Sloane Briallen

We were almost out of the castle proper when a wave of dizziness slammed into me and I tripped.  I plowed into the floor, my vision going white with pain from the impact of my body on the stone.

“Sloane!” 

I felt hands on me before my vision cleared, turning me onto my back.  When I could see again, I found Cailean crouching in front of me, blue eyes clouded into deep maroon. 

“What happened?” she asked, helping me sit up.

I blinked hard, trying to focus.  I felt so off-center.  But not as if I had been on-center and then pushed off.  It was more like I had been compensating against something that was suddenly gone.  Like pushing against a wall and the wall suddenly giving way.

I realized with a start what I was feeling.  I was feeling normal.  Like the air was normal.  There was no staticky feeling anymore.  No magic.

“The shield’s gone,” I said.

Cailean’s eyes widened.  “What?” she breathed.

I shook my head.  “I don’t know.  But it’s gone.”

She cursed, standing up.  She pulled me up with her.  “Come on, we have to—”

The sound of running footsteps cut her off, and we both looked up to see two men running into the hallway.  They were shifters; I could smell it immediately.

They wore full tactical gear—military fatigues and boots with matching automatics slung across their chests.

When they saw us, they skidded to a stop.  Their eyes were wide with fear and one shouted, “Shit.”

Before we could react, the first man screamed, and the second’s head was gone.  I smelled blood, and then the first man was also missing his head.  They toppled over, their heads rolling nearby.

“What the fuck?” I said, staring at the two dead men before me.

And then Karhi rounded the corner, wiping his sword off on the pants of one of the dead shifters.  When he saw me, he smiled.  I felt his relief at seeing me, and I realized that there was an echoing relief in me at seeing him.  “There you are.”

“You were looking for me?” I asked.  Then I realized.  “Mira.”  She had checked in with me to ask where I was earlier.  It must have been to lead Karhi to me.

“Yes.”  He came to stand in front of us.

“Christ, I always forget how scary you are with a blade,” Cailean said, looking from him to the dead shifters and back.

“You’re not terrible yourself,” he replied.  “Missing your scimitars.”

“Interestingly, they do not allow you time to grab weapons before knocking you out with valerian.”

He frowned.  “Odd.”  He looked at me.  “You okay?”

“Fine,” I replied.  I wasn’t going to get into it right now, and I pushed those intentions to him.  He got it immediately.

“To the panic room, then,” he said, turning to face the way we had come. 

“It’s that way,” Cailean said, pointing towards where Karhi had come from.

“It is, but the breezeway between the castle proper and the Royal Wing is going to be a kill box when the shield falls.  Which I think I heard Sloane say has happened.”  He glanced at me.

I nodded.

“Yeah, so then it’s much easier to take the secret tunnels under the castle.”

Cailean and I went two different ways with this.

“The what?” Cailean said.

“If they’re secret, how do you know?” I said.

“Magic burned a map of the castle into my head,” he said, tapping his temple.

As far as magic went, that checked out.

“I hate when Savita burns things into my head,” Cailean grimaced.  “It took me years to forget all the words to Cask of Amontillado.”

Karhi and I exchanged glances.  “What?”

“Long story,” Cailean shook her head.  “Well, if you know how to get out of here, then by all means, let’s go.”

Karhi told us about the swarm outside and what had happened while he was on the curtain wall.  He also told us about his conversations with Hazel. Cailean cursed the whole time.

We stopped at a familiar door.

“Uh,” I said.

“Yes, this is the closet you hooked up with Amara in,” Karhi said, opening the door and heading straight in.

I was too tired to feel embarrassed.  If this got us somewhere safe, I would take it.

Last time, the furthest I got in identifying was that I was in a linen closet.

This time, I didn’t get much further.

The closet was large, a supply closet that could probably fit a bed and dresser in a house in Mira’s neighborhood.  Steel shelves lined the walls on either side, filled with bed linens, towels, comforters—everything you would see in a store’s bed and bath section.  The walls were made of stone, like most other rooms in this place that hadn’t been designed to look more modern.

