I was not taken back to the dungeons with all the other surviving slaves. While the group of us was being shepherded back toward the cells, a handful of the guards grabbed me and split off from the main group, dragging me down the path where I’d been injected with the blue blood of Orpheus, the progenitor. The chamber was the same as it had been - barren but with a single desk cluttered with all sorts of experimental tools and liquid, and the progenitor chained up against the far wall. This time, however, there was one difference: a wooden chair had been placed a dozen or so feet from both Orpheus and the desk. That’s where I was forced to sit. The two guards proceeded to tie my hands behind my back with warded chains. I instantly felt all the new power I’d accumulated drain away. Then they bound my feet.
“Is all this truly necessary?” I said, casting a glance at the guard locking the golden chains around my ankles. “I still have the slave bond on me - what do you think I could even do with that brand on me?”
He grunted. “Ain’t my job to think about that. Stay still.”
“Oh, it should be your business though,” I warned, putting the Saintess facade back up. “I don’t believe your Goddess will be too pleased about this.”
The guard, again, gave a noncommittal grunt and shrugged. “Them Gods have better things to do than worry about what I do.”
“Maybe,” I hissed. “But I don’t. Be warned, soldier - my goddess may be a paragon of forgiveness. I am not.” Truth be told, I had no idea whether or not that was true. I didn’t know anything about this goddess I was supposedly the saint of other than the fact she was the goddess of life. The guard’s face paled and beads of sweat formed at the edge of his forehead, but he finished tying me despite his obvious discomfort with my presence.
I didn’t have time to continue my threats and warnings before Darmond entered the room, gaunt as ever. The researcher’s inhuman dark blue eyes stared at me with the grimmest smile I’d seen him wear. Last time he was full of academic joy. That joy seemed to have become a maniacal resolution.
Without saying a word, he strode up to me and I could smell day-old sweat and the slightest hint of cooked meat wafting from his direction. Had it really been so long since I’d had a real meal that I could now smell it on another? He took a small scalpel from his pocket and sliced the side of my forearm with a short, quick cut. Reddish-blue fluid seeped out. I expected the academic to yip in excitement, but he just nodded.
“Outstanding. It looks like the two bloods have mixed perfectly,” he murmured, making a similar cut on my other arm and then right above my right hip. “Simply outstanding. It’s a perfect mix. Truly, you are a marvelous child.” He took a small vial from his desk and used my cuts to fill it with blood. “If only we had more time, I could study you more. Find out why you. Why does your blood match so well.” He sighed, putting down the vials and scalpel. Darmond wiped the scalpel clean. “Unfortunately, it looks like the King will be taking you from here soon.” Out of nowhere, his eyes darkened and he slammed his fist down on the table. I tried not to wince in surprise and was successful. Orpheus didn’t budge either, though I noticed at some point he had opened his eyes and was now staring openly at me. “He doesn’t understand! None of them understand what you can give to us. To all of us.” The gaunt researcher stepped directly in front of me, his nose mere inches from my own. “Child, I believe somewhere inside of you is the key to immortality. And it goes beyond that - to give immortality to everyone. This King, this country,” he shook his head, the wild look in his eyes raising goosebumps along my neck, “they don’t understand. How could they? This is the realm of the Gods. The heavens!”
It was at that point Orpheus chose to release a hoarse chuckle. The sound was deep and ancient, reverberating through my bones as it echoed around the chamber. “Fools,” the voice rasped with hollow pity. “My blood… is not the blood of Gods. No… you have brought… forth… your end.” Orpheus’ eyes had never left me. Those black coals which had been hopeless before, dead, even, had rekindled with a sort of… pride? “It is… the advent of the Soul Weaver.” His voice became increasingly clear and more pronounced even as his progenitor pressure began to seep even through the golden chains. Finally, those black eyes of his that seemed to look right through me looked away, up at the ceiling as if he were praying. “The Guardians will chase you to the end, oh Queen of Rot. Your fate… is ever your own to weave.”
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Then he was silent, his head bobbing back to his chest with a soft thud. For a moment no one moved - well, I couldn’t even if I wanted to but Darmond didn’t move. Then he jumped and scrambled forward to Orpheus, rapidly performing a series of tests I wouldn’t begin to understand. The researcher let out a final, relieved breath. Still alive then.
