Englecon Mine, Desmond, 10416 P.C.

The next few hours felt like an eternity to Stephanie. Her arms were cramped from being chained above her head, and her leg throbbed where the Overseer had stabbed her with the knife. Blood stained her pant leg dark, and the blood loss was making the room spin. She had given up on trying to break free from the chains. Her jaw ached from being clenched so tightly, and her head pounded. Leaning heavily on the post, she found herself staring at Matthew's limp form across the room, strung up like an animal after the slaughter. He hung at an awkward angle, his one ankle locked in the chain clasp while his other leg was tucked behind him. His upper back reached the floor, at least, somewhat bracing him against it. His head had lolled to the side, his arms splayed across the ground around it. He hadn't moved since the Overseer had dragged him there, and Stephanie had finally accepted that he was dead.

The silence was deafening. The Overseer had left ages ago, soon after Matthew's death, Stephanie assumed. The man had seemed intent on killing him, and Stephanie wished she hadn't provoked him. Matthew might have still been alive if she hadn't attacked.

"... you'll think I can save you..."

What had he meant by that? She had mulled the words over and over and yet she still didn't understand. This boy had possessed magic, but what kind? Was it like Athrii, or was it something else entirely? In her studies, the only magic mentioned had been Athrii. The only magical being was the Veiled Lady, so who and what had this boy been?

Stephanie closed her eyes, blocking out Matthew's bloodied form and letting out a shuddering breath. She could feel the burn in her eyes — she had cried after the Overseer had left. Cried for Matthew, cried in helplessness. The tears had dried, but she still felt their evidence on her cheeks. Her nose was running, but she didn't care. There was so much death, and she couldn't stop it, couldn't escape it. She had caused Matthew's death.

She thought about Todd. What was he doing right then? Was he training, or maybe it was lunch or supper or maybe even breakfast — she had no idea how much time had passed since she and Annabella had set out. She felt the hunger gnawing at her stomach, and she did her best to ignore it. She couldn't think about eating right now. She wasn't sure she could keep the food down anyway.

She thought about Annabella and a chill ran down her spine. She had left Annabella in a horrible state — had the poison taken her mind? Stephanie refused to imagine such a thing. She had failed. She had failed Annabella and Todd and Marcie and now Matthew. She had failed herself. Choking on the sob that caught in her throat, she forced herself to breathe. She couldn't lose herself, she couldn't give up. She had to be strong.

The truth was, the only thing holding her up was the chains.

Footsteps drew near, and Stephanie stiffened, looking to the doorway. In seconds, the Overseer entered the room, carrying a tray. He approached Stephanie, ignoring her fury-filled gaze as he stopped to set the tray on the floor. It had two wooden bowls on it full of what looked like scrambled eggs, along with two wooden cups of water, a basin, and a roll of gauze. Her stomach growled, and she clenched her teeth and looked away.

"Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way," the man said, straightening up and pulling something from his belt. It looked like a cuff, but was much bigger and had engravings on it. She couldn't tell what they were. "The easy way, no one gets hurt."

He stepped toward her with it, and she shrunk away. "What is that?" she asked hoarsely. Her mouth was bitterly dry, and her voice cracked because of it.

"Insurance. Now, the easy way or the hard way?" He moved closer, pausing as he opened the cuff and looked at her. When she didn't pull away, he reached over and clasped it around her neck. It was cold. She shuddered as chills swept through her. She hated the way the metal felt around her throat. She realized immediately that it began to emit a purplish hue.

The Overseer reached up and unclasped her wrists, and she collapsed, gasping as pain echoed through her wounded leg. Biting her lips, she breathed heavily through her nose, frozen as the man took the gauze from the tray and knelt beside her. He worked the cuff of her pant up, revealing the bloody wound he had dealt her. The feel of his hands on her bare skin felt like spiders skittering all over her. She shuddered.

He lifted the basin over, drawing a wet cloth from it and cleaning her wound. The silence was eerie; she was frozen as she watched, trembling slightly from the pain as he spread ointment over the wound with blood-stained fingers and wrapped the wound in gauze. He pulled her pant leg down with a jerk, washed his hands in the basin of water, and handed her a bowl of food and a cup of water.

"Sit against that wall and eat," he ordered, pointing at the nearest wall, just feet from the post she had been chained to. "You will not leave this room without my permission, understood?"

Somehow, the collar would insure that. She understood completely. Nodding, she obeyed, shuffling over to the wall and resting against it, clutching the bowl in one hand the cup in the other. The smell of the scrambled eggs was overwhelming, and she dove into the food, eager to quench her hunger.