Karhi grabbed one of the shelves that was set into a back corner and pulled it out.  Metal scraped against stone, and I felt it in my teeth. 

“That’s awful,” Cailean said when Karhi had made enough space between the shelf and the wall.

Karhi didn’t reply, stepping into the small space he had made in the corner.  He murmured something to himself, and I felt a subtle change of air pressure, like a door had been opened.  “Perfect,” he said to himself.  To us, he said, “Come on.”

I slipped around the shelf and found what could best be described as a tunnel descending out of the closet.  The tunnel was made out of grey stone that reflected faint, sourceless light.  It curved away quickly from the entrance.

I followed Karhi in, and Cailean came in behind me.  She shut the door behind us, leaving us in darkness that was only a bit lighter than pitch.  Fuck this was going to suck to navigate.

Except, as we started walking, I realized that Karhi and Cailean could see just fine.  My hands kept scraping against the roughhewn rock walls, and I stepped on Karhi’s heel more than once.  I could sort of see the outline of the tunnel, but the difference between pitch and almost-pitch was academic at this point.

After the fourth heel step, Karhi reached back with his free hand and took one of my hands without saying anything.  With a sense of his body and the space around me from how he led me, I stopped bumping into things.

“You’re a sensitive,” Cailean said into the silence.

“Yes.”  I didn’t bother asking where that came from.  There was too much going on already.

“I’ve known very few and have never had the opportunity to ask—what is magic like?”

My brow furrowed.  “What do you mean?

“What’s magic feel like?  How did you know you broke the lock?”

“Good job on the lock by the way,” Karhi murmured.

He must have gone to find us in the dungeons first.  “Thanks,” I said.  I bit the inside of my lip, thinking about Cailean’s question.  I had never really tried to describe magic to someone before.  “It’s like . . . you know that tension you feel right before you get hit by static electricity?”

“Yes.”

“Imagine that, but like ten times stronger.  And everywhere.  That’s what the castle feels like in general.”

“And the lock?”

“It felt like buzzing against my hands.”

“And what about differentiating magics?  Vampires and whatnot?”

“Can’t you differentiate magics?”

“Yes, of course.  All magics have some sort of base sense.  Usually it’s more of a danger sense, though.  And different magics set off different danger senses.”

Wondering what the difference was between that and what I experienced, I said, “Uh . . . I guess they feel . . . shifters are kind of smokey or bubbly.  Shifting, you know?  Fluctuating and moving.  It’s more of a fluid magic.”

“Do you feel it against your skin?”

“If they’re strong.  But otherwise it’s more like a sensation in the base of my skull.  Kind of like when you forget something and are trying to remember.”

“Vampires?”

“Sharp.  Like the sensation of the smell of blood.  It’s a tang that lights up.”

“Different vampires?”

“Originals add a level of nausea to the tang.  Like drinking salt water.  Living vamps are more subtle, like lemonade mixed with iced tea.  Less sharp and a bit bitter.  Human vamps are just like blood.  Sharp and sometimes overwhelming.”

“What about mages?”

“They feel like magic.  Staticky and prickly, sometimes painful.  I haven’t spent a lot of time around them, though.”

“Fascinating . . .” Cailean murmured.

“How is that different than what you feel?” I asked.  I had always known I was a sensitive.  Annie could guess that someone was a magic when we were kids, but not often the type.  Mira was also a sensitive, but that was more to do with the neuropathy than anything else.  Everyone else had been pretty blind.  Though I had noticed in October that they all seemed to have picked things up more than they once had.  Even the kids had been able to identify me as a vampire right off the bat.

“It’s not a sensation.  More just like . . . a danger sense, like I said.  Like when you come across someone who puts you off?  I feel it in different parts of my shoulders.”

“I feel it in my abdomen,” Karhi murmured.

If I wasn’t so tired and worn out, I would have been so much more interested in this—the different ways that people felt and sensed magic. 

