Sloane Briallen

I woke up suddenly, gasping for air, with the ghost of hands grabbing at my hips to tear away my clothes.  Faint echoes of screaming—my screaming—rang in my ears.  My cheeks were wet, and my mouth was dry.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said.

I blinked hard, trying to clear away the images of my father grabbing me.  Tears fell from my eyes as I did.

When I could see, I found Cailean crouched in front of me.

“Cailean?” I croaked, looking around.  Familiar pale walls with yellow lighting met me.  Fear bubbled from the depths as I realized I was back in the dungeons.  “Where—”

Cailean reached out to put a hand on my shoulder, and I flinched away.

“Hey,” she said.  Her tone was low, as if she was speaking to a spooked horse.  “I need you to not freak out.”

“Not freak out?  We’re back in these fucking dungeons.  Your fucking brother was going to kill me.  I was promised that he would leave me alone.”  Hot tears spilled from my eyes.  “He was going to rape me.”

Cailean’s eyes went wide.  “What?”

I couldn’t stop the tears or the way the words rushed out.  “He was going to ‘teach me a lesson’.  He held me down and wouldn’t let me go.”  I wrapped my arms around my knees, burying my face in them.  “They always want to teach you a lesson.  Rape is the only way they know.”  I rocked in place, fear and anger and helplessness a vortex in my chest that I couldn’t resist.  The pull of all that pain was too much.

Something settled on my shoulders, and I startled, looking up.

It was just Cailean, kneeling in front of me and throwing her coat around my shoulders.  She settled back on her heels, her eyes fluctuating between cobalt blue and plum.  Her hands were in front of her, haloed around me like she wanted to touch me but wasn’t letting herself.

“I’m sorry for whatever happened to you,” she said.  “Truly.  You didn’t deserve it.  And you didn’t deserve what Saeran did.  You didn’t deserve any of this.”

I buried my head in my arms again.  My shoulders shook with sobs I wouldn’t let out.  But I couldn’t hold back the whimpers that broke from my throat.  I couldn’t keep them in.

I was too tired and everything hurt.  The past week had been so much.  And just when I was doing better . . .

“He’s a monster,” I finally said, my voice barely more than a whine.  “Someone tried to kill Cyly, and I took the poison.  I saved him.  I took the same poison that Angus and Ava injected me with right before they tortured me.  I’m sorry I could have hurt, you but—”

“But considering everything, the reaction was not only understandable, but also warranted.”

“And he’s blaming me for that?  This is somehow my fault?”  My voice cracked.  “I’m nineteen.  Why is he terrorizing me?”

I heard Cailean exhale through her nose.  As she did, I realized that at some point, she had moved to sit next to me.  I looked over to see that she had also pulled her knees up and had her arms wrapped around them. 

“I can imagine his motivations.  I could probably explain them, even.  But it doesn’t matter.  Sloane—I’m sorry.”

Her apologies gave me no solace.  “The next time I see him, I’m going to kill him.”  I had never gone out to kill someone, but I could have killed Saeran.  I was ready to kill him.

“You would be in your rights.”

I blinked, a fat tear splashing on my arms.  “What?”

“Saeran . . . he used to be my best friend.  But once I started to question whether I wanted to be a queen . . . I’ve always known he was capable of terrible things.  Not a monster but . . . monstrous.”

In that moment, Cailean looked as lost as I felt.  She looked angry and helpless and tired.  Her fists clenched where they held her legs. 

“At some point, when I wasn’t looking, he turned into this . . . thing.  This thing that talks over everyone, sees everyone as a threat, and is willing to kill for no other reason that because he feels like it.  And I let it slide—whenever I see him, I let it slide.  He’ll be a good king.  He’s dedicated to his people.  He cares.

“But that’s not true.  Because if he can’t see past his own pride, then he’s no better than any despot my mother ever tried to keep us from becoming.  He’s everything I was ever afraid of becoming.

“I would stop you if I saw you trying to kill him.  But I wouldn’t hold it against you if you succeeded.”  She rested her cheek on her arms and looked at me.  Her eyes were glassy.  “I’m sorry that this is what you get for doing an illegal favor for my mother.  And I give you my word that when this is over, I will do everything in my power to protect you, and my kingdom, from what he’s become.”

I chuckled bitterly.  “If we get out of here.”

