Amandalyn
The blue light woke me. The glow unnatural in this dark cave I called my prison after so long. If the orb glowed, Tabor was close behind. I scrambled to the bucket on my hands and knees, eager to relieve myself before he arrived.
Once finished, I stood on shaking legs. Weak and useless, like my limbs were no longer strong bones and muscles. My body used the jagged cave walls for support as I walked the perimeter of my dwelling. The only time I dared to explore this prison was when the orb was lit. That meant my time was limited. Tabor or Selene would be here any moment. My palms ran over the peaks and valleys of the stone. They pressed at the wall, pulled at the edges—always looking for an exit. A crack, a portal, anything. I would not give up.
A shift in the air signaled his imminent arrival. A portal appeared so quickly I barely had time to throw myself on the ground before the cacophony of sounds from the other side hit me. Sounds, but no Tabor. No Selene. Only a vacant portal. I sat straighter.
Usually the portal opened and Tabor or Selene stepped through instantaneously. I staggered to my feet and my pulse accelerated with every inch I moved closer to the opening. Through the portal’s swirling sparks, I spied a flickering of warm hues bouncing around an otherwise dark space. The shouts and moans I heard only when the portal opened and Tabor visited continued without pause. What was happening outside of this cave? Did I chance running?
Yes. You must try. I stepped closer; close enough the swirling air licked at me. You are a pawn. With the reminder of Tabor’s end game in mind, I gathered my torn skirts around my knees and took one step. Then another. I chewed my lip and held my breath. One more step and…
I was out of one cave. And stumbling into another.
This cavern was nothing like the space holding me captive. The ceiling stretched as high as the walls protecting Montibello and tunnels branched out from this chamber in every direction. The warm light I’d seen from the other side were flames from barrel fires bouncing off the rocks.
A buzz of voices sounded to my right, down a dark tunnel, and I hesitated.
Go back or run?
“Why have you not found the gateway?” Tabor’s harsh voice ricocheted off the walls, coming closer.
The energy of the portal drew me backward, and I lifted my foot, ready to return to my prison before I was found out. Go back! He’ll hurt you!
“The witch did not merely play with magic, the spells they wove to stay—” Selene’s voice stopped abruptly, and the wind at my back died.
Run now! My brain shouted the directive to my legs and feet as I lurched around and found the portal gone. My little cave prison gone.
I ran.
Using the firelight to help me navigate the large chamber, I hurried in the opposite direction of their voices and toward the agonizing cries coming from the darkness down a passageway in front of me. I didn’t stop to hide or crouch; I simply ran. Straight through the center of the cave. Nickoli would have my hide for my lack of stealth. The further I went, the smaller the cavern grew. The ceiling lowered and the walls closed in until I was in a narrow passageway. Sweat dampened my forehead as the last bit of firelight faded, throwing me into darkness. Still, I kept going, even as the cries ahead of me became louder.
Fear wrapped me like a blanket. What was I running toward? What was I running from? I checked over my shoulder, then spun back around mid-stride and smacked into a jagged stone column in the middle of my path.
“Ahh!” I slapped my hand over my mouth to stifle my shout. With a sniff, I swallowed a moan of pain and sank to my haunches. My eyes burned and I slid my palm over my stomach and to my side until my fingers touched the blood that already seeped through my gown.
A whimper escaped my lips. “You will be fine,” I said beneath my breath. “Fine.” It was a scrape, a small cut, nothing to worry about. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I stood and continued toward the dull glow in an opening ahead.
I was a child. For all the unpleasant things that had gone on around me my entire life, I had been naive and sheltered by Nickoli and McClintock and the castle’s soldiers. By Skye and Cillian when they came to Montibello. By myself, my own mind. I’d refused to listen or concern myself with what was to come. I wanted to be a normal girl. A girl who loved horses and married a villager and…
Now, as I stood in the opening to another chamber and looked at what was spread out before me, I saw the truth. I saw what evil does.
