I woke up.

This was a surprise to me. I had honestly thought it was all over.

Wherever I was, it was cold, dark, and damp. I couldn’t tell where it was, as I was trying not to react to waking up at all. I hadn’t moved an inch in the moments since I’d jerked away, and my eyes were still closed. This was hard, as I was profoundly uncomfortable.

My arms were tied together above my head by what felt like a length of chain, and I felt like I was suspended from the ceiling from the way my feet weren’t touching the floor. I could hear the creak of a chain from somewhere above me as I slowly tilted back and forth from wherever I was hanging. My pain suppression had faded while I was unconscious, and I’d had to hurriedly throw it back up to full strength in order to not cry out in agony. I don’t know how long I’d been strung up for, but it must have been long enough that my arms might legitimately have popped out of their sockets.

Even though I couldn’t feel the pain anymore, I could still feel the disquieting sensation of the bones in my shoulders grinding against each other wrongly. In the depths of my rings, I mentally shuddered.

Even though I’d done my best to keep my breathing even and my reactions muted, something must have still given me away. I heard a voice call out across from me, echoing off of what sounded like stone.

A familiar one.

“It’s just us down here, Hangman,” They called out in a bored tone of voice. I tensed at the sound of it. “You can stop pretending.”

Dusk!

I think?

My eyes jerked open to see…a blank stone wall. I…think I’d spun in a circle from my suspension point to where I couldn’t see out of the front of whatever cell I’d apparently been tossed in.

I tried to look over my shoulder, or better yet twist my body enough to turn around, but my rotation was slow. I’d eventually spin back around to face the direction that voice had come from, but, uh. It would take a bit. My suspended arms meant I couldn’t see over them, either.

“Dusk?!” I nonetheless called out. “Is that you?!”

“Yes,” Dusk answered flatly from somewhere behind me. “No need to shout. I can hear you just fine.”

Yup, that was Dusk alright. I’m not sure someone pretending to be her could match that bluntness so perfectly.

“Are you alright?” I asked her, as I slowly started to twist around. I still couldn’t see her yet, though. Just the other wall of my cell.

Progress!

I heard Dusk snort lightly. “I am fine. You, on the other hand, look to have been beaten within an inch of your life. What happened after I was captured? It was only a few hours ago, and yet the situation looks to have deteriorated in my brief absence.”

I let out a slow breath at her question. As I did so, I let my gaze fall down so I could take in my own state as best I was able to. And yup.

I looked like shit.

Whoever had strung me up hadn’t washed me off, even if they had removed my armor, weapons, and all of my gear. I was naked from the waist up, and on my lower half I only had on my completely unremarkable black Order breeches on. Hell, they’d taken my damn boots away too. I was covered from the shoulders down in dirt, grime, and crusted blood. More a bit of that blood looked to be mine, from the numerous cuts and gashes, big and small, that littered my frame. Bruises of varying intensity were all up and down my body.

If I didn’t have my pain suppressed right now, I’m not sure I could even function.

I sighed.

“Yeah, I look like shit, don’t I?” I said wryly, in an attempt at levity. I couldn’t keep it up, though, remember what had happened. “But…to answer your question? We were hit, not long after your capture. And…it happened while almost everyone was at the warehouse.”

Because we’d been planning how we were going to rescue you.

I didn’t say that, though. She…was smart enough to guess that herself.

Dusk didn’t say anything for awhile. “I see,” She eventually answered, in the quietest voice I’d ever heard from her. The silence stretched heavily between us before Dusk finally spoke up again. “Losses?”

I closed my eyes slowly, right before I finally twisted around to face her fully. “Half to two-thirds, I’d say,” I said heavily. “Hook…wasn’t there to help. He’d gone to a meeting with SED, and even though we messaged him, he never came back. I…think they got hit at the same time we did. But we were hit by what seemed to be the entire Loyalist garrison in Elderwyck, led by Atticus fucking Longstripe himself.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice, speaking that name.

Not after how I’d failed to kill him in our duel.

