It took two decades.
He had a younger brother, and I couldn’t imagine what he went through not being able to save him, having to watch him die in this place. Brock was the last survivor of his family. It pained me how alone he was and always would be. He never forgave himself for what happened, even though none of it was his fault. His parents were in the rebellion and their entire family suffered because of it. My father made sure of it. I knew it was why he never fully opened up to anyone. I knew deep down he was terrified—terrified to hurt like that again, to lose everyone he ever loved.
Peter let go of my wrist, and the lack of contact brought me back to reality and the task at hand. I knew he was transforming into whatever disgusting sea creature he had to in order to make it down the trench.
From the surface where we were treading water, the opening to the trench looked massive, like a black hole plopped in the middle of the sea. But I knew it would narrow the moment we started swimming. My body repulsed thinking about how I had to swim lower and lower until I was at the deepest part of the ocean.
I tried not to shake profusely while I prayed, erecting an air shield over my face and taking in my last breath of fresh air before I slowly descended into the depths below… toward the entrance of the prison.
FIVE
PETER
I wasone hundred percent certain that my entire body would be covered in bruises once I finally shifted back into my Advenian form. It took us three hours to make it down the narrowed opening of the trench.
I thought the Luxian Princess was supposed to be strong, but she was slowing me down to the point of concern. We almost missed the change of shift, which would have made swimming across the ocean for nothing. She flat out stopped moving all together for about five minutes, and I thought I’d have to shift into a larger fish just so I could push her the rest of the way down. It was at a spot in the trench where it narrowed to the verge of having to shimmy down, but she was abnormally tiny for an Advenian, and I knew for a fact she could fit.
The most annoying part was every time I—gentlymight I add—brushed my scales against her skin, the freaking pampered-know-it-all princess swatted me into the rock and coral so hard that my entire body was throbbing. I had to pay attention to the movement of water to make sure we were going at the same pace so she’d stop pummeling me into the walls of the trench.
By the time we finally made it to the entrance, I felt like Iwas one big swimming bruise. But regardless of how much I didn’t care for her, she was still helping me save my best friend.
Since it took us longer than anticipated to get here—for reasons that were entirely because of the princess—we didn’t have to wait long for the switch to happen. Dovelyn and I were pressed against the rock at the bottom, trying to make ourselves as flat as possible.
The end of the trench was met with black rock. It was so dark that even if we weren’t invisible, no one would have been able to see us. The only reason I could just barely make out the small details in our surroundings was because I shifted into a deep-sea fish—one who’s eyes could see in the dark. Even without a mirror, I knew I looked freaking hideous, and I was happy I couldn’t see myself.
The dark rock opened into an antechamber during the shift change. An air shield was the only thing separating the seafloor from the prison during it. The water bounced against the shield, begging to wash out the prison below, but it was the strongest shield in Advenian existence. It freaking had to be from all the water pressure. This deep, the water felt like it was crushing my scales. I had no idea how the princess was holding up her own shield, and I didn’t want to think about how much power she wasted during the swim down here.
We watched silently through the shimmer as the guards entered a cylindrical boat. Since their rotations were on a revolving schedule, and most of their shifts lasted weeks, only a few were leaving now.
Once the door slammed shut, ground users stretched the rock and coral, widening the trench to allow for the passage. It resembled a miniature version of the monorail in Tennebris, except this one was only a single compartment and had no tracks.
In a split second, the boat-monorail-thing catapulted toward the surface. We had exactly thirty seconds for the boat to breakthe surface, another thirty seconds for the old guards to exit and the new ones to enter, and a final thirty before the boat descended back down and the rock narrowed again. Then we’d have to wait twenty-four hours to do it all again.
A minute and a half was all we got.
I started to count as we pushed through the air shield separating the ocean from the prison, and it felt like walking through jello—not that I’d ever done that before, but a guy could imagine.
My pulse was jackhammering against my tiny body as I shifted into my spider form. I wasn’t under Dovelyn’s invisibility anymore, and I had to trust she could follow me through the passageways.
I also had to be really freaking careful because if I fell through one of the cages, I’d be done for. The floors that made up the hallways were solid concrete, but each cage was a floating crate that lined the walls. And below the crate-cages was a second prison.
I was freaking relieved spiders didn’t have ears, and I couldn’t hear the sounds coming from below us. The vibrations alone had my head spinning.
I attempted to focus my eyes directly above me and not look down into the prison-pit-from-hell, but I had so many freaking eyeballs in this form that it gave me an unwanted three-sixty field of vision.
It added to my paranoia of the place because there was no way I was going to get caught and end up down there. Nope. I’d been spinning so much web out of my butt to anchor myself—which was absolutely disgusting and felt like something I shouldn’t be doing in front of people—but the gross sticky stuff became my security blanket. Because there was no way I was ending up down there.
I rounded a corner and halted abruptly, stopping before the entrance of the pit. It was a circular hatch centered directly inthe middle of the concrete walkway. I knew the only way down was for one of the guards to open it—or if my spider body fell through the cracks in the grates—but I wasn’t taking any chances.
I was so relieved we were finally getting Sie out of here. This place was messed up, and it killed me knowing he already had spent so much time down here.
I focused my eyes and spotted him from across the way, and my heart sank. A flash of white caught my multiple eyeballs as he shifted inside his crate.
Frick. Frick. Frick.
They still hadn’t healed him, and he looked so much worse than when I first came down here. There was more blood, more cuts and more bruises—
The Luxian guard with fuchsia eyes stalked toward Sie’s cage. I perked up on my prickly legs—the freaking things kept sticking to the large amounts of web I made. I hated transforming into spiders—most times they were more annoying than useful.
