Page 47 of Vasmora

I remembered Zevander telling me about the unusual creatures, like fireflies, but aggressive in the way they swarmed and attacked.

“He told me that the most effective means of overcoming the fear, was to watch it die slowly and helplessly. To remind myself that even the most vicious creatures can be made weak. The poor celaestriosz bared its teeth, snapping at me every time I drew close, and I knew if I’d opened that jar, it would’ve attacked me. Wretched little beasts that they are. Instead, I watched it starve or run out of air. Can’t really say what came first. Its wings withered, eyes growing vacant, until, at last, it died.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her staring off in thought. “What a thrill while it was alive, snarling and snapping its teeth at me. This wild, violent thing trapped by nothing more than glass and a child’s will. What a terribly dishonorable death, and yet, I gleaned no joy in it. In fact, I mourned it.” After a moment’s silence, she stepped around me to my other side. “Years later, he captured a newborn charnelyth for me. Another creature I feared. Suffered terrible nightmares, imagining the beast consuming those I loved. Again, the objective was to watch it die, but instead, I fed it. Dead things, mostly. Rats. Golvyns. Anything I could capture. Until it grew. And grew. When it consumed the child of our housekeeper, not much older than myself, my father decided it needed to be killed, but I protested.” She buried a cruel smile into her cup as she tipped it back for a drink. “So, my loving father had this pit constructed.” She lifted a lock of my hair, toying with it. “In the days of the gods, charnelyths were known to serve the Lunadei. Nocturnal creatures that much prefer the cold to our unbearable heat. The sight of gold, often worn by the Soladei triggered them to attack.”

Again, I glanced back toward Melantha, which was when I noticed an intimidating contraption being rolled into the room by two brawny Orgoths, one of them still sporting the strange rootball over his hand. Not far from Melantha, they stood the golden T-shaped structure with metal loops at either side. While I may not have been familiar with it, its purpose was clear.

To confine.

Beyond the contraption hobbled a familiar figure, the sight of him squeezing my lungs. Dravien walked bent forward, his arm tucked against his chest, fingers clearly broken, as they stuck out at odd angles. One of his eyes was so swollen, I couldn’t make out an eyelid, at all. His ear had been torn away. Not by the smooth cut of a blade, but frayed as if by sharp teeth, and the exposed upper half of his body bore bruises, burns and cuts. As if he’d been tortured every day of our capture.

“Ah, the traitor has arrived, at last!” Loyce turned toward him, smiling the way she might have greeted an old friend. “How wonderful that you could join us, Dravien.”

I swung my gaze the other way, eyeing a doorway at the far end of the room, where only one guard stood posted. How far might the cistern be from there? Could I navigate to it on my own before one of them captured me?

Loyce waved her hands toward the contraption, and the two meaty Orgoths lifted Dravien up, eliciting an outcry of pain as he was strapped into the metal loops.

The protrusion of ribs showed he hadn’t eaten much, his skin paler than when I’d seen him last.

“Please … general. I’ve … told you everything … I know.”

“Yes, yes. You’ve been very helpful in that regard. But this punishment isn’t necessarily for you. Though, you will be subjected to suffering.” She smiled over her shoulder at me. “It’s for our guest, who seems to be quite resistant to death and dismemberment.”

If only I’d had my whip right then, I’d have shattered that smile on her face. “And you think that you will appeal to me somehow by tormenting someone I hardly know? I feel nothing for him.”

The humor in her eyes faded. “Well … that is a problem. See, I thought …” She pointed to him, then to me. “I thought the two of you had bonded somehow, in your quest for survival back in those woods. I see I was wrong. Very wrong.”

Something about her behavior had my skin crawling. The same sensation I imagined one might feel just before the strike of a snake. I stood guarded, waiting for the trickery to reveal itself.

“Guards, send him back.” Hand waving in the air, she sipped her drink again. “This is pointless.”

As the guards stepped toward him, she threw out her hand.

“Unless …”

Loyce tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, eyes gleaming with sadistic amusement. There it was. The deception I knew slithered beneath her skin. “Melantha, perhaps you can help me out with something.”

The redhead shook her head. “No. I refuse.”

“Refuse, and you will suffer the same fate as poor Dravien. I’m certain your lush accommodations are far more comforting than the tight quarters of an oubliette. Forgotten. Starved.”

“General, listen to me.” Melantha wrung her hands. “Whatever wrath burns inside of you would be best channeled for what’s to come. The Umbravale will fall. Our world will be smothered by a rampant plague. And none of this will matter.”

Loyce narrowed her eyes on the woman. “You could be executed for such claims.”

“Then, execute me. They are true nonetheless.”

The general rolled her shoulders back and took another sip of her drink, before handing it off to one of her servants standing nearby. “Mad mages have raved about plague for centuries. It is as certain to me as this floor collapsing at this very moment and swallowing me into the depths of Nethyria.”

“It’s true,” I cut in. “I’ve seen the mortal lands. Humans turned creatures. Flesh eating monsters.”

Loyce sneered. “Yes, that sounds about right for the mortal world. The Umbravale has stood for centuries against your diseased kind.”

“Then, why did you help Akmyrios and Captain Zivant capture the girl?” Melantha’s acerbic tone left no room for denial. “You were going to sacrifice her for the final bloodstone. To strengthen the Umbravale.”

“Yes, and if that bumbling mage had been successful, Zevander might be here now.” She turned toward me. “My priorities have changed. They changed the moment she let him fall,” she said, pointing a finger toward me that I’d have given anything to be close enough to bite off.

Melantha shook her head, lips pulled tight with disgust. “Wrath has blinded you.”

“So it has. Now, you will do as I’ve commanded.”