“We should be hitting a cavern that branches out to other parts of the castle,” Karhi said.

And indeed he was right.  At some point, the tunnel had started leveling.  We rounded a corner into a cavern the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

We weren’t the only ones inside the secret underground tunnel system.  There were ten other living vampires.  Ten other succubae and incubi, to be specific.

They looked just as surprised to see us as we were to see them.  I glanced at Cailean, who also seemed to be just as caught off-guard as everyone else.

“Princess,” one of the ‘bae said, stepping forward.  She was dark haired with sad eyes and a long, swan-like neck.

“Yes . . . Nari, right?”

“Yes,” she said, bowing shallowly. 

“Did Faren send you down here?” Cailean asked, looking from her to the others.

“Yes, your majesty.  He wanted us down here in case we needed to deploy to other parts of the castle.”  She gestured to other openings in the walls, similar to the ones through which we had just come.  As she did, another vampire exited a tunnel twenty yards away from us.  When he saw us, he froze, eyes darting from us to Nari.

“These tunnels can take us anywhere we need to be,” Nari said.  “Thank you for joining us, Sky.  We were just telling her highness about how General Faren sent us down here for easy deployment.”

The incubus glanced from us to Nari again before he started towards Nari.  His movements were fluid, as if he hadn’t even stopped in his gait when he saw us.

“Excellent thinking,” Cailean said.  “Thank you for your work here.”  She looked at Karhi, whose gaze had not left the group of ‘bae.  I felt him working something out in his head.  He was suspicious of something.

“Yes,” Karhi said, finally turning from the ‘bae to look at Cailean.  “Let’s go.”  He started across the cavern. 

We gave the ‘bae a polite berth.  As we passed them, I felt them less like a lemonade iced tea and more like a bitter black tea.  There was something unpleasant there.

But then we were through the cavern without issue and continuing on.  Karhi took my hand again as we continued.  I could still feel the wheels in his head turning.

When we were far enough away from the ‘bae that they couldn’t hear us, Karhi said, “Are they always that skittish?”

“Hm.  Skittish?  I don’t know if I would describe them that way.  I know that Faren is very strict with them.  Likely they’re not used to interacting with other non-‘bae.  Intimidated maybe.”

I could feel Karhi’s doubts on that.  I didn’t know enough to have an opinion on any of this, but by reactions alone, I agreed with Karhi.  They had looked skittish. 

The tunnel turned into a dead end.  Karhi let go of me and I heard him tap at the wall and then there was a click.  A moment later, light flooded the hallway.  I had to squint but it quickly resolved into yet another closet.  It made me wonder if all the secret doors were in closets.  It would make sense—easy place to hide them.

This time, we were behind a stack of rugs that we had to climb over.  Karhi opened the door for us and stuck his head out before motioning for us to follow.

We emerged into a familiar hallway, and I realized with a start that we were right by Amara’s room.

I looked at Amara’s door and then at Karhi and Cailean.  “Why are we by Amara’s room?”

“We made sure that she was right next to the panic room,” Cailean said, moving to the wall a few yards away from Amara’s room.  “Let’s see . . .”  She reached for a sconce.  It was three lights on the ends of pieces of curved burnished copper.  They reminded me of morning glories curving up towards the sun, except with the lights inside, they kind of were the sun.

I smelled rotting flesh a split second before I heard a high whistle, like a tea kettle going off.  I stiffened, head snapping to the direction of the sound.  Karhi and Cailean tensed next to me.

Three original vampires darted into the hallway.  When they saw us, they stopped, sniffing the air.  Their noses were flat to their faces, just slits in the skin.  The way the slits quivered as they sniffed was unnerving.

One opened its mouth into a terrible grin, long teeth flashing.  Its tongue was long and pointed, hanging out of its mouth.  It almost looked like a dog panting.

Before Cailean or I could move, Karhi darted forward with his sword.  I felt an emotion I hadn’t expected from him—elation.  And I watched as he severed the head of the first vampire clean through.  It turned to dust.