Cailean looked up at the ceiling of our holding cell.  “I don’t plan on going quietly.”

I didn’t say anything, burying my head back into my arms.  I didn’t know why we were back here.  I didn’t remember anything past Saeran escaping from me.  I didn’t know if we were safe.  I didn’t know if the door was secretly open, and we could just leave.  I didn’t know anything. 

But I also couldn’t find an ounce of emotion to give a fuck.  I was so, so tired.

So, I let my brain drift.  I let that exhaustion push away all the anger and the fear.  I let numbness settle.

I don’t know how long I was like that before I felt a familiar warmth. 

The smell of fruit was the first thing that drifted into my awareness.  Soon after, the sound of wind through trees echoed in my ears.  Slowly, old, familiar shapes resolved in my head.  A pagoda.  Some trees.  Grass.

The Phoenix crew and I looked through one of those home magazines once.  Better Homes and Gardens or House & Garden or something like that.  We’d seen beautiful houses laid out over sprawling grounds covered in flowers and trees and bushes with landscaped ponds and topiaries.  I’d grown up envious of a kid who could afford a new pair of shoes but a place like that . . . there’s no describing what that would have been like for me had I been able to even set foot on the property of one of those places. 

There had been this one house in particular that had had its own orchard of fruit trees.  The grass was green and beautiful, rolling grounds with tiny hills and valleys.  There was a tennis court in the distance.

This was where I found myself.  In memories of a place that had never existed for me outside of the pages of a magazine.  The sun shone from above, filtering through the grove of trees.  I could smell peaches and apricots, sweet on the air.  It was late afternoon, past the sun’s zenith.

The grass beneath me was soft and short, cut recently.  A butterfly flitted through the air past me, headed towards a flower on one of the peach trees.  The sound of a fountain gurgling filtered through the still summer air to me.

The sky was a warm blue.  A few fluffy pillow clouds drifted across my vision, moving with lazy carelessness that spoke of nothing to do and nowhere to be.

This was where I went to be safe.  It was a place we had built long before any of us knew trauma therapy techniques.  It was a safe place in our heads. 

And a familiar voice, one I had heard many times in this space, called out.  It was distant and quiet, but I knew it like I knew my own voice.

Sloane.

Mira? I said, looking around.

Sloane.

There.  Where the tennis courts were supposed to be.  There was only a dark forest.  The sky there was dark, overcast.  At the edge of the trees I saw Mira.  She wore what I had last seen her in, a red tunic and leggings with knee high black boots.

Those dark woods weren’t a place we had built.  I refused to move closer to it, but Mira shouted my name.

What? I called out to her. 

Come here.

I shook my head.  You’re in a scary place.  I’ve seen enough scary things today.

I saw her face fall.  She stepped closer, but not out of the woods.  What happened?

Does it matter?  Saeran will get away with it anyway.

She froze.  A familiar expression crossed her face, her eyes moving from left to right, as if reading something.

Her jaw set in anger.  I’ll kill him.

I shrugged.

Where are you?

Dungeons.

Physically, are you okay?

Yeah.  I’m with Cailean.

Someone will come get you out.

Okay.

They’ll take you to the panic room.

Panic room.  That sounded fancy.

Sloane, she said.  She held her hand out to me.  I’m sorry.

Yeah, everyone is.  But nobody seems to do sorry around here.

The pain in her eyes matched the pain in my chest.

I just want to go home.

You’ll be home soon, baby.  And when you are, I’ll be there, too.  Home with you.

I stopped.  What?

She smiled softly.  It was bittersweet.  I was waiting until after this to tell you but—the reason I took this job?  I’m getting paid a lot.  And I’m moving all of us to Minnesota.

I stared at her.  All of you?

All of us.

To Minnesota?

To Minnesota.

To be with me?

Always to be with you.

If I thought I had been crying before, the tears were like a river.  Hope expanded in my chest, making it so tight that the pain had no place to stay.  Home with me.

Home with you.  She glanced behind her.  Connection’s breaking.  You need to rally.  Someone needs to help me house hunt.

I choked out a laugh.

Love you.

Love you, I said back.

She was gone.

I opened my eyes and stood up.  Next to me, Cailean looked up, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

I wiped my eyes.  “Talked to Mira.”

Cailean’s eyebrows unfurled and rose in surprise.  “How?  These rooms are designed to block magic.”

