“Don’t expect me to help or tell you anything.” He resumed his sullen look. “I’ve warned you, over and over. Proceed at your own risk. Maybe losing a couple more of your friends will make you realize that the longer you stay here, the slimmer your chances of walking out alive are.”
He put his sword away and stalked off. I tried to follow, but he raised his right arm, motioning for me to stay put.
“Don’t follow,” he commanded. “Don’t tell anyone who’s beneath this mask, either. Many lives depend on it. Go look for your friend, if you want, but you’re chasing shadows, and you’ll end up swallowed by the darkness like everyone else before you. I did my job and warned you. Now leave me be!”
I could’ve gone after him. I could’ve insisted. But I definitely wasn’t going to get any more information from him tonight. The questions lingered in my head, swirling around like tiny migraines. I’d find the answers, one way or another.
I had some leverage over him now, at least. I knew he was the masked savior. He didn’t want the others to know. He’d saved us twice in our encounters with those daemons, and I had a feeling he knew what they looked like. He must have dealt with them before.
I’ll get you to talk, Lord Kifo. Your COs are suspicious as hell. Daemons are out snatching people. My friend is missing. And you’re running around, trying to keep me alive. Now I’m just more determined to peel those layers of mystery off you like the onion that you are.
He disappeared beyond the stables, and I was on my own again, surrounded by chills and darkness. His words replayed in my mind.
“You’ll end up swallowed by the darkness like everyone else before you.”
Who else came before me?
Caia
(Daughter of Grace & Lawrence)
We flew through the tunnel for what felt like half a mile before we saw light flickering at the end. The tracking spell shone brighter and moved faster ahead of us, and I knew we were on the right track.
“Blaze, I think we want to be a little more discreet once we reach whatever’s at the end of this tunnel,” I said, holding onto the thick spikes on his back.
He came to a halt, and I got off, swiftly pulling Blaze’s clothes out of the backpack while he morphed back to his normal self. He slipped into his combat suit and boots, and then we ran after the tracking spell’s amber light.
The tunnel opened into a massive underground space. The closer we got, the clearer our surroundings became. I grabbed Blaze’s arm as we reached the opening, and we moved to the side with our backs against the wall.
Thousands of iron cages were stacked on top of each other in a multitude of rows. It looked like a maze from our angle. There were dozens of footbridges above, connecting different levels of this enormous, circular hall. Correction Officers patrolled these overcrossings, occasionally glancing down. There were large iron pendants hung from the high ceiling above, and hundreds of candles burned on them, bathing the entire space in a warm orange light.
“I think we found the prison,” I gasped, still clutching Blaze’s arm as we took the whole structure in.
The prison seemed to go up at least four levels, hidden in the core of the mountain. This wasn’t the only tunnel leading into it, either. As I inched forward and popped my head out, I noticed a few more underground passages opening into the prison’s ground floor. Gates were mounted on all of them, and raised, for the time being. There were more cellblocks carved into the walls, accessible via several sets of narrow stairs and the footbridges above.
I stepped out of the tunnel, looking around and trying to understand why the Exiled Maras were keeping this place a secret. Blaze pulled me behind a stack of wooden crates nearby.
The tracking spell lingered by us for a while. It glowed brighter, until the light went out and both the pendant and bracelet burst into a puff of black smoke.
“What the heck?” I cursed under my breath, while Blaze looked around, then nudged me.
I followed his gaze and stilled, a sudden wave of relief washing over me as I caught sight of Fiona sneaking between two rows of cages. We waited for a couple of the Correction Officers above to turn their backs, then rushed after her.
“Fiona,” I whispered, and she turned around and paused, her eyes wide with shock.
“How… How’d you get in here?” She kept her voice low, grinning and thrilled to see us.
I hugged her tight, then grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
“You nearly gave us a heart attack!” I spat. “You’ve been missing for hours! Hansa got knocked out by someone, and when she woke up, you were gone and the tunnel had collapsed!”
“Shush, keep it down,” Fiona urged me, while Blaze kept watch. “I was going into the tunnel when there was an explosion and it collapsed. There was too much rubble for me to clear on my own, and I couldn’t hear Hansa on the other side, so I just kept going, hoping I’d find another way out. Instead, I found the prison… Is Hansa okay?”
“Yeah, just ashen, since you were gone!” I replied. “Well, she had a headache, too, but Jax gave her some Mara blood and she recovered. They sent us down here to find you!”
“Well, ta-da!” She chuckled. “Listen, there’s definitely something weird going on here! I’ve been touring the place without the Maras seeing me for about an hour now… I think. This prison is dodgy…”
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking around.
Some cages were empty, but most were occupied by Imen—the majority too weak and pale to even move. They were slumped against the metal bars, their skin almost translucent, dark rings around their half-closed eyes. I even spotted a couple of Maras, but they were unconscious and blindfolded, their arms shackled behind their backs.
“Oh… That’s what you mean,” I murmured, a chill running down my spine.
“I spoke to a couple of the prisoners, who looked a little less… worn out,” Fiona whispered. “But they’re quite delirious, didn’t make a lick of sense. They keep saying the ‘soul eaters’ are coming.”