There was a bang on the door and then a third soldier whispered into the ear of the soldier that’d tied my legs.
“You have five minutes left, Darmond,” the guard stated. The researcher spent those remaining minutes running various diagnostics on me, different than what he’d done to Orpheus, injecting me with more blue fluid and removing more of my blood. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t wait to get away from the madman who spouted increasingly nonsensical mutterings until the very last second. The guards had to physically drag me away from the researcher who was shouting and screaming at the guards that he wasn’t done.
The guard I’d spoken to had slung me over his shoulder and I bounced as he moved to slam the door shut with a final, resounding thwap. The sudden silence away from the screaming researcher was jarring but in a nice way.
“Well, that was something,” the new, third guard said and the other two laughed. I attempted a short laugh too, since it had been quite bizarre and the guards seemed friendly enough, but the constant jostling and sharp pain of metal armor being jabbed into me like I was some sack of potatoes made laughing impossible. It was all I could do not to grunt every time the armored shoulder sank into the soft flesh of my stomach. Which now had a bunch of small cuts thanks to the mad researcher.
“Can you just let me down?” I was finally able to say. “I have the slave tattoo and nowhere to run. Just let me walk. In the name of the Gods, put me down.”
The three looked at each other and when the third one shrugged, I felt large hands reach up and bring me down back to my feet. “You will have to walk with the chains on your hands, but we will take them off the ones around your feet. Don’t try to run. I don’t want to harm a child.”
“Run?” I just barely restrained myself from spitting the word. “Where would I run? Back to the Arena? Back to wherever in the Gods’ name that madman is? No. No, thank you. Just let me walk back to my bed.” The second guard unlocked the chains around my ankles and I shrugged off the hand that steadied me when I was immediately unbalanced from the sudden removal of weight. “I can walk fine. Leave me be.” I could tell the guards were confused by my tone. It was likely their first time being ordered around by a child, much less a slave child. On the other hand, I might be a saint and a noble, and it didn’t look like they had any orders that I couldn’t walk on my own in the tunnels. They eventually relented and as the walk continued, paid less and less attention to me, engaging each other in various topics like women and the King. Which was fine by me.
The next morning I was sitting cross-legged on the tattered mattress called my bed, trying to eat the bowl of slump when the bulbous-headed man came marching into the dungeons surrounded by a handful of guards, none of whom I recognized.
He cleared his throat and held up a scroll of parchment stamped closed with the claw of a dragon. “Ahem. All bow before the word of His Majesty, King Isadore the Seventh, Lord and Ruler of the Kingdom of Cael, savior of the high humans, destroyer of elves, and Master of the South.” The bulbous man paused, apparently waiting for us all to bow or kneel in deference to the words of the King. None of us bothered. I doubted any of the slaves were actual citizens of Cael.
Except me, I thought.
I filled my mouth with the slump and forced back my gag reflex as I chewed the goop and unknown lumps, and swallowed. Disgusting. The King’s messenger, I assumed he was, staring at Chella and Dralos as if telling them to use the slave mark to force us into kowtowing. Neither of them had gone down on the floor either. After a long moment, the bulbous man took a deep breath and, furiously, undid the seal to open the scroll, and began to read. “By Decree of His Majesty, King Isadore, Slave #33122 is hereby recognized as Lady Lilliana Silverwater, daughter of Baron Silverwater. Baron Silverwater has been apprised of the situation and is headed here now, and should arrive within seven days. The issue of whether Lady Silverwater is the Saintess of Goddess Dhalia remains to be decided. However, as Lady Lilliana has already declared herself to be so, the King has decided, with recommendations from the Church of Life, to continue the Arena battles with Lady Lilliana as her Saintess Trials. She, along with any slave she chooses, will face three trials. Each a combat in the name of the Cael Kingdom. Should the Goddess’ light truly shine upon Lady Lilliana, she shall be victorious. That is all.” He rolled the scroll up and tucked it away. On his way out, his eyes caught mine, and his nose wrinkled.
Guess I knew what he thought of the King’s decision to find me of the nobility. I sighed and forced down another mouthful of the slump.
“Wow,” Marisar said, pushing aside the curtain separating our personal areas. “You really are nobility.”
“Much good that did ‘er,” Gronch said from the other side. “She still ‘as to fight.”