her skin as she did. It felt like tissue paper, thin and just ever so slightly resistant as she pushed herself into it. Just like tissue paper it gave way so easily and she ripped through it with a burst of ozone and nothing stood between herself and the people that had wronged her.

Let them burn

The vision of bursts of light, of white hot flames that drained the color out of anything it touched, inescapable, came to her and she curled and uncurled her fingers. She fanned them and stretched them and she felt the bursts of fen light up there. It was a strange, foreign fen yet somehow still familiar. It wasn’t the searing heat of her sweat burning into something, this other fen, it was something new but it was hot.

The movement of one of the men, previously frozen as they watched her tear through their barrier, caught her attention. He looked down and she followed the sight and she saw the tiny sizzling sparks that bloomed from the tips of her fingers. They fell to the ground like tiny falling stars. She flexed her hands and a burst of flame flared from them. She brought her hands up before her, aimed at the people before her who’d begun backing up, tripping over themselves and each other to get away from her.

She let the oily slick feeling coat her despite the discomfort it gave her initially. She could feel the hunger clenching in a stomach that wasn’t her own. It was all consuming, never to be satisfied, but it still felt nice for a while to feed it. She felt herself sink into what felt like a viscous liquid, a dark water that allowed her to float comfortably along its calm surface. It cradled her like a giant hand cupping her whole self. It made her feel safe in a way she desperately wanted. It made her feel detached, both from her body and her troubles, enough so that she didn’t feel any guilt when the strange thing that she became exploded outward in a burst of heat and a strange viscous matter and dragged the bodies in the room back unto itself. She was unbothered by the splatter on the walls and floors where anything that was left came to rest. It consumed and it added to the ever growing vastness that was the creature that was becoming her.

She found herself only slightly aware again in the hall outside the room they’d kept her in. There was a trail of carnage behind her but she found she didn’t care about that. She’d cared about the man and the woman in the farm house. They had shown her kindness and they had not deserved a fate like that and she implored the creature to understand the difference. The men and women strewn behind her in a sprawling web-like gore had hurt her. They’d hurt others and they intended to hurt more in whatever this scheme they were involved in was.

It was unclear if the monster understood the message or not.

More gray and green movement swam in the strange fish bowl-like vision that the monster viewed the world through. She saw them wielding any fen they had at her but it simply absorbed into the oily sheen covering and extending from her body. Some of it rolled off even but the biggest realization was that none of it affected her greatly outside of a small tingle or a soft hissing sound as the coating on her body burned and eroded it away immediately. Everything they threw at her was a minor inconvenience at best.

Truthfully she didn’t even notice that she’d quickly lost control. The feeling of power and vengeance fuelled her to let the creature continue in its ravenous feeding. When she heard a voice calling out to her it barely registered, just hardly a drop of noise in the roaring background of eat, consume, devour running through her mind.

The second time she heard it, she recognized the voice and she tried to call back but she couldn’t find her mouth. She couldn’t find herself in the unending depths of the creature. She felt the body twist and shift and there he was, LoVelly in that swirling vision. She felt the body move toward him but she stopped. She willed the understanding, not LoVelly. And the body stilled and she felt the creature recede, pack itself inside itself and then inside of her. It receded back into that dark place in her mind that it hid. Finally she felt human enough to find her mouth, to find her words.

“LoVelly.” She blinked to see him standing there, just steps away. Behind him was a group of other people that she wasn’t overly invested in but as she glanced over to look at them she caught a man in a green robe approaching LoVelly from behind and her pulse quickened, immediately going on the offense. She ducked around LoVelly’s shoulder and swiftly decked the approaching man across the jaw sending him sprawling to the ground. The man shouted as his hands jumped to cradle his jaw as he rolled along the ground on his back. LoVelly immediately dropped to his side, checking the damage and asking if the man was okay and Mezalie was confused, getting the feeling she’d missed something.

“Who is he?!” She squawked, waving her hand at the man.

“He’s helping us escape!” LoVelly insisted. She winced, sensing that she’d made a mistake by punching first, asking questions later. LoVelly gave her a sympathetic look in return.

“It’s alright.” The man finally said. “She’s got the right instincts, actually.” LoVelly helped him to his feet.

“Who are all these people?” She asked, looking once again at the other people hanging well back from LoVelly and regarding her with quite a bit of concern.