“Avril mentioned ‘soul eaters’.” I remembered her and Heron’s account of their expedition to the west side of the mountain earlier. “She and Heron bumped into some Imen who weren’t from Azure Heights, and they mentioned soul eaters, too, before they were mind-bent into running off by some Correction Officers… What is going on here?”
“I don’t know, but this is definitely the prison Arrah was talking about,” Fiona replied.
“What are the chances you found her brother, Demios?” Blaze asked.
“None, so far,” she sighed. “The Maras keep moving around, and there are way too many cages in here for me to check on my own…”
“I wonder what the soul eaters are,” I said, mostly to myself, then looked at Fiona. “We need to get out of here for now. Whoever sealed that tunnel entrance, they wanted you separated from the group. We need to get back to the team and organize a proper infiltration here. Now we know where the prison is.”
“Yeah, can’t believe it was pretty much right under our noses,” she muttered.
Blaze motioned for us to go back behind the crates, just as a giant bell went off above our heads. A single gong, low and loud, echoed through the prison and made my stomach rumble.
“Midnight!” one of the COs above shouted, and pulled a lever on the wall.
We heard heavy chains rattling and metal screeching as we watched the iron gates go down and block the tunnels.
“Crap! Run!” I hissed, and darted toward the passage we’d come through, followed by Blaze and Fiona. It was too late, though. The gate had already hit the floor, its bars too close to one another for us to squeeze through.
“It’s okay,” Fiona whispered, and grabbed two bars, ready to pull them apart. The sound of more chains rattling made her stop.
We glanced over our shoulders and saw another gate, on the opposite side of the prison, being pulled up. It was a straight line between cages to get to it.
“Close it down! Close it down!?
?? one of the Correction Officers shouted above.
“I can’t! It’s jammed!” another replied.
Blaze pulled both Fiona and me behind the crates as more Maras started running around, in different directions.
“Oh, no,” I murmured, noticing the reason for their sudden agitation.
The air rippled in front of the open tunnel on the other side. I pointed at it, and my stomach twisted itself into knots as I realized what was happening. Some of the captive Imen who were still conscious cried out, banging their fists against the iron bars of their cages and begging for help.
“Get us out of here! Help us! Please! Make it stop!”
“I think those are daemons!” Fiona gasped.
We watched in horror as dozens of invisible creatures surged through the open tunnel. I caught glimpses of red eyes as they scattered between the rows of cages. My hand instinctively gripped Blaze’s forearm as one of the daemons stopped in front of a cage, and the lock was ripped off. It was discarded on the stone floor, looking like a piece of iron-colored clay, twisted and mangled. The cage door opened, and the Iman inside retreated farther back, horrified and covered in sweat, suddenly conscious and alert.
“No… No… Please, don’t…” he croaked.
The daemon grabbed him by the throat and pulled him out. It forced the Iman to open his mouth, pressing against his cheeks. Then it fed on him, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was that the invisible creature was extracting from the Iman. I could see feeble wisps of white energy coming out of his mouth and vanishing into the daemon, but I didn’t know what was happening beyond that.
“What are they doing?” I whispered.
“I don’t know, but we need to get out of here, fast.” Fiona put her shock aside and returned to prying open the gate on the tunnel next to us.
The daemons were doing the same thing all over the prison. I glanced up and saw that all the Correction Officers were gone. Did they know what was happening? Was this deliberate?
I glanced at Fiona, who was pulling on the gate’s iron bars, and felt the blood drain from my body in an instant as I noticed movement behind her. A daemon had snuck up on her.
“Fiona, behind you!” I shrieked.
She only got to look over her shoulder before she yelped and vanished.
“NO!” I screamed and darted from my hiding spot, followed by Blaze. “Fiona!”
“Caia!” she cried out from somewhere to the right, halfway down the path leading to the open tunnel. We ran after her, and I brought my lighters out.
I launched a couple of fireballs ahead, but I couldn’t see Fiona anywhere and I wasn’t even sure I’d hit anything.
“Fiona!” I screamed again.
“Caia!” Her voice faded into the open tunnel.
“No, no, no!” I ran faster and saw Blaze dart past me, the leather on his combat uniform stretching as he started morphing into a fire dragon.
A daemon rammed into him from the side, tackling him hard. I threw more fireballs out, aiming for the flickers of red eyes I could see. Blaze landed on his back, but it didn’t stop him from transforming.
“Oh, crap,” I blurted, then stopped and moved back.
Blaze exploded into full dragon form, and I heard shuffling on the stone floor around us. I analyzed the situation briefly, and it didn’t look too good. We were surrounded by several daemons, while the rest were busy feeding on the Imen prisoners. Fiona had been taken by a daemon and had vanished into the tunnel.
“Feeding,” I muttered, something suddenly making sense. I looked at Blaze. “Blaze! Soul eaters! The Imen called them soul eaters! The daemons—they’re feeding on the Imen! I think they’re consuming their souls! Their actual freaking souls!”
Blaze roared as he came around to protect me, while more daemons moved closer. The dragon’s jaws snapped open, and he shot a thin column of fire at the fiends. It was enough to make them move back.