I had been so close. If only I had aimed the dagger just at just a little bit more of a steeper angle, I would have taken his head clean off.

But…I’d fucked it all up.

And in doing so, I’d failed to take vengeance for all of my slain comrades.

That bitterness wasn’t helpful right now, though, so I shoved it down to where I could seethe about it later. “I’m not sure any of the senior Agents survived the assault. I know Serpent didn’t,” I said, causing an audible hitch of breath to sound from Dusk. “But I saw…a bunch of them die.”

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I finally opened my eyes, to take in the sight of Dusk.

I couldn’t help the indignation that rose up in me at the sight of her. “Why the hell aren’t you strung up too?” I asked incredulously.

Because she wasn’t.

Instead of hanging from a chain attached to the ceiling like I was, Dusk was just manacled and chained to the floor. The odd maid uniform the Gnoll woman had been wearing earlier had been stripped from her, and replaced by what looked like an oddly ceremonial shift. As expected, she was maskless and observing me with a blank expression on her white-furred face.

Dusk shrugged at me. “Because although we are both prisoners, we are prisoners belonging to different people,” She said apathetically, as if she didn’t care. “I am held captive by that woman, while you…I suspect belong to the Herztalian Army. You were dragged in here by them several hours ago, beaten bloody and unconscious. They were the ones who…restrained you in that manner.”

I frowned, as I continued to slowly twist away from her. “And where is here?” I asked her. “Do you have any idea?”

Dusk snorted. “Oh, I know very well where we are,” She said dryly. “They didn’t bother to obscure that fact from me. We’re in the palace dungeons. Duke Olsen’s palace, to be precise.”

I snorted myself. “The same palace that I got those blueprints for, huh. What a surprise,” I said sarcastically, Dusk leaving my field of view.

You know, I was starting to get tired of this spinning. It was going to make me dizzy, damnit.

A thought struck me, and I tilted my head in thought. Well, as much as I was able to. “Why am I here, then? If I’m in the custody Loyalists, shouldn’t they have brought me to the other palace? You know, the one the guards have?”

It wasn’t Dusk that answered me this time. It was another, unexpected voice that spoke up, from a cell somewhere off to my right.

“Because that creature has suborned the entire leadership of this city,” A high-pitched, surprisingly young voice called out. “At the snap of her fingers, they’ll obey her every whim and wish. No doubt she simply asked them to imprison you here, and everyone, including General Longstripe, jumped to obey her.”

I blinked slowly at the unexpected answer. “Dusk, who is that?” I called out to the Gnoll behind my back.

I heard Dusk hum before answering. “You’ve already met, in a way,” She answered, a note of mild amusement in her usually taciturn voice. “After all, I was taken at the same time as them.”

Oh.

“Oooh,” I said in realization. “That SED Agent, whaddya call-em? Thirty something? That you, Thirty?”

“It’s Thirty-Two, you oaf,” The SED commander snapped back. “The number Thirty isn’t even in use right now.”

I smirked to myself. I remembered their name, but something about them struck me as young as hell. They were easy to wind up, for being a commander in an enemy intelligence organization. “Right, right. Thirty-Two,” I said languidly. “How old even are you, Thirty-Two? You barely sound thirteen.”

“Old enough,” Thirty-Two answered back, as suddenly cold as they’d been hot. “And don’t presume familiarity with me, Hart. Our records indicate you could have been Awoken as early as seven months ago, yourself.”

I sobered up. For a moment, I’d misplaced this young-sounding woman with another teenager I was fond of. It may have been months now since we’d left Walter back in Hollow Hill, but I still remembered him fondly. But this girl wasn’t Walter.

She was, nominally, an enemy. No matter the fact she sounded as young as he was, I couldn’t let my guard down. That was beyond the fact that she knew who I was, and apparently had a file on me that included things like the date of my Awakening of all things. I wasn’t surprised she knew who I was, though. If my bare face during our confrontation hadn’t done it, then Rhiannon referring to me by my first name would have.

I took a deep breath. “What do you mean, Rhiannon has control over the city leadership?” I asked, suddenly much more professional.

