“Excellent. Stand back.”
The two males did as I requested, and I found the source running beneath my feet, boiling the rock. With a mental touch, I stole the magick in a smooth, sweet rush. Part of me realized, somewhat belatedly, that it didn’t hurt anymore, but instead of being relieved and thankful, that portion of my soul wept as if it had lost something precious. I ignored it; that was weak and would distract from my mission.
It took infinite patience, but I unpicked each rune, thread by thread. The unraveling took ages and more energy than I could’ve called on my own, without the Saremon spring that fueled their whole fortress. It was quite deliciously ironic that I could turn their assets against them. When the last ward puffed away in smoke, I withdrew from my working to find a pile of corpses. Both Greydusk and Chance were bloody; my consort’s face was battered and drawn with exhaustion.
“It took me some while?” I asked.
“Six hours,” Greydusk replied.
“Thank you for your protection.” I didn’t need to speak the words, but I could tell they meant a great deal to my two defenders. “Now let’s go see what the library’s got to offer.”
Chance opened the doors, and I could see in his movements that he was at the ragged edge of exhaustion. We all needed food and rest, and after I finished what I’d started, I would take care of my own. I became aware of my own weariness then, a burning dryness at eyes and mouth.
Regardless, I pressed on. Inside, rows on rows of shelves spread out as far as the eye could see. They were filled with books in all shapes and sizes, some bound in scales, others in what looked like tanned human skin. In the astral, the whole chamber glowed with magick, blazing from some tomes more than others. But no question, each volume in this magnificent library was valuable and powerful.
“Do you know how to get to the labs from here?” I asked Greydusk.
We had explored the rest of the complex. The spell casters had retreated, leaving the weak to fend for themselves. I’d expected to find them cowering in the library, but I was relieved that the mages had gone further still because I would have hated to fight in a room full of priceless grimoires. It seemed…barbaric. This way, I could seize the books and have them brought to the palace when we finished here.
He cocked his head, as if listening. “I drained a Saremon once. In his memories, there’s a story of a hidden entrance.”
“Then let’s search this place, top to bottom.”
Make It Quick
The library smelled of old books and musty paper. I wished I had time to examine the tomes, but that could wait until I confiscated them. Once they were delivered to the palace, I could research advances in the arcane arts to my heart’s content. Well, such as governmental duties permitted. It would take a while to get the city running in a respectable, orderly fashion again. The castes had been autonomous too long for me to see my reign beginning bloodlessly.
After a fair amount of investigation, Greydusk found the hidden exit. A row of shelving slid away from the wall, revealing the door. It was dark and cool within, eerily quiet as well. I peered into the astral and saw a shield of silence rune laid on the threshold, so whatever they did behind this door wouldn’t alarm the rest of the complex. That boded ill for anyone trapped in here.
As I stepped across, a boom shook the foundation of the whole structure. “What was that?”
Greydusk searched his stolen memories. “A failsafe. If the enemy breaches these protections, the stronghold falls.”
Behind us, magickal light snapped into place, barring our way. It was meant to shield the books from intruders and thieves I had no doubt, but it also prevented us from going back the way we’d come. There was a chance I could dismantle the spells if given time, but channeling that much energy might also fry my human body. Since I didn’t want to retreat, I discarded the notion. Nothing would serve but to press ahead and keep looking for my father. I thought it highly unlikely that the mages hadn’t left themselves another rathole, another exit.
“Are they running?” Chance asked.
“I suspect so. They need to regroup before they face me.” But it wouldn’t go better on different ground, unless they surprised me again, and I wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
Once I passed the rune of silence, I couldn’t hear the destruction behind us anymore. The Saremon might end up killing any survivors we had missed, which spoke to how they regarded their lower classes. If I killed these days, it was purposeful, not a casual result of mass destruction.
A long hallway lay before us, with doors on opposite sides as far as the eye could see. The corridors branched farther out, going left and right; this warren was worse than the prison where they kept their entertainment.
“The Saremon are really into experimentation,” Chance observed.
Greydusk nodded, apparently not realizing it was a joke. “They’re always looking for ways to add to their abilities. They’re not as physically strong as the Hazo, but their aptitude for magick is unmatched.”