One of them tried to claw Blaze’s long, scaly neck. It got swiftly crushed between his massive jaws. I shot more fireballs at the other daemons, and I heard them growl with discomfort before they scattered away. Even the almighty and invisible beasts didn’t dare go against a fire dragon, it seemed.
“We need to go after her, Blaze!” I called out.
He looked down at me, the invisible creature still in his mouth. I could see dark red blood coating his large fangs and chin, dripping onto the floor. He gave me a brief nod and moved to drop the dead daemon.
A powerful explosion tore into the open tunnel from which the daemons had emerged and through which Fiona had been taken. The blast swept over me and knocked me off my feet, as clouds of smoke and dust billowed and filled the prison. I coughed and felt the ground shake beneath me.
More blasts emerged—the tunnel was clearly being destroyed.
“Fiona!” I screamed from the bottom of my lungs.
Blaze growled, seemingly unaffected by the explosions. He took the dead daemon back in his mouth, then brought his claws around my waist and plucked me off the ground, forcing me to climb onto his back. My entire body was shaking, but I was able to hold on as he got up and stretched his wings.
I saw Correction Officers emerging above, staring down at us from the footbridges, fear embedded in their features.
“Blaze, we need to get Fiona back,” I said, my voice weak despite my strong desire to go after her. But go after her through which tunnel, since they’d just blown the right one up?
He didn’t listen. Instead, he flew straight toward the tunnel we’d initially come through. I screamed and ducked out of reflex as his hard dragon head crashed through the gate and we shot through the tunnel.
“What are we doing? We need to go after Fiona!” I cried out. His body shuddered, forcing me to hold on tight to the back of his scaly neck. He flew us out of the mountain and soared over the ocean, before doing a U-turn and heading for the infirmary level of Azure Heights.
I looked down and saw dust billowing out from the tunnel as we left it behind. I didn’t understand what we were doing, and my throat clamped up. Fiona’s capture replayed over and over in my head in excruciating detail.
“FIONA!” I rasped.
As Blaze continued to hurtle full speed in the opposite direction, it was all I could do to not break down.
Fiona
(Daughter of Benedict & Yelena)
I was completely immobilized. Something strong was holding my arms and legs still. I struggled against the daemon’s grip, but it barely huffed in response as it carried me through the tunnel and across the plains.
We were out of Azure Heights at this point, and I heard the explosions behind us. I saw the smoke and dust coming out of the collapsed tunnel.
Crap… How will dragon-Blaze come after me now?
Should he come after me?
My heart skipped a beat as I realized that I was getting carried off to the Valley of Screams. I wrestled against my captor, but to no avail.
“What are you?” I asked as we darted across the field with impressive speed.
I didn’t get an answer. Not that I was expecting one. I was too busy stifling my fear and trying to register as much of my current environment as possible. There had to be a way out. I had to focus and let my survival instinct do its job.
Blaze and Caia had been left behind in that prison, surrounded by daemons. My chest constricted as I wondered what had happened to them.
Were they okay? Were the daemons any match for Blaze if he shifted into his dragon form? They probably weren’t, but still, I needed to see them.
I had to get myself out of this mess.
The gorges rose before us, tall and filled with darkness, as the three moons shimmered above in their soft shades of orange, yellow, and off-white.
The creature holding me was stronger than I was—and that said something about the daemons’ physical capabilities. Not only were they able to cloak themselves, but they were also incredibly fast and powerful, unlike anything I’d ever seen before
.
We entered the gorge as screams echoed in the distance ahead.
“There’s no way I’m ending up as daemon chow,” I muttered, my right hand close enough to the knife I had strapped to my thigh. I’d already lost my sword when the creature had grabbed me in the prison.
I had to do something. The louder the screams got, the more my nerves stretched and snapped. The daemon was relentless in its run.
My index and middle fingers managed to pull the knife up from its sheath. I gripped the handle and gathered all the strength I could muster in that moment.
I jammed the blade into what must have been the creature’s arm around my torso.
It hissed and came to a halt.
I must have done something right. I wiggled and tried to slip out of its hold, but a puff of yellow dust was blown into my face. I sniffed, then coughed, and my entire body went limp.
A pair of glowing red eyes stared back at me, before everything started to fade away.
No… Damn it…
Whatever that dust was, it was meant to knock me out. I opened my mouth to protest, but no sound came out. I lost consciousness, and darkness swallowed me whole.
Harper
(Daughter of Hazel & Tejus)
By the time I got back to the infirmary, Hansa was already recovering, though slow and drowsy in Jax’s arms. He had a hard time letting her go, constantly checking her pulse and wiping the sweat from her face with a dry cloth.
Avril and Heron had also returned, and were briefing Jax and Patrik on their findings. The Correction Officer they had followed hadn’t taken them to the prison, but they said he’d been busy questioning the Imen that Caia and Blaze had previously interviewed, and mind-bending them into forgetting he’d ever been there.
“They have a secret agenda, for sure,” Scarlett muttered as she stared at the map on the table. “They could’ve just asked us for interview notes, if they really wanted to know what the Imen told us…”