David Wells - Linkershim

“Me too. When you get a chance to talk to her without others noticing, let her know that I haven’t forgotten about her, but that we’re going to be here for a while and I need her to be strong, I need her to avoid calling attention to herself and I need her to play the role of the obedient slave.”

“I will tell her, My Love. Jack has retrieved your armor and he’s also discovered people resisting the Lancers in this area.”

“I saw them, too.”

“He wants to know if he should make contact with them.”

“No. As much as I’d like to help these people, we just aren’t in a position to do so right now and I can’t risk Jack being exposed or captured. Our objective here is the destruction of the Andalian government and especially the king and his precious Crown.”

“I will tell him, My Love.”

“One more thing, Little One. I can’t touch the firmament with this collar around my neck, so let him know that I’ll have to relay messages through you.”

“Yes, My Love. Stay safe,” she said in his mind.

And then he was alone with his thoughts. “You still awake, Hod?”

“Yeah, it takes me longer to fall asleep here. I guess I just don’t feel safe.”

“I know what you mean,” Alexander said. “Tell me more about Andalia.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why the Lancers are starving out this province, for starters.”

“Well, that depends a lot on who you ask,” Hod said. “The government says it’s to protect the people from bandits and insurrectionists, but most of the people in the areas ruled off-limits say it’s to make it easier for the Lancers to collect taxes and dictate terms to the people.”

“Who are these insurrectionists?”

“Mostly it’s just people who didn’t leave their homes when they were told to. When they didn’t leave, the Lancers came in and cut off trade, so they turned to banditry to feed their families. The government points to the crime happening in the area as justification for the sequestration that caused the banditry in the first place.”

“So this province isn’t the first to be starved out?”

“No, this is the third,” Hod said. “It all started when Phane woke. The king decreed that all taxes would double to pay for the defense of Andalia against the pretender. The people living in the plains didn’t have much choice, but those of us living in more rugged areas mostly ignored the order. Lancers were sent to collect the taxes, but a lot of them never returned. The government responded by stirring up the people in the cities, telling them that the bandits were stealing children and other nonsense. When the people didn’t believe them, children started to actually go missing. It wasn’t long after that, that the people started demanding emergency measures to deal with the threat.

“That’s when the first sequestration started. Thousands starved, more were killed or sold into slavery, but the people in the cities didn’t hear about that. What they hear are reports of children disappearing, whispers that the bandits are eating them.” He paused for a moment, staring straight ahead. “It scares me the things people will believe, and without even thinking about it for a moment.”

“I know what you mean,” Alexander whispered, closing his eyes and wishing he could turn off the nightmare swirling around in his mind.

Days passed without event. Each night, Lancer patrols returned with more slaves captured in the forest. A few tried to escape; none succeeded. After a week of waiting, a wagon train arrived, each wagon fitted with a cage capable of transporting eight people.

One by one, the Lancer commanders herded the prisoners into the staging area, lining them up in orderly rows for inspection. A Lancer general walked the ranks, inspecting each prisoner. Behind him, an aide tallied the number of slaves captured by each commander and assigned every slave an estimated value.

As the general approached, Alexander assessed him. His colors were muddy and dark, devoid of humanity, absent of conscience. He might as well have been inspecting bushels of corn.

The general accepted nearly all of the slaves, touching his ring to their collar. The few he deemed to be of too-little value to warrant a place in his caravan were killed on the spot. Once the value of the slaves had been calculated, he paid the commanders and supervised the loading of his purchases into the wagons.

As the Andalians herded the slaves into the wagons, Alexander watched for Anja. She’d been loaded into a wagon with seven other young women. Alexander met her eyes as he passed, mouthing the only thing that really mattered, “I love you.”

Isabel woke slowly, lingering in that place between sleep and wakefulness, unaware of where she was until she opened her eyes and found herself lying on a cold stone floor, dull pain hammering in her head. She pushed herself up to her hands and knees, clenching her eyes against the explosion in her head caused by such sudden movement. She took a moment to breathe, willing her mind to clear and trying to focus.

Very deliberately, she got to her feet and assessed her surroundings. She was in a circular room. Magic circles were etched into both the floor and ceiling. A single window cut through three feet of stone and barred at the midway point provided the only source of light. Opposite the window was a heavy door without a keyhole or latch.

Details began to work their way through the fog of pain in her head. She’d stabbed Phane … but he’d survived. He’d subdued her with poison-a possibility that had never entered her mind. He was an arch mage, yet he’d made preparations to defend himself without magic.

She sat down, the realization settling on her that she’d failed because she had underestimated him. Alexander had warned her, but she hadn’t listened.

Then it hit her.

Her hand went to the Goiri bone under her tunic. It was still there. The pain in her head faded, replaced by all of the possibilities racing through her mind. Since she still had the cursed bone, it stood to reason that Phane wasn’t aware of it. Surely he’d have taken it from her.

A thrill of fear ran up her spine, quickly spiking into terror so powerful that Isabel found herself cowering on the floor, searching the empty walls for a threat she couldn’t name. After a few minutes she regained some sense of awareness beyond the unexplainable fear gripping her soul. The experience had been so intense and so unexpected that she forgot momentarily why she was afraid in the first place. It took a moment of searching her mind before she remembered.

The box.

It was sealed by magic. If Phane got the bone, he could open the box without Lacy-he would have the final keystone he needed to open the Nether Gate.

Isabel surged to her feet, ripping the Goiri bone from around her neck and dropping it to the floor, stomping on it, grinding it into the flagstone with the heel of her boot until it was nothing but powder. Then she carefully scooped up the dust and blew it out the window.

As the remains of the cursed bone swirled away on the breeze, Isabel was thrown across the room as the magic circle reasserted itself in the absence of the null magic field. All vestiges of the fear she’d been feeling faded away in an instant. Then she hit the ground hard and the darkness of the Wraith Queen gripped her psyche once again. She would have screamed if she could have spared the effort, but she knew that any distraction, any slip of focus could lead to ruin, allowing Azugorath into her mind and heart where the demon would take up permanent residence.

Isabel wasn’t sure how long she lay on the floor, curled into a ball, fighting to remain in control of her own free will … it seemed like hours. Moment by moment, she fended off the demonic invasion threatening to take everything from her until the will of the Wraith Queen broke and her push for dominion receded.