No, Shad and I are special.
I didn't expect her to think anything else.
I looked over to my soulless brother and smirked.And how is my little brother doing, eh?He was just in the beginning stages of his soulless journey. I wouldn’t let the weird emotions that came bubbling up inside of me, which continued to make me feel sorry for my brother and make me feel incredibly uncomfortable with the look Emma gave him instead of me—I shoved them down and reminded myself that it was Shad’s turn, his turn, to know what it was like not to have a soul, his turn to understand what I had been through. He had usedmysoul for his entire life; it wasmyturn. And the feelings that made me uncomfortable? Well, I just hid them away in my mind, not wanting to deal with them.
“Get him out of here, Ryker,” Emma said to her knight. In the moment of Emma’s realization, the knight had loosened his grip on me even more. I didn't understand what he thought he was doing; he, clearly, wasn't a good enough protector for her—all I saw when I looked at him was weakness. It was then that I slipped away, walking backward down the hall, ready to make a run for it.
You know you want me, Emma; do not deny yourself.Taunting her was, indeed, fun.
I thought that you were Shad. How was I supposed to know that you got a nose job?
I did fix my nose. I thought it was time for the world to see me as I truly am.
An uglier, less than worthy copy of Shad?
I laughed out loud,Oh, sweet, you thought I was perfect a few moments ago. But my, you do have a dark side to you, don’t you?I didn't like the darkness of the caves. I didn't like the darkness inside the Terrans who I had made soulless, but the darkness inside of Emma wasn’t truly tainting her soul, not yet anyway—the darkness inside of her made her seem more wild. I was into that. I smiled to myself; then I saw Ryker coming after me. Not knowing if he was a better runner than myself, I turned and ran, giving myself a head start.
Chapter eleven
She raced from her house the night of her parents' funeral. Her feet were bare, and her eyes wet with tears. The night was just dark enough for me to easily slide unnoticed into the shadows. She wouldn't be able to see me unless I wanted her to. I hadn’t seen her since the car accident. She fascinated me. It started out, first, as pure interest: observing an heir growing up and living in this other realm—still, a royal whom I had been having strange dreams about, even without meeting her. I needed to know who she was. Her life was so different from any other royal heirs before her. We were alike in that way. I had been locked up my entire life and never experienced court life, or much of any life for that matter. She had a life, but she didn't appear to have a soul. Once her parents died, and their soul-shielding had been broken, her melody was set free, and it was the most beautiful melody I had ever heard, which is what made me believe that she was, in fact, the one whom prophecy had foretold. I heard of the prophecy of old through one of Hava’s songs. I shook my head, not letting emotions gain control over me.
And I remembered:
I didn’t know how to get out of those dungeons. I knew the tales of the Dungeons of the Mist, a most wretched and horrible place under the twisted mountains of Haleston. I did not want to become familiar with those dungeons. I wondered, if Tarick and my father hated me so much, why I had never been sent there. It was said that the Traitor King Falcon himself had created the Dungeons of the Mist himself. The traitor lived so long ago which made me wonder if he had ever been real at all–or a made up story to scare children.
Moments were passing, precious moments. If I went up and out through the palace, I was sure to be captured. I looked at the mirror. The mirror was cracked and warped, and I wondered why it had been hung there, down in the dark of the dungeon’s hallway. As I focused on my face I held my breath. I’d never seen myself before so clearly. I was surprised at my reflection—I looked so much like him, like my father. As I was taking in my filthy appearance, I heard my name, like an echo, behind me. I turned around and saw nothing but the stone wall and the small hallway, darkened without a fire to light it. I took a torch near the passed-out guard, whom I had taken care of a few moments earlier and peered down the small hallway before me. It smelled even more vile.
The dungeon gates opened with the top of them scraping and screeching of metal on stone; an all too familiar sound from above me. I ducked into the small passageway, holding my breath and dousing the light of the flame. I walked backward in order to see any oncoming guards or soldiers. The voice came closer, but I still kept moving, slowly, placing one foot in frontof the other until I could no longer hear anyone. The silence felt fake and manufactured. I covered, then uncovered, my ears, and I couldn't even hear the usual noises echoing. I was tempted to light the candle in order to figure out where I was, when I started to hear the howling, and that was when I knew, when I understood, that I had just stumbled upon the Dungeons of the Mist.
Blast it all.
I tried to turn around, to walk back—but there were endless corridors and hallways. The screaming became louder; it was as if hundreds, or even thousands, of people were being tortured. The air was thick with death, and something else was there that made me want to vomit. The floor was slippery, at times, and at other moments, it was covered in filth of some sort– Sticks? But I knew it was not sticks making those sickening snaps beneath my feet as I walked.
It was when I was about to join in with the screaming that she appeared before me.
“Cadian,” she called to me.
I blinked because I wasn’t sure if I was truly seeing someone’s ghost in that hell of a place, or if I was actually seeing a living human being. All around her, the cave glowed with a green-blue light, her face masked by a cloak. I kept my focus on her, I didn't want to see what I had been walking through.
“Hello?” I called.
The lady walked closer to me, raising a hand, her long finger pointing at my chest. “The Ancients have need of you, Cadian, son of the Embran king.” Her voice was so melodic and familiar as she spoke, and there was no way it could have been. I had only been around a handful of people in my entire life—and I was certain that if I had ever met her, I would never have forgotten.
“Need of me? I am a soulless. No Ancient would want to do business with, or bless, me.”
“It is no fault of your own that you do not have your soul. It was taken from you, but you can have it back.”
“What? How shall I have it back?”
“You must listen, Prince. You must listen, and you must remember what I say.”
I turned, trying to make out her face, but I couldn't. It was as if she were trying to keep herself hidden from me. “I will.”
“You have been through much in your life, dearest. We have seen it, and we are not happy about what you have had to suffer, but—even so, you have been formed into who you were always meant to be.”
“What does that mean, exactly? All those beatings? The Ancients let them happen for some reason? That is not the way things should have been.”
A second figure appeared at that moment, a dark cloak also shading his face from view.