Through the dust, one of the other vampires lunged at him.  He met it with his sword going straight in through its open mouth.  He jerked the blade up through its skull.  The creature was barely ash before he was bearing down on the third vampire.

He killed the last one by cutting it in half through the stomach.  Like it was nothing.  When I had fought them, I had found original vampires easy to kill, but Karhi made it look like nothing more than swatting a fly down.

Karhi turned back to us, dust settling on his shoulders.  He looked fucking thrilled.  I had never seen Karhi fight before, but I would have thought that he wouldn’t enjoy it.  He had seen so much violence in his life.

But no, his eyes were sparkling, and he had an excited grin on his face.  The fucking dimples on this man, Jesus.

“I’ve never seen someone dispatch original vampires that quickly,” Cailean said, a stunned look of respect on her face.  She glanced at me.  “This is one of the things I meant about the difference in our ages.”

I was steadily beginning to realize that Karhi was way more competent than I had expected.  No shade on people who needed substances to deal with life, but having seen him struggling with heroin addiction on top of years of torture at Ilona’s hands, I had honestly mostly written him off as nice but ultimately useless.  I liked him and got along with him, but I hadn’t really expected all that much from him.

Which was ridiculous because I, of all people, knew what someone could look like when they were healing.  And seeing Karhi grinning, covered in vampire dust and holding a sword covered in dust, he was healing.  His nightmare was finally over, and he could start existing now.

The sound of footsteps caught our attention, and we looked up to see a woman come out of the same hallway as the original vampires. 

She was fucking terrifying.  All bones and angles, pale skin like milk, and dark, hollow eyes.  She looked like some sort of Tim Burton creation.

When she saw us, she froze, eyes wide.

“The shadowmancer,” Karhi growled, turning to her.  His elation had frozen into cold fury.

Karhi darted towards the woman at the same time she shouted, “Kabusecha!”

I hardly saw what happened next.  The woman shouted out in pain, Cailean roared at Karhi, and they were suddenly on the ground, Cailean’s knee on Karhi’s sternum, her hand holding the wrist with his sword.

“Cailean,” Karhi snarled.  “You don’t know what she did—”

“You don’t know who she is.  Stand down, Karhi.”

I looked from Karhi and Cailean to the scary lady.  Tentatively, I let myself feel for her.

Seltzer.

It was Amara.

Oh no . . . oh no.  I could feel Karhi’s pure hatred towards her.  Whoever she was playing, Karhi was going to destroy her if it was the last thing he did.  It had to have been the shadowmancer her told us about.

And then Cailean was crashing into stone, and Karhi darted for the woman again.  In a second, he had her against the wall, his blade to her neck.  I smelled blood and saw a trickle escape from beneath the blade.  “You sacrificed that little girl,” he hissed.  “You broke the shield with shadowmancy.”

And then the woman was crying, begging.  “Please, no.  I’m not her.”  Her hands came up, trying to push Karhi’s wrist away.  The movement was useless.  He was too strong.

“Karhi—” I took a step before stopping myself.  I was stuck.  If Karhi killed Amara, he would be devastated to know.  But if I revealed that I knew she was an anthroshifter, then it would bring out questions about how I could possibly know that.  I didn’t want Amara dead or Karhi devastated, but I wouldn’t let on that I knew an anthroshifter outside of the castle.  I would let them both suffer than risk her.

I felt when Karhi made his decision to kill her, felt when he was going to make the move.

But then she started to morph.

Her skin shifted and her bones moved beneath it.  Her hair grew shorter, lightening from black to brown, white skin to brown skin.  Her clothes, black jeans and a black shirt, shifted with her, growing smaller to match her slighter form.  The woman transformed into Amara.

The shifting of magic in the air was . . . it was like seltzer.  Bubbly and sharp where it broke against my skin.  But there was something different . . . there was a staticky quality to it.  Where the bubbles broke against my skin, instead of the light pop I had come to associate with anthroshifting, it stung, like jellyfish tentacles.

