‘Please!’ Annev pleaded. He reached for her, his fingertips grazing her white sleeve. She whirled, flames flashing, and cracked his skull with her torch.
Annev’s vision blurred as his hopes for the future – for anything – vanished before his eyes. He collapsed to the floor, the back of his head striking the stone flags, and the light around him faded into silence and darkness.
Chapter Sixty-Three
The ground was wet and cold, and when he opened his eyes he saw the stone floor was covered with blood.
His blood.
Annev sat up, shivering, and found he was naked. The bloodied clothes he’d worn on his avatar mission, his undergarments, his water bags – all gone. He curled up for warmth and was startled by the thump of his stunted forearm against his thigh.
Right, he thought, bitter. That’s why I’m here. He rubbed his naked skin and shivered again, head pounding. Wherever here is …
He peered around at the dimly lit cell. The room was about fifteen feet square and, unlike the halls he had traversed with Myjun, the stone beneath him felt as rough-hewn as the walls. An iron door was set into the wall opposite him. It had a tiny barred window, which was covered by a metal plate on the other side.
A few feet behind him, a crude staircase had been carved into the back wall, its notched and broken steps leading to a rusty trapdoor. A trickle of luminous golden liquid seeped from a small crack, faintly illuminating the room as it dripped onto the back wall, spiderwebbing down to drain into a small hole at the back of the cell. Annev pulled his bruised body over to look at it.
The iridescent white-gold liquid gave off a rainbow-hued light. It dazzled as it trickled down into the earth, sparkling violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red … but the drain still smelled like a sewer.
He pulled himself back into a ball at the sound of footsteps, then the metal plate covering the window slid back. Annev looked up over his knees to see Master Narach’s pinched and wrinkled face. The man sneered, a hissing gash of missing or broken teeth.
‘You’re awake.’ He squinted into the cell. ‘Just as well, I suppose.’
‘Why am—’ A fit of coughing overtook Annev and when it subsided, he licked his cracked lips and tried again. ‘Why am I here?’ He knew the answer, but wanted to know what the ancients intended to accuse him of.
‘There will be a trial,’ Narach said, craning to get a good look at his stump. The man nodded, apparently satisfied, then spat through the bars of the window.
‘Son of Keos,’ he muttered, and slammed the metal plate shut.
Annev got to his feet, groaning, then brushed his fingertips along the back of his head, exploring the sticky scab on his skull. His fingers came away with only a tiny smear of crimson, but his head still throbbed and the rest of his body felt crusted with the dried blood.
Annev looked up at the trapdoor above his head, wondering.
It couldn’t be that easy … could it?
He forced himself up the carved stone steps and prodded the iron door. There was no handle, and the whole thing looked rusted shut.
Annev climbed another step, turned around, and set his back against the trapdoor. He slowly extended his legs, pressing his bare feet into the cold stone of the stairs, and heaved.
Nothing.
He turned to re-examine the door. Up close, he could see the tiny hole through which the golden fluid was leaking, slipping around the edge of the rusty trapdoor. He brushed his finger against it, tentative, and felt the burn of hot and cold, ice and fire. He jerked his hand back, trying to shake the drop off, then examined his fingertip: a thin golden film remained on his skin, which crumbled to ash and smoke when he rubbed it.
Bloody bones. I won’t be drinking any of that.
Annev backed down the stair and paced the floor for warmth until the rough contours of the stone began to hurt his feet and he had to sit, huddling for heat as time crept by.
I must be deep beneath the Academy. Even lower than the Vault level Myjun took me to.
Myjun.
Any chance of a future with her had ended the moment she saw his stump. The look on her face … He shuddered, remembering how horrified she had been.
She was just scared. If she’d had time to think, if I’d told her earlier …
But he was lying to himself. Seeing her face – seeing her genuine revulsion – had proved what he had feared all along: Myjun could never see past his deformity, and she would likely never forgive him for lying to her.
His life was over. His arm was gone. Sodar had left, Myjun had spurned him, and it was only a matter of time before the ancients and masters executed him. The only thing that could make it worse was if Kenton accused him of using and possessing magic. Then, instead of just being stoned, he’d be beaten, blinded and tortured. If he survived having his eyes gouged out, a multitude of horrible deaths awaited him. The last person accused of witchcraft had been boiled in oil before finally being impaled on a pole.
Annev’s stomach twisted in a knot and vomit rose in his throat. He scrambled over to retch into the drain, bringing up stomach bile but nothing solid. He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and crawled over to the base of the stairs.
I should have left with Sodar. He was right about everything, and he let me go anyway. He let me learn it for myself. Myjun will never accept me for who I am, and the Academy will never forgive me for lying to them.
‘Stop whining, Narach. Be thankful they gave you a new Master of Curses.’
‘Kenton?’ Narach said, clicking the lock open with his key. ‘He’s useless. I’ll be dead before he manages to learn anything.’
Annev woke at the voices, wiped his eyes, and curled himself back into a ball. There was a squeal as an unseen drop bar was lifted, and a shriek followed, much louder than the first, as the iron door was yanked open.
Master Brayan stood in the doorway holding a torch aloft, blinding Annev with the light. He lifted it high and walked in as Annev covered his eyes with his arm, waiting for his vision to adjust. When it did, he found himself staring up at Brayan’s bear-like figure and Titus’s cherubic face.
‘Annev!’ The blond boy carried a heavy wooden pail and splashed water on the floor as he moved.
Brayan glared at Narach’s skeletal figure in the doorway and then at Annev. ‘So,’ he said, speaking slowly, ‘do you thirst?’
The phrasing of the question puzzled Annev, but he nodded.
‘Do you thirst … for water?’
Ah, Annev realised, I’m a Son of Keos now. He’s asking if I want water or blood. And if I said blood, what then? Would he snap my neck and save me the humiliation of a trial, or would he slice Titus’s throat so I could drink?
‘Water,’ Annev whispered.