Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

Leesil heard someone shift at the back wall, perhaps sitting up as chains dragged slowly across the stone floor. At the scrape and hiss of a sulfur-tipped stick, he shut his eyes against the sudden light. Blinking, he looked to where Wayfarer—once called Leanâlhâm—knelt at the rear wall, her wrists chained like his own. She touched the small flame to a half-burned-down candle already rooted to the filthy floor by melted wax.

“I’ll get you out of here,” he said for maybe the thirtieth time, though now it lacked any conviction. “I’ll find a way.”

He told her this every time she lit the candle, and she’d always replied, “I know, Léshil,” using the elven version of his name.

This time, Wayfarer said nothing.

As a mixed-blood elven girl only sixteen years old, she had her people’s darkly tanned skin, overly large but slanted eyes, and peaked ears. She didn’t have their amber irises, though, as she’d been marked at birth with darker ones. They scintillated between topaz and verdant green in bright light. Like Brot’an, she was of the elven people called the an’Cróan (“[Those] of the Blood”), from the far-off eastern continent. Where her people’s hair was mostly white-blond, hers was almost the color of her skin. And she was no taller than a human girl.

All of these oddities were supposedly from being one-quarter human.

Leesil was half elven—half an’Cróan—with even slighter peaked ears and slanted eyes. His irises were amber and his hair nearly white-blond, like his mother’s. But even in Wayfarer’s current state—starved, frightened, and with dark rings around her large eyes—her strange beauty and maybe her frailty had their effect upon men.

On their first night locked away, the cell’s darkness became too much for her—as if she didn’t have enough terrors already. One younger guard showed pity when she’d cried out and begged for light. That one brought her a candle and a thin cedar stick, along with a small clay jar with enough sulfur paste to replenish the latter. The candle was lit only for meals, or when they thought such would come. They didn’t know whether this pity would last long enough for another candle.

And whenever the candle had to be blown out, Leesil listened to Wayfarer’s whimpering breaths in the dark. Even his attempts at comforting words didn’t stop this, at least not until later, when she grew so weak she couldn’t stay awake and dropped onto the floor stones. Now she sat with knees pulled up and her chin upon them as she watched the door without blinking.

Wayfarer didn’t look at Leesil or even at the cell’s third occupant chained to the far wall. In his guilt, Leesil couldn’t bear looking at her and focused on the third prisoner in the cell.

Chap might look to most like a silver-gray wolf, though sometimes his fur had an almost bluish tint in twilight. When standing on all fours, he was taller than such an animal and longer of leg. He lay with his head on his paws, with two manacles for a prisoner’s wrists chained to the far wall fully opened and bolted together around his neck.

It was too tight a fit, and Leesil often heard his oldest friend struggling to breathe.

Chap’s body was that of majay-hì, descended from wolves of ancient times inhabited by eternal Fay spirits during the supposed mythical war at the end of the world’s Forgotten History. But he was different—more—than even this. He was a Fay spirit born years ago by his own choice into a majay-hì pup—a new Fay-born in the body of a Fay-descended being.

Chap barely cracked open his eyes, and the candle’s light flickered in his crystal-like sky blue irises. He glanced once at Wayfarer before looking across the cell ... and words rose inside Leesil’s thoughts.

—She is not ... being given ... enough water—

Leesil’s throat was too dry to scoff. None of them was getting enough of anything.

He hadn’t always cared for Chap dipping into his head to find spoken words in memories with which to speak to him. Now it didn’t bother him so much. Chap had to see him to do this, which meant it happened only when the candle was lit.

In the past, Chap had communicated by pulling up any memories that he’d seen in someone at least once. It was his unique talent as a Fay-born into a Fay-descended body. Through bits and pieces of a person’s own memories, he made basic notions or commands reasonably clear ... or just manipulated those unaware that he was doing so.

Learning to use only sound—words—in those memories was a new trick.

—Ask ... the guards ... to bring ... more water—

Leesil stared at Chap. “Like I haven’t tried!”

“Tried what?” Wayfarer asked weakly, and then her gaze shifted to Chap.

“Nothing,” Leesil said. “You should rest while we wait.”

Wayfarer didn’t move. Chap closed his eyes with a coarse exhale. Leesil dropped his head back against the wall.

Nearly a moon ago, they’d all arrived by ship to seek one of the last two “orbs.” Some believed the Ancient Enemy had wielded these devices a thousand years ago in its war on the world. Its living and undead minions now surfaced to seek the orbs for their master, or perhaps just for themselves. The orbs could not be allowed to fall into such hands.

With no warning, Leesil and his companions had all been captured and arrested—except for Brot’an—upon arriving in the empire’s capital port. They’d been accused of multiple murders they hadn’t committed, and then Magiere, Leesil’s wife, had been dragged off separately.

Leesil, Chap, and Wayfarer had been locked up together, but they’d not seen Magiere since.

Chap had attempted to learn what he could by dipping any surfacing memories from the guards’ minds. Those men knew only to keep their charges locked up and fed enough to stay alive. All that Chap learned of Magiere was that she was in a cell farther away under separate guard. Worse was waiting for the only hint that she was still alive: the sound of her screaming.

That didn’t come often anymore.

Leesil hadn’t heard Magiere in five days or nights, at a guess. On the first night, when he hadn’t heard her by the time another meal came, he’d felt relieved that she might’ve finally been left alone. When the next meal came, he was lost for what to feel at all. At the meal after that, relief vanished, replaced with rising fear.

Helplessness was not something Leesil dealt with well. That Brot’an was the only one free didn’t help either. If the aging assassin had come up with a way to rescue them, he’d have done it by now. And Leesil kept waiting for any sign that his wife still lived.

A shriek suddenly echoed from somewhere outside the cell.

Chap’s head snapped up as his eyes locked on the door.

Wayfarer collapsed in a rattle of chains and clamped her hands over her ears.

Leesil’s wave of relief died quickly under anguish.

Magiere was still alive, but, as always, only her screams let him know this ... until this scream ceased more quickly than ever before. He sat up to stare at the door and then looked across the cell. Chap still watched the door without blinking, his ears stiffened upright. Several long, tense moments followed. Leesil wasn’t sure how long.

A metal clack echoed in the cell and the iron door squealed open.

Wayfarer thrashed back against the rear wall and then threw herself toward Chap. The chains stopped her, and Chap quickly shifted as far as he could to reach her. She got close enough to bury her face in his neck.

Leesil blinked and squinted as light spilled in through the opened door, and when his sight cleared ...

A robed figure in light gray stood inside the opening.

Leesil was too worn and shaken to say anything at first.