This wasn’t shapeshifting . . . it was magic.

“What the fuck?” I whispered, eyes wide.

The shift was enough to distract Karhi, and it gave Cailean the opening to get him off of Amara.

Karhi came off Amara easily, eyes wide.  He dropped the sword, his hands shaking.  I felt his immediate shame and alarm.  “Oh, fuck.  Amara—I’m so sorry.”

There were still tears on Amara’s face, but she wiped them away, shaking her head.  “I-it’s okay,” she said shakily.  “You didn’t know.”

Karhi stared down at Amara, eyes wide with horror.  “Holy fuck—an anthroshifter.  I almost killed an anthroshifter.”

But what I couldn’t stop focusing on was Amara’s neck.

The wound from Karhi’s sword hadn’t healed when Amara shifted.

The whole thing about anthroshifters is that they healed.  It took a lot of damage for them to not be able to just transform into a healed version of themselves.  Their skin and bones knitted to make new forms all the time.  And those new forms didn’t have injuries. 

There was no reason for Amara not to heal that wound.  She wasn’t badly injured.  In fact, as an anthroshifter, she would have had to actively think about not healing it.

But I knew that magic couldn’t heal wounds easily.  It took a lot of power to heal wounds.  And I knew there were mages who could mimic anthroshifting.

Cailean went to check Amara over.  She murmured apologies to her and promises that no one else would find out.

I moved over to Karhi while they did that.  I tugged at his wrist.  I could feel his horror at what he had almost done.

It was time to fix that.

I reached up and hugged him.  I felt him stiffen against me, but I put my mouth next to his ear, and murmured in Finnish to him.  “I need you to trust me.”

The horror was momentarily dimmed by my words.  He put his arms around me to pull me tighter.

“She is not an anthroshifter.  That’s a mage.”

I felt his confusion at my words. 

“She didn’t heal that wound on her neck.  It should be healed.  Anthroshifters heal.  It’s their thing.”

The confusion morphed into suspicion.  Behind the suspicion, I felt someone stronger.  Karhi already had a reason to doubt Amara.

“Please, just . . . take my word for it.”

I felt Karhi nod against me.  It was minute, but I felt it.

He pulled away from me, kissing me gently on the side of the head before turning to where Cailean and Amara were still talking quietly.

“Amara, I apologize,” Karhi said.  “I’ve never met an anthroshifter before, and it didn’t even occur to me.”

Amara nodded.  She sniffled, wiping her eyes again.  “I understand.  It’s rare.”

Karhi nodded.  “We’ve been lucky no one has come across us.  We need to get in the panic room.  Amara, after you.”  He motioned to where Cailean had been standing, working on opening the panic room.  He picked up his sword as he did.

Amara shook her head.  “I can’t get into the panic room here.  It wasn’t keyed for me.”

I felt Karhi’s suspicion set into stone.

“Really?” Cailean said, her brows furrowing in confusion.

“Yeah—Savita has been trying to fix it, but the magic is complicated since I’m not here enough for when the wards are renewed, or something.”

Cailean still looked confused, but she shrugged.  “Alright.”  She stepped to the lamp again and fiddled with something on it.

A moment later, I felt the static discharge of magic, and the wall next to the lamp turned into a door.    Cailean opened it and looked at us.  “After you.  It’ll lock once we’re inside and we won’t be able to get out.”

Karhi nudged me to go forward.  I glanced back at him but I felt the confidence in his head.  He knew what he was doing.

Well, I was newly finding out that the confidence was well-deserved.  I would trust it.  I was so far out of my depth here.

I went through the door first.  I felt the magic wash over me, searching me.  It disappeared the moment I was through.

I glanced back to see Karhi heading towards Cailean.

And then there was a shout.  Cailean crashed into me, and the door slammed shut.  I felt the magic snap into place, and it was just us. Amara and Karhi were locked out.