“Cursebreaker,” I said with no further explanation.  “Are we in the same room that you put me in last time?”

She nodded.

I thought so.  I recognized the broken bedframe.

“They know we’ve been taken?” she asked.

“It would appear so,” I said.  “They’re going to come get us.”

She stared at me, an unreadable expression on her face.

“What?” I said after the staring didn’t abate.

“Finding you in those woods has turned into a lesson in humility,” she said, shaking her head.  “Soulsilver and cursebreaking and psychic connections—bloody hell.”

I shrugged.  “Next time you meet someone who helps you fight some original vampires, maybe give them the benefit of the doubt.”

She surprised me by nodding.  “You’re right.”

I paused before finally giving her some ounce of . . . not warmth, but less hostility.  “How did we get here?”

“Something gassed us—by the smell, I would guess valerian mixed with something.  Knocked me out.  When I woke up, I was in here with you.”

“Is it sweet?” I asked, remembering what I had smelled before passing out.

“Yes.  Valerian is an herb used in sleeping potions and the magical equivalent of knock out gas.”

“Fantastic,” I said.  I went to the door and looked out the window.  I didn’t see anything outside of it.  Just the same grey stone I had seen the other day.  “There’s no way out?”

“No, but . . .”

I glanced back at her.  Her eyebrows were knitted together in thought.  “Cursebreaker . . .” she murmured before looking up.  “Do you have an idea of how powerful you are?”

“I broke my room.”

“Your room?”

“I was in one of the neuropath rooms.  I was in it to block me off from Mira so we could sleep easily without her getting in my head when I dreamed.  I broke it, and Mira could hear me.  And Aoife said that if I was a couple hundred years older and disciplined, I could dismantle the castle.”

Cailean bit her lip pensively.  “Decades ago, we worked with a cursebreaker.  She could focus her magic to a point and break it.  I know how these cells were built.  The spell around the room is bound at the lock.”

On this side of the door, there was no lock.  But I had seen the cell from outside.  There was a lock just above the door handle.

I put my hand approximately where the lock would be. 

The room had a general buzz of magic, but where I touched, I felt the magic like a steady hum.  It made the hairs on my arm stand up.  “More magic here,” I murmured.

“And a sensitive,” Cailean whispered.  “Bloody hell.”

Oh right, she hadn’t known that.

“Do you know how she focused it?” I asked.

Cailean shook her head.  “I don’t know a lot about magic.  Can’t you just . . . focus hard on it or something?”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.  I also knew jack shit about magic, so I couldn’t talk.  What did it hurt?

I closed my eyes and focused on my hand.  I imagined those diagrams I used to see for the circulatory system in biology class—arrows pushing through my arms, into my palms.  I imagined sucking out something, maybe magic, maybe blood—something—out of other parts of my body, concentrating it into my hand.

I felt a faint pressure against my palm.  I looked down, opening my eyes, but realized the pressure was just my palm pressed against the door.

I pulled my hand away, and my skin tingled where it had touched the door.  Huh . . .

I tried putting my other hand to the door for a moment.  I didn’t focus on it, just let it rest there.

When I pulled away, my hand didn’t tingle.

“I think maybe something?” I said.  “But I don’t know for sure.  Maybe I’m not powerful enough.”  I looked back at Cailean.

She looked from me to the door and back, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth.  “When did you last drink blood?”

I shook my head.  “I can’t remember.  I was poisoned, but I can’t remember before that.”

“Maybe if I open a vein?”

“Why?  Isn’t that just for when a vampire gets low on blood?  Their sire opens a vein to get them okay again?”

“I assume you’re speaking from experience?”

I eyed her warily.  “Maybe . . .”

“It’s not a criticism.  The only reason it works quickly with Karhi is because he’s so old.  Older vampire blood gives a boost to younger vampires, especially fledglings.  If your sire was younger, say only a few decades old, then it wouldn’t be enough.”

“Would I have died?”

“No, you would have just taken longer to be okay again.  Anyway, I’m over three hundred years old.  It isn’t quite the boost you would get from Karhi, but it might be enough.”

“I always assumed the blood boost was just because we’re vampires, and we need blood to survive.”

She shrugged.  “I don’t know if the blood would help with your cursebreaking ability, but it also can’t hurt, right?”