The Overseer pushed himself to his feet and picked up the tray. She watched him carefully as he crossed the room. Setting down the tray again, the man approached Matthew's limp form. He unlocked Matthew's ankle and tossed it carelessly to the side, causing Matthew to crumple in a heap on the floor. Stephanie nearly choked on her eggs when she heard the boy groan. He was still alive! But how?

"Get up," the Overseer demanded.

Stephanie watched, stunned, as Matthew shifted and lifted his head, shaking it a little as he pushed himself to his hands and knees. He sat back, taking a deep breath and catching Stephanie's gaze for a moment before he got to his feet. She knew she was staring, but her mind couldn't grasp what was happening. He had been dead. Hadn't he? She searched his chest for signs of the fatal wound he had been dealt, but his bloody, ripped shirt hid it from view.

"Against the wall," the Overseer ordered, pointing to the wall directly across from Stephanie's. "And don't make me wait unless you want to see what kinds of pain that'll cause the girl."

Matthew backed up to the wall and dropped to the floor with a grimace. Stephanie stayed still, the lump of egg in her mouth laying thick on her tongue as she watched the Overseer gave the tray at his feet a shove, sending it sliding into Matthew's reach. The cup of water fell over. Matthew gave the tray an exhausted, dead-panned look.

"Eat up. It could be your last." The Overseer pulled out some sort of screen from the bag on his belt and begin tapping and sliding his fingers on it. It reminded Stephanie of the screens the trainers had often used. She craned her neck, trying to figure out what he was doing. Matthew only seemed uninterested; Stephanie noted he was watching the man carefully as he reached over and pulled the tray closer to him. He picked up the bowl and began scooping the food into his mouth with blood-stained fingers.

With a tap that seemed rather final, the Overseer lowered his screen. "The boundaries have been set," he announced to them. "I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not you obey them." With that, he tucked the screen away and left the room.

It sounded like a test. It unnerved Stephanie. She watched him go with an ugly, sinking feeling in her chest. Forcing herself to swallow the bite of egg resting in her mouth, she coughed slightly, looking at the boy who sat across from her. "I thought you were dead," she said, her voice cracking yet again. Was her tone almost accusing? She wasn't sure how to feel. Heat rose in her cheeks. Had he heard her crying, or had he been unconscious?

Matthew didn't look up at her. He was picking at his food, only eating small portions at a time. "I have that effect on people."

"That wound was fatal. How are you still alive?"

"Bad luck."

"Stop avoiding my questions!" she snapped, her temper flaring as she tightened her grip on her bowl. "I watched you die and you aren't dead!"

He finally looked up at her. In the dim light of the torches, she couldn't make out his facial features, but she knew he was studying her. Slowly, he lifted his hand. It began to glow. It was a soothing light, and staring at it, Stephanie could feel herself calming. She took a deep breath.

"This," Matthew said finally, quietly. "This is what keeps me alive."

Stephanie set aside her bowl, timidly crawling to her feet and creeping forward. "But what is it? How?" As she drew nearer, she suddenly felt warm. She didn't notice the sting until she was ten feet from Matthew, and she stopped, touching the cuff around her neck. It was hot. She knew Matthew saw the confusion and alarm on her face. Now closer, she could see the knowing look on his.

"I wouldn't come closer," he said.

She took another step. A shock of pain reverberated through her, and she stumbled back, gasping. Losing her footing, she fell.

"I told you."

She shot him a look, taking a deep breath and pulling at the metal around her neck. It was still warm, and the skin beneath it felt scalded. It was terribly uncomfortable. "It won't let me come close to you."

Matthew set aside his empty bowl. "No, it's the other way around." Slowly, he shifted, lifting his glowing hand toward her. She watched, frozen, as he reached.

Her collar grew hot. "Stop," she blurted out before she could catch herself. Her hands flew to her throat. Matthew drew back. Then, wordlessly, he lifted his hand to the left, reaching. It took Stephanie several seconds to realize what he was doing, and by then, she could feel the heat again. "There too," she said, sucking in a breath as the hot metal burned her skin. Matthew tried the other side with the same result.

"Clever," he whispered, sitting back heavily against the wall as he gazed around the room. "It's a force field."

She fought to ignore the pain in her neck. "What?"

"A force field," he repeated, frowning. "It's around me. The whole room, actually. I doubt you could get near the door."