Dark silhouettes writhed on the ground, their bodies contorting and balling up, as anguished cries rose. My stomach turned. The cavern floor was covered with them. Men? Something else? They appeared almost inhuman, the way they twisted about. I glanced around. There were no exits from this chamber. No openings in the stones to signal a passageway. I had to go back. Tabor would find me.
Something tugged the hem of my skirts and I nearly screamed as a weak voice spoke. “Wait.”
A dirt streaked, pale face lifted from the ground as I snatched my dress from the stranger’s fingertips and found myself staring into the most startling blue eyes I had ever witnessed. The person clutched at their head, their eyes not leaving mine, as another collective wail moved through the others.
I fell to my knees. “What are they doing to you?”
The body rocked to the side and the black cloak it wore—a cloak much like the ones the Semvon wore—parted and revealed a male torso. “Poisoning our minds,” he said. “You must help me.”
“Help you?” I skittered back and checked behind me. How had Tabor not sounded an alarm yet? “I cannot help you. I am a prisoner here too.”
“He will use us … all … kill the humans … find … way out.”
His low voice drew me closer. Leaning forward, my fingers reached for his face of their own accord. His eyes fluttered closed as my hand brushed over his cheek, then he froze, his ice blue gaze snapping to my face, at the same moment as the air was stolen from my lungs and I was thrown backward.
A Semvon blocked my view as the male I’d touched let out a roar and a pair of red eyes were the last things I saw.
Tabor
Despair roiled off every stone wall within our cave sanctuary. The constant anguish grew the ancient power locked within me. It filled me with a lust for war deep in my bones. A lust I had never known, but the darkness had. He coveted the horror feeding my soul. He hungered for it.
I made my way toward the mouth of the cave where the infected were situated. Semvon kept watch around the perimeter as pale, sick fae writhed on the ground. He infected my mind and bent them to his will. I had little to do with it. I no longer pulled my own strings. What control I maintained slipped inch-by-inch each day.
My visits with Amandalyn were the only things keeping me tethered to myself. I moved for the tunnel toward the rock wall that separated her cavern from the rest of our underground lair, already spinning a portal open with a flick of my wrist, when the witch came up behind me.
“Tabor?” she asked, like she was testing. Figuring out who I was currently. Myself? Or him? “How long until the fae succumb?”
With a sigh, I turned. “Patience, my dear Selene. They possess their own magic. Invading their bodies and bending their will takes time.” The humans were easy to control, they never stood a chance against him, but the fae, while easy enough to possess mentally, fought for complete physical control of their bodies.
“And the others? The ones that do not weaken enough to control?” she asked.
His power rolled around in my chest. His anger at her lack of faith boiled over and I went limp, defeated by his strength as they carried on their conversation. I was merely a bystander in my own skin.
“Why have you not found the gateway?” he asked harshly as he turned back from whence we came.
Selene’s face hardened. “The witch did not merely play with magic, the spells they wove to stay—”
I fell into darkness.
“Please, please let me go,” Amandalyn’s pleas chipped away at his hold on my mind, they chased him away. “Tabor?”
I clenched my eyes shut.
“What should we do with you, my little princess?” Selene’s cruel voice asked. “These creatures would love to dirty you up.”
Rage barreled up my chest and out my throat. “Enough!” I shouted. I stood next to Selene in a different cavern now. Two Semvon held Amandalyn by the arms, blood stained her gown at her side. Tears left dirt tracks down her pale face.
White lines appeared around Selene’s tight lips as her dark eyes scoured my face curiously. She moved closer. “I am surprised you still fight him, Tabor.”
My lips barely parted before heat sliced across my temple, the pain searing through me as a streak of malice skated down my arm. His power balled my fingers into fists. My eyes regarded the woman who had betrayed both her friends and her homeland, but I did not fight his will, I could not win. Selene smirked, as though she knew the battle raging within. She reveled in my suffering. Ribbons of black streaked across my vision. My control slipped, again.
“The girl is a weakness; we do not need her,” Selene whispered in my ear.
“No. She remains bait.” The words were his, not mine. “The Queen will save her sister over herself when the time comes.”
“What makes you so sure of this?”
“It is her prophecy. She will save her sister and I will take her soul.”