“Does it matter that we’re different species?”

She shook her head.  “It’s not dead man’s blood, so the worst that could happen is nothing.”

I thought about it for a second before shrugging.  “Alright.”

She held out the back of her hand towards me.  With her other hand, she let a claw grow on one fingernail and scratched the skin.  Crimson blood beaded up.

I took it before she could heal and drank.  I only drank a few mouthfuls since that’s all I ever needed from Karhi.

I pulled away.  “I won’t tell anyone that royal blood tastes like regular blood.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Do you feel any different?”

I took a second to search my body.  Any differences, any sensations, hell, any sudden feeling of power?

After a moment, I shook my head.  “No.”  I turned back to the door anyway.  I repeated the same thing, imagining pushing . . . magic?  Will?  Power?  Something.  I imagined pushing the desire to break the lock into my hand.  I concentrated on my hand, pushing everything I could into it.  I imagined a bubble forming from my hand, opening, expanding. I imagined it popping like—Pop.

The staticky sensation of magic suddenly disappeared from against my hand.  It was like a balloon popping—a sudden recession of magic from around me.

I looked at Cailean, eyes wide.

“What?”  She looked around the room.  “Did it work?”

I tried the door, but it didn’t open.  Right.  There was still a lock.  “Yeah,” I said.  “I think so.  I don’t feel any magic anymore.  But it’s locked, and I don’t know if I—

“Step aside.”

I moved away from the door.  I watched as Cailean walked up and straight kicked approximately where the lock was.  The door groaned against the blow but held firm.  Cailean kicked it twice more before it buckled in its frame.  Her final kick launched the door into the hallway.  It slammed into the wall opposite before falling forward.

She leaned out of the door, checking both ways before stepping out.  I followed her.  Before we left, I picked up the door and put it back in place.  It was fucked, and didn’t fit in the doorway, but at least someone would actually have to come look to find out.  If they just glanced at it from far away, they wouldn’t notice.

“Mira said the panic room.”  I paused.  “Wait . . . I’ll degrade that.”

“Panic rooms are designed differently,” Cailean shook her head.  “They need to withstand sustained magical and physical attacks.  It’ll be okay.  Especially because they’re not meant for long term use anyway.”

“But you don’t know a lot about magic.”

“I know enough to know that degrading magic is something that is in mind when panic rooms are built.  Attrition is in mind by design.”

I guess that made sense.  

Cailean led me up a set of stairs that I vaguely remembered from my last trip to the dungeons.  At the top, she stopped on one side of the door, listening.  I followed her lead, standing on the other side, listening for anything outside.  I couldn’t quite get the range she could, I knew, but I could hear enough.

“. . . one job.  The prince was just inside the door.  But no, now we have the princess and that fledgling in the dungeons instead.  And the prince and his consort are in the panic room.”  The voice  sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.  One of the servants maybe?

“It was too much of a risk that somebody would find us,” another voice, male and British, replied. 

The woman made a noise of frustration.  “Go check in on them.  Be wary.  The fledgling is tricky.”

Oooh, I was the tricky one?

Then we heard footsteps walking away from us. 

“Bitch,” the Brit growled. 

“Don’t let her in your head, mate,” another male voice said, also British.

Cailean motioned me to her, and we squeezed in behind the door.  It was located at a corner such that when the door opened, it would hit the wall perfectly to hide us.

The door opened to hide us exactly as we expected.

“She’s just afraid of when Gwydion gets here,” the first Brit said, starting down the stairs.  “She’s a scary bitch.”

“I heard shadowmancers usually are.”

I felt Cailean stiffen against me.  I grabbed her wrist and darted around the door as it closed.  We made it through without any trouble, just seeing the backs of two brunette heads going down the stairs on our way out.

I didn’t know where we were.  I hadn’t really been all here when we first walked out of the dungeons.  It was yet another stone hallway with sconces mounted on the walls and long, worn rugs on the floors.  It was empty of anyone else, thankfully.

“Where’s the panic room?” I whispered.

“Close to our quarters, follow me.  I have no idea if we’ve been fully invaded, or just infiltrated, so we’re going to need to be sneaky.  I’ll lead the way because it’s likely I’ll recognize people that you won’t.”

“Sure.”  Stealth I could do.  It was one of the skills that had kept me alive over the years.