She had just moved into the corridor when she felt a trail of magic approaching. Cyrene ducked back into the chamber.
“Don’t know why we even have to patrol these hallways,” the first man grumbled.
“Shh,” the second hissed. “You know what she did to the last person who dissented. Fed him to those…things.”
“I know. I know. Just seems pointless. The fighting is going on in Byern. When are we going to move out?”
“When she’s ready,” she snapped. “Now, stop it.”
Cyrene counted to three after they passed her door and then stepped back out on silent feet. She swept their feet out from under them, causing one to stumble and the other to fall to a knee.
“What the—”
Cyrene effortlessly pulled away their voices so that the rest of whatever he was going to say was gone. The woman steadied herself and came toward Cyrene. But even her feeble blood magic was nothing compared to Cyrene’s well. She needed it to be over quick though. She used the smallest energy blast she could manage. It might be a bastardization of her spirit magic, but it did the trick. The female guard fell to the ground, knocked unconscious.
The second guard just held his hands up. “Please, don’t kill us.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Cyrene said.
“She’ll…she’ll punish us if she finds out.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
And she was. She knew that Malysa was merciless.
“Do you know a man named Fenix? Tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair.”
“Malysa’s goon?”
“Yes,” she said cautiously. “Where would I find him?”
“Will you let us go if I tell you?”
“Yes,” she promised.
The man relaxed. “Three levels up in the east wing. He might not be in his room now, but he records her correspondence there.”
“Thank you,” Cyrene said with a sigh and then promptly knocked him out.
He was going to wake to up with a killer headache. Both of them were. She dragged them to the chamber and then stared down at their crumpled bodies. She knew what she had to do. And hated that it had come to this.
Closing her eyes, she delved into the man’s mind first. It was guileless. She felt slimy as she located their conversation and erased it from his mind. She shuddered as she withdrew and did the same to the female guard. She couldn’t let it get back to Malysa that she was here. Even if it made her feel horrible for doing it.
Cyrene measured herself against the woman and decided they were close enough in size. Cyrene stripped the guard’s black uniform off of her body and changed into it. It was definitely meant for someone taller and a little more filled out in the chest area, but it would be serviceable for what she needed.
She put an inverted shield around the pair and hoped that they got out before anyone noticed them missing. She didn’t want them to die for the misfortune of guarding these abandoned hallways.
But she wasn’t going to wait around either.
She straightened her spine and exited the chamber. She angled back the way the guards had come, uncertain if it would look conspicuous that she was alone instead of in a pair. Not that she had a choice.
The corridor she was in dead-ended fifteen minutes later into a large, open room. Guards milled around, chatting and otherwise goofing off. It wasn’t what she’d expected. It was so…human.
“You new?” a man asked, sidling up to her.
She nearly jumped and kept her head low, tugging on her hat, as she glanced at the other guard. “Yeah. Is it that obvious?”
“A lot of the new ones who come in from Byern seem surprised that we’re not torturing people daily. It’s pretty much the same work we were doing there, just less daylight. You’ll get used to it. My friends call me Ace.”
He held his hand out, and she shook.
“Haenah.”
“How long is your rotation?”
She swallowed. “Supposed to be three months, but I didn’t think any of us would be here that long.”
He snorted. “Let’s hope not. I want to finish and get out of this hellhole.”
Cyrene was trying to figure out how to extricate herself from this conversation and head up three floors to wait for Fenix when a captain of the guard appeared out of a set of stairs.
“All right, ladies,” the woman barked. “Let’s form up. Full contingent needed upstairs. Now!”
Ace groaned. “Not another one!”
“I didn’t hear you,” the captain growled.
Everyone stopped complaining and began to form into two lines. Cyrene panicked. She couldn’t avoid following them upstairs. It would be too obvious if she just didn’t go with them. But, if they started to investigate too closely, she wouldn’t pass muster.
Ace tipped her head to the back of the line. “Come on, Haenah. I’ll show you the ropes. You really don’t want to see this.”
No, she really didn’t.
She wondered if she would be able to duck out, unnoticed, along the way. Maybe if she used Ace as a distraction. She was putting together a dozen contingency plans as she followed him to the back of the line. The soldiers began to march, and she quickly picked up the steps. She’d learned enough dances in her life to be able to figure out a basic march. Though Ace had given her a strange look when she began.
Creator, this was going to be bad.
They marched straight up the stairs. One floor. Two. And then stopped on the third. Her heart thumped in her chest. They were on the right floor. If she could just get to the east wing.
But, of course, the guards began to march off toward the west wing of the cavernous compound. She glanced back once in frustration before continuing onward with the guards. She would just get through this and then have all the time she needed to find Fenix. Still be back before her army marched out again in the morning.
Then she entered the next room and froze. Ace gripped her arm and hurried her forward, or she might have stood there all night with her mouth agape. The center of the room was hollowed out for twenty or thirty feet in a large pit the size of an amphitheater. The floor was covered in bones. Human bones.
Her stomach turned at the sight. What the hell had Malysa been doing up here all this time?
“It’s not going to get better from here, kid,” Ace said. “Wipe that look off your face.”
Cyrene did as she had been told. She let her face go blank and formed up into the third row next to Ace. She guessed there were about two hundred soldiers within the mountain. All of them staring down at the pit. The anxiety permeated the room, covering it like a thick blanket.
Commands were issued, and everyone came to attention.
Then, like a cloud of darkness, Malysa appeared.
She strode in through a side door with Merrick and, to Cyrene’s shock, Fenix at either of her sides. She swallowed hard and tried to blend in as best she could. Even if Malysa could detect her magic, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. Cyrene could feel it on everyone here. The blood magic. And she hoped hers would be masked enough by it all.
“Welcome,” Malysa said with a cruel smile. “I know that many of you have complained to your superior about my little…demonstrations.”
Cyrene could sense everyone still further.