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A sickening feeling churned in her chest. "Can you feel it?"

He watched her for a moment and then shook his head. "No. I don't think it affects me. But it'll hurt you if I move."

Stephanie shuffled back a couple feet, sighing as the heat in the collar abated. Her neck still felt raw and burned. "What do we do?" she whispered.

"We can't do anything. Not without hurting you."

Stephanie arranged herself in a cross-legged position, leaning forward on her knees to study the boy across from her. "Something tells me I'd spend half my life convincing you to try something regardless."

"You wouldn't convince me," he replied honestly. He pulled his knees up and rested his elbows on them. She could see his bloodied shirt, but not the wound itself.

She thought about his words for a moment before their meaning fully dawned on her. "Ah, so that's what has kept you here so long. You're clearly powerful. He uses other people's weaknesses to manipulate you."

"They're innocent. They don't deserve pain and death."

"We all face pain and death."

"I don't want their death on my hands and conscience. I have enough of that as it is."

Stephanie dropped her head, looking at her hands for several seconds before she responded. "You can't always be the one to make the sacrifice and be the martyr."

"I can afford it. They can't."

Stephanie struggled to understand this boy. At first, he seemed closed off and cold, uncaring even. However, his words contradicted that. Was he acting? Trying to sound like some selfless hero? She couldn't read him. Instead of arguing further, she tried a different approach. "What can your magic do? Other than make your hands shine?"

He stared down at his hand, quickly tucking strands of hair behind his ears. "Um, I'm not entirely sure. Different stuff."

She leaned forward a bit more, pressing. "Can I see your wound?"

Matthew eyed her for a moment, and then straightened, dropping his knees and lifting his shirt to expose his stomach. It was covered in crusted, maroon-coloured blood, but even in the shadows she was able to make out the large scab that marked where he had been near-gutted. It slashed his stomach at a horizontal angle, a rather crude, horrifying sight to behold. She had seen wounds somewhat like it before, on the backs of Trainees who had been flogged for one reason or another. The whips had never cut as deep as the wound Matthew had been given. She stared.

"You should be dead." She knew she had said it before, but she couldn't help but repeat the words. There was no logical explanation for how the boy sitting just feet away had survived such a wound. It came to her quickly, and she nodded. "Fast regeneration. That's what your magic does. It heals you at a superhuman rate."

Matthew nodded, dropping the hem of his shirt and pulling his knees up again. "Don't assume I can heal others, though. I can't. I've tried." His voice quavered slightly on the last word.

Down at the bottom of the pit. The agonizing pain of her headache slightly calmed by his touch. She frowned. "You're always telling me what you can't do. Tell me what you can do."

His response was faster and sharper than she expected. "I can survive beatings and isolation and starving and avoid sickness and death while watching everyone else around me suffer and die."

His words sliced like knives. She rose to her feet and began to pace, her frustration and helplessness overwhelming her. His noncooperation was aggravating. She wanted to yell.

Todd. Annabella. "There has to be a way out of this!" She stomped her foot, stopping short. "Blast you, Annabella!" she said aloud. "We never should have left Todd." She began to pace again.

Matthew was watching her, she knew. "Friends?" he asked nonchalantly.

She stopped again to look at him. "Yes," she said finally. "My friends." She remembered her and Annabella's conversation, and she added, "Fellow Oddities, actually. Not like you though. No magic." Not that she knew of, anyway.

"What is an Oddity?" Matthew asked curiously.

She was surprised. He didn't know? But then, neither had she. "Annabella told me that it was an Elitist term, basically saying that we're claimed by Motch in some way." She tilted her head, studying him. "Does Motch know you're here?"

Matthew shook his head. "I've never even seen him. The Overseer called me an Oddity when he discovered my magic. Said I was special and that if Motch knew, I'd be executed. My guess is that it's something about..." he trailed off, lifting his glowing hand and wiggling his fingers as golden flames danced around them. "... challenging power."

Stephanie's heart gave a stutter, speeding up and then slowing down in staccato notes as she crouched and then dropped to her knees, watching him. Her breath was shallow, her mind frenzied yet focused. "Are you...?" she trailed off herself, trying not to sound so breathless. He couldn't be. Todd was the Deliverer — Todd was supposed to find him, not her. She asked the question anyway: "Are you the Immortal One's son?"

Matthew immediately clenched his fist, alarm flashing across his face before it turned stony. His magic was quenched in an instant. "No," he replied, his eyes boring a hole straight through her. "I'm not. I'm not your bloody saviour." He hugged his knees to his chest, resting his chin on them. It made him look small and helpless, like a child.