I raised a brow, and he added, “Until your return, Your Majesty.”
Mollified, I strode over the dark tiles. Here, the floor looked like polished obsidian, etched with various runes. I stopped when I realized I could understand them. Skimming, I ignored the irrelevant areas of study, like pyromancy and divinations. Greydusk had stopped too and read the runes alongside me.
“Research?” he guessed.
“It’s as likely a place as any to start.”
I continued down the straightaway and cut left, as the runes had indicated. None of the doors were locked. Some stood open, as if the magicians had fled in great haste. Labs showed experiments in various stages of completion, arcane ingredients and odd machinery with sparking wires. I glanced at Greydusk, who wore a matching expression of bewildered awe—and that told me this wasn’t common knowledge among the other castes. There were cages full of strange, hybrid creatures, likely bred by the Saremon, though for what purpose I had no clue.
In one room, machines with knobs and levers with piles of copper cables connected to a weird black box emitted a low hum. It was like that for fifteen different rooms with still no sign of my father. Maybe Oz had been lying. If he dared…
“I’ve been following the cables,” Greydusk said, interrupting my thoughts.
“Oh?”
“I think you want to see this.”
I went with him, and I noticed that the cables went from the machinery to the black box, on through the hallways. Then I stepped into the room the Imaron indicated and time stopped. In all my centuries, I’d never seen anything like it. I couldn’t even imagine the purpose.
A man hung in a metal framework, those cables plugged into his flesh. At first I thought he must be dead, for they had cut open his chest and filled it with transparent liquid, and where his heart ought to have been, he had a bright, glowing jewel suspended in the solution. In place of flesh, he had glass casement, permitting the ones who had done this to him to see inside his sternum.
“What the hell?” Chance gasped.
That summed up my reaction, too. Even if he was beyond saving, we should cut him down. The compassionate thought surprised me; it wasn’t like me to care about the fate of random strangers, but that was my human aspect, I supposed. I wasn’t the queen I had been, but any version of myself was better than oblivion.
As I stepped closer, the man’s eyelids fluttered open, and I took that first look like a fist in the face. I knew those blue eyes. I knew this man. Oh, part of me didn’t. To that part, he was a stranger. But the other part of me remembered his French toast and his predilection for Panama hats. The human half of me surged forth with desperate strength. She had to be in control in this moment, riding the bittersweet reunion. Because I understood its importance, I didn’t fight; I fell back, and this time, the shift occurred without pain.
I reached out and touched his face, cupping his bony cheek. If they ever fed him, it didn’t show. He had the skeletal shape of one affixed to a cross, a martyr’s bones beneath his skin.
“Dad?” Despite Oz’s taunts, I hadn’t expected to find my father—and certainly not like this. He hadn’t aged, though he looked awful. This man appeared to be no more than five years older than me. “What have they done to you?”
His lips moved but no sound resulted. Frustration flashed in his thin face. A copper wire was plugged into his throat and he turned his head slightly toward the knob next to it, trying to tell me something. I clicked it on and adjusted it.
His voice emerged from a speaker on my left, tinny and scratchy. “You have to get out of here before the magister returns.”
All Saremon were mages; that wasn’t a helpful distinction. “Which one?”
“The others call him Oz, but I don’t think that’s actually his name.”
My hands fisted in impotent anger. “He’s the one responsible for this?”
“Yes. Go.”
“Will it hurt if I unplug you?” I asked.
For the first time, hope dawned on his desperate features. “Hurt, yes. Would kill me. I can’t survive outside this contraption.” And by his tone, he didn’t want to. He wanted to be free like the dearest of unfulfilled dreams.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” It was impossible that he would.
I had been a child of seven when the demons took him, skinned knees, gapped teeth, and mousy brown braids. My father, Albert Solomon, took a closer look then, studying my face with ferocious concentration. His eyes—so like mine—widened. A pained sound escaped the speaker.
“Corine?” He didn’t wait for my confirmation. “You’re all grown up. Have I been here so long?”
An eternity for him, no doubt. Over twenty years in the human realm.
“It’s me,” I said softly.
“Oh God, you shouldn’t be here. How’s your mother?” The same sweet love I’d remembered between them sparked in his blue eyes now, undimmed by time’s passage or the impossible distance between them.