I heard Thirty-Two draw in a deep breath, no doubt about to elaborate. But the conversation was interrupted once more by a sound echoing down the hallway.

The clack of hard heels snapping against stone, followed closely behind by the march of mailed feet.

I swear I heard Thirty-Two’s teeth snap together as they clammed up. Instead of the child commander’s voice, I heard another female voice ring out.

One I was starting to hate.

“Oh, don’t spoil the fun now, ‘Thirty-Two’,” I heard Rhiannon call out down the hall from our position. I tensed at the sound of it, causing the chains binding me to rattle somewhat. “I would be rather cross with you if you ruined the big reveal.”

I could practically hear the sneer in Thirty-Two’s voice as they spoke again. “What do I care for your sick twisted ga-” They started, only to be interrupted by an odd splatting noise. Thirty-Two fell abruptly silent, although I thought I heard muffled grunts from them.

Moments later, I heard the clack of heels and marching of feet stop in between Dusk and I’s two cells. “Are you going to spoil my fun too, Liora?” I heard Rhiannon ask Dusk.

“You would just silence me if I tried,” I heard Dusk answer flatly. “And I don’t wish your disgusting blood to touch me, in the way it did Thirty-Two.”

Rhiannon hummed in amusement, seemingly unbothered by Dusk’s implied insult. “Good doggy,” She said condescendingly before I heard her pivot on one foot. I think she was facing my cell, now. She didn’t speak for a moment, though. “Oh, will you two go in there and turn him around?” She finally said in exasperation, apparently to whoever she’d brought with her. As the door to my cell opened and two sets of mailed feet stepped inside, the noblewoman groused to herself. “Why even string him up? What’s wrong with the regular old manacle and chain? Honestly, militaries these days…”

Two pairs of gauntleted hands seized me by my dislocated shoulders and spun me around, but didn’t let me go. When I could see again, I noticed that the soldiers Rhiannon had brought with her were Solstice guys and not Loyalists. I should have expected that, considering how I hadn’t seen them at the assault on the warehouse despite the apparent hate boner they had for us Eclipse members. They weren’t looking at me, instead standing off to my left and right staring forward stoically. Not that I could see their faces well, through their helmet. I followed their gaze.

Rhiannon was standing just outside the open gate of my cell, hands on her hips. She’d changed out of her black silk dress into a much sleeker-looking one, this time in a dark, dark red. Her long dark hair had been let down as well, letting it fall down in inky locks around her head. In the darkness of the cell block, I was startled to see her burgundy eyes glowing nearly crimson.

The woman breathed in slowly, closing her eyes. When she was done, they snapped back open. Rhiannon smiled at me. “Oh, Nathan,” She said, almost lovingly. She lay her right hand against her cheek and cupped it. “How odd it is, that our paths keep crossing this way. If I didn’t know better, I would say it was divine intervention.” She chuckled. “But…perhaps it is.”

I kept quiet for a moment, simply taking in the sight of her. A suspicion of my own about what Rhiannon could be had started growing inside of me, ever since I’d first heard the possibility that she wasn’t human. I’d noticed that fantastical monsters and creatures from the mythology of Earth had a tendency to pop up in Vereden, in one manner or another. But I’d never thought to ask Grey, or anyone else for that matter, if one particular kind existed. However, I couldn’t deny that it might be possible with the secret of what Clan Calonawr had within their ranks.

If Werewolves were a thing, then why couldn’t…

I gave voice to my thoughts. “Rhiannon…” I said slowly. “Are you…a Vampire?” I felt immediately foolish for voicing the suspicion, but…

The air in the cell block grew still. Almost unnaturally so. I swear I didn’t even hear breathing from the Solstice classers holding me.

Rhiannon blinked slowly at my question, before the smile on her face widened to show off her teeth.

A pair of long, pointy, pearly white fangs stood out prominently, where only moments before I swore they had been normal.

Rhiannon winked one glowing crimson eye at me, as I closed my own in resignation.

Of fucking course Vampires were a thing.