Stephanie let out a breath. A twisted feeling of relief filled her, though she was unsure why. She believed him. He definitely wasn't the hopeful leader type of guy. That was obvious. Then again, did anyone know what kind of leader they were expecting?

She realized her rationalizations slowly, frowning at herself. Was she actually starting to believe Annabella's stories and prophecies? He had mentioned challenging power and she had immediately assumed the son. "When you say challenging power," she started slowly, "whose power are you talking about?"

"Take a guess."

Stephanie did. There was only one other being she knew of who had magic. "The Veiled Lady."

"The collar around your neck has Athriian magic. My magic reacts to it. Shuts it down. I've done it to the wrist cuffs on the other slaves. That's why I'm not with them."

Stephanie's mouth dropped. "Your... you can shut Athrii down?"

"Yes..." He shifted uncomfortably under her shocked gaze.

"Then why does it hurt me when you come closer?"

"The force field, I guess, and the fact that it's made from Athrii. The point of the Athrii cuffs is to keep you in a placed set of boundaries. I assume the screen thing the Overseer has sets those boundaries. If you get too close to the boundary, your cuff will get hot. If you try and pass through it, it'll shock you."

Stephanie found herself twisting the cuff around her neck as he spoke. Underneath, her skin was still stinging from being burned. She nodded. "So... if we got that screen... we could shut it all down?"

Matthew gave her a dead-panned look. "Is escape all you can think about?"

"Is wallowing in your self-pity all you can think about?" she snapped back. "You're not helping anyone or anything by doing nothing." She narrowed her eyes at him, and then made up her mind. She inched forward. Her collar got warm. "You have a gift, Matthew. One that could change everything."

"You sound like Abby."

"Maybe you should listen to us."

"I got Abby lashed," Matthew snapped, his voice harder than she'd heard it. "She could be dead because of me."

Stephanie stared at the boy before her, a boy who was barely a man, a boy who bore the guilt of things that shouldn't have been his to bear. A boy who possessed a gift that had been hidden and abused his whole life. It made sense that he was so scared to use it. Every time he had, someone had gotten hurt.

She licked her lips and moved into a crouch, balancing herself with her hands on the cold stone floor. "She told you that you should save everyone, didn't she? He used her against you."

Matthew's dark look told all.

She pointed at the basin. "Cloth. Toss it."

He hesitated before reaching for the basin of water still sitting on the tray. He fished out the cloth, squeezed out the water, and tossed it to her. She caught it and began to work it between the metal cuff and her neck. It was soothing to her irritated skin.

Matthew realized her plan. "Stephanie, don't."

The cloth only covered half of her neck, but she would take what she could get. "I'm not letting him use me to manipulate you, Matthew," she said firmly. Taking a deep breath, she began to crawl forward.

"Stop!" Matthew pressed himself against the wall as if he could move away from her approach.

She came as close as she dared, hissing as the collar burned her exposed skin. The cloth was heating up as well. She tried adjusting it, but it only burned her fingers. "You can shut it down," she gasped, her eyes beginning to water from the pain. "Do it."

Matthew shook his head wildly. "I'll hurt you."

"It's hurting me now, blast it! You're causing me more pain by doing nothing!"

"Don't manipulate me!"

She found herself laughing at the irony. It was breathless and pained, yet still full of humour. "It seems to be the only way to get you to do anything."

"Stephanie, stop." He was beginning to sound frantic. "I don't know what'll happen to you if I go through the force field."

The collar was like a hot iron against her skin. She knew she was crying, but all she could focus on was the burn. Still, she inched closer. "Let's find out."

"I'll hurt you!"

"Pain is irrelevant! Get over it and just do it, Matthew!"

He hesitated just long enough to firmly hold her gaze and see her resolve. She knew she was manipulating him. She was backing him into a corner, forcing him into action. She had to. There was no other way. If she didn't get this boy's help, she'd never get out of this alive.

Forcing him into action might just as well kill her either way, but it was a risk she was willing to take. For Annabella. For Todd. For Marcie. At least she would have tried.

She was only feet away from him now. She knew she wouldn't be able to come any closer, not without collapsing her resolve and turning back. The pain was edging on unbearable.

"Are you sure?" Matthew whispered tentatively.

Stephanie squeezed her eyes shut. "Do it."

She heard his deep breath.

Then the world exploded.