“They’re other prisoners that they were keeping here for some reason.” LoVelly answered. He gestured to the youngest ones of the bunch. “Even kids.”

It made her blood boil and she felt the anger at the mere thought bubble up hot in her throat. She knew she was right, they’d done it to her pod and they were doing it to these people and probably others too.

It wasn’t until she saw LoVelly’s look of concern, putting his hands out in front of him like he was trying not to spook an animal, that she realized with a start that there was smoke pouring from her nose and mouth. It billowed up around her..

“You okay?” he asked. She could tell he was searching her face for an answer. He was trying to make sure she wasn’t lying to him and she felt somewhat indignant at that- he didn’t know her. Except that he did, sort of, and she wasn’t sure if he could tell if she was lying.

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “I think we need to get out of here first.” He nodded at that and turned back to the man she’d punched and the group of people who seemed rather anxious.

“Can you get them out of here?” LoVelly asked the man.

“Yes but I need to get her out of here.” He pointed directly at her.

“I’ve got it covered.” LoVelly assured him, giving him a thumbs up. He turned back to her, “I think I’ve got my fen figured out!” He said with barely hushed glee, despite their situation. He put both hands out in front of him, between them. He focussed and took a deep breath and slowly, with varying success at first, a small swirling rift began to form there. Small at first and then wider and rounder as he worked to make it bigger, more stable. When he let it go it suddenly snapped back in on itself, disappearing. LoVelly had a huge grin on his face when he looked over to her. He looked back over his shoulder at the man.

“Go ahead and get them out of here. Thank you for your help but we’re going to go our own way,” he told the man and he looked like he wanted to argue but instead he sighed and shook his head.

“Fine. There are things you need to know though. They’re not going to stop looking for her. You need to stay hidden as long as possible.” The man stepped away from the group, over to her and LoVelly where he wouldn’t be overheard. “Find friends of Datsa. They can help you.” He said, looking at Mezalie specifically but her head was still swimming in a strange sea of detachment and she barely nodded at him in response.

He returned to the group and ushered them past Mez and LoVelly and down the hall, past the carnage of what was once the other members of the temple that had stood in her way. LoVelly looked past her and she could tell he was looking at the blood and viscera that was painting the interior. She hadn’t felt bad when it happened and she still didn’t but she worried about what LoVelly thought of it. He hadn’t seen what they’d done to her family, he didn’t know her hurt. But what if he hated her for it?

“This is an old building,” is what he finally said.

“I guess so?” She didn’t know what else to say, thrown by his question.

“Probably full of tevedev, you think?” He asked, looking around at the corners of the floor, the dust along the ceiling corners where the slight orangey-pink build up of tevedev collected over the nente cycles when it was hard to see.

“Yeah, probably,” she answered.

use your fire

She remembered the words from earlier and they echoed now too. She nodded as she looked at LoVelly, understanding what he was getting at.

“Stand behind me,” she waved him over. “Get ready to get us out of here. I have no idea what’s going to happen.”

“Got it.” He nodded at her.

She took a deep breath and she pulled all of the white hot fen she felt thrumming in her body and she poured it into her belly, into her lungs, into her throat. When she released it in a scream it was a guttural thing, ripped from her body in torrents. With it went the bright flames in streams and gobs, falling from her mouth like molten fury. She turned from side to side as she released more than just the flames- her pain, her anger, everything she poured out and it began to make the air around them sizzle and pop as the layers of tevedev dust heat-activated and began to explode.

She screamed and screamed, lighting the air and walls aflame with what she felt. She fell to her knees in a heap, exhausted, shaking and brittle. Her breath finally having run out and she was left heaving in a room sweltering and popping with fire and tiny explosions. She saw the spots of tevedev on the walls ignite and the places it was heaviest it left dark scorch marks behind as it exploded. She felt the flames sucking the air out of the room.

She hadn’t felt LoVelly move from her back but she instantly felt his touch to the back of her shoulder. She turned her head to him and realized her hair had long fallen out of the tie she’d had it in and so had his. They both needed a brush and another bath, and they needed rest. The air behind LoVelly shimmered not just from the heat waves but from his fen as well. He opened a portal behind him and he pulled her tiredly to her feet and his hand slid down to hers as he pulled her along behind him and out of the burning building.