Light of Epertase 01: Legends Reborn (29 page)

She crawled through the scuttle hole at the foot of her mattress. Blog’s constant annoying laugh startled her.

“Tonight’s your night, Princess,” he said, still chuckling.

He tossed a hunk of animal leg at her that, like previous meals, was more bone than meat. More than anything she didn’t want to give him any satisfaction, but she was starving so she snatched the meat from the ground. While he stared at her like an oaf, she threw a fresh piece of wood onto her glowing embers.

He continued to chuckle but she ignored him, focused on her task.

With each puff from her cheeks, the embers grew brighter, taking hold of the wood with a small but wonderful flame. As she piled the remaining chunks of wood onto the fire, the flames flared into warmth. Blog and his damn laughing left through the gate.

She tossed the leg-bone into the fire until the meat blackened. With a small stick, she raked her feast from the flames to the dirt floor. She almost burned her lips as she ripped a chunk away with her teeth. A few meager bites later and the meat was gone, doing little to help her stomach’s ache.

Blog asked how her last meal was. To shut him up, she hurled the bone against the gate. He stepped back as it clanged against the bars.

After seemingly a lifetime of his creepy stares, Cyn appeared beside him. “It is time,” she said.

Blog opened the metal door and entered the cell. Alina struggled to her feet and backed against the opposite wall. Cyn entered the cell and stood beside Blog’s enormous frame.

“Get her, Blog,” she said.

Alina screamed, “Stay away from me, monster,” and flailed at his face and chest.

He continued to laugh while clutching both of her wrists with one hand. As he lifted her from the ground, she kicked his groin, but her foot screamed out in pain when it struck his metal skin.

“Quit playing with her, Blog,” Cyn said. He dropped her with a thud. Cyn tangled her bony, cold fingers into Alina’s hair and yanked her head backward. Alina thrashed with what little strength she had left as Cyn dragged her to the gate.

“You pull her, Blog,” Cyn said, dropping her head against the dirt floor. “You’re the muscles.”

Blog’s hand replaced Cyn’s and he yanked the Princess up the narrow, winding stairwell. Cyn followed, just out of kicking range.

They entered a well-lit room that shocked and hurt Alina’s weakened eyes. Blog grabbed her beneath her armpits and body-slammed her onto a table. The impact momentarily stunned her. He held one of her hands down while she clawed at his face with her other. Cyn tied her wrist to the table with some kind of pliable metal band. Alina tugged against it but it dug into her wrists until she couldn’t stand the pain. She tried to kick him while he tied down her other arm but her attempts were worthless. He finished by holding her legs while Cyn cinched restraints on them as well. Through her scant clothing the table was hard and cold like ice against her back.

Their leader, Scorne, appeared at her head. “Hi, P-p-p-princess,” he hissed. “Are you in for a s-s-s-s-urprise tonight.”

“Please,” she begged. “Let me go. I will give you anything you want.”

“What could you possibly offer me that my current employer could not?”

“I am to be Queen, future ruler of the free world. I have unlimited resources, riches beyond your dreams.”

“Used-to-be f-f-future ruler,” he said with a cackle.

Alina looked past him to the surrounding room. She was in a dungeon, or a basement. Another stairwell in the far corner of the room indicated they weren’t on the top floor and she feared how deep beneath the world’s surface she actually was.

Is someone above us? Will they hear my screams?
Even as she wondered, she knew there was no one and that her struggle was hers alone. She considered screaming just the same, but didn’t think she had the strength.

Scorne called out, “It is time. Come out and f-f-f-finish this.”

She whipped her head from side to side until she saw a shadow emerge from beside the stairs. She screamed, “Who are you?” though she didn’t expect an answer.

The figure stepped into the light. Her heart cried.

“Alina,” the shadow said. “Do not be afraid.”

“Father?”

Elijah approached Alina’s table, his face wearing more pain than promise. He looked like a man who carried all of Epertase on his shoulders.

Scorne screamed, “Do it now. The suns grow black. It is time.”

Elijah leaned to her ear and whispered, “Your mother loved you more than anything in the world.”

A tear ran down to his chin and then dripped onto the table beside her. “I am sorry for this, Alina. I love you, greatly.”

“Sorry? What are you going to do? Father!”

He pulled a knife from his waistband.

“Why, Father?”

Scorne grabbed her cheeks. “You s-s-s-stupid wench. Don’t you see? Your greedy father doesn’t want to give up the throne just yet. So now you have to die. Just like his parents before him.”

“What? What does he mean, Father?”

Elijah answered, “I’ve done things in my past that I’m not proud of. Over the years I have tried to make amends but I can never erase my past.”

“You can now. You don’t have to do this.”

He raised the knife with both hands tight around its hilt. Scorne stared into her eyes with an eerie grin as if waiting with sick pleasure for what was about to happen. He licked his lips.

Alina closed her eyes. “Please, Father, don’t.” She strained one last futile time against her restraints.

Scorne shouted, “Do it now or I … Unhhh.”

She opened her eyes. His grin faded into something that would be worth pity if it wasn’t on such a psychopath. He grasped his side and staggered away from the table. His metal skin scurried to cover his new bloody wound.

She turned her head to her father, confused. Blood dripped from his blade. His face wore an infinite sadness.

“I could never hurt you, Alina. I think I knew that all along…” He paused to catch his wind. “At least I hope I knew that.”

Scorne cocked his head to the side, licked his red fingers, and then snarled at the taste of his own blood. Elijah lifted his blade in defiance.

“I s-s-s-s-see fear in you, coward,” Scorne said. Metal slithered around his knuckles. He pounced, heaving his fist forward. Elijah drew back his blade but Scorne was too fast.

Alina screamed, “No!”

Scorne connected his fist with Elijah’s cheek, sending the King sprawling to the ground. She heard her father’s knife, his only chance, slide across the floor and beneath her table.

She stretched her neck so she could see her father. He scuffled across the floor on his hands and knees.

Scorne said, “Come back here and face me,” as he trailed her father across the floor.

With a last gasp, Elijah sprang to his feet. Scorne closed in. Elijah punched him, but shattered his own knuckles against Scorne’s metal-coated jaw. Scorne twirled away from the blow. The metal on his arm pooled to his elbow and extended into a point. Alina screamed for her father with the realization that his future was about to be erased. Elijah reached for Scorne’s throat, catching only air. The symbiot spun. His elbow plunged into its target, sinking between Elijah’s ribs. Elijah froze. He dropped his chin onto Scorne’s shoulder.

Scorne leaned his head back and kissed her father on his cheek.

“Please,” she cried.

Scorne twisted his elbow to Elijah’s excruciating moans and his own antagonizing grin. Elijah grabbed Scorne’s arm with both hands to stop the torture. His enemy ripped the weapon free, spraying blood into the air.

Alina cried out.

Elijah dropped to his knees with an accepting stare.
I’m sorry, Alina,
he whispered in his head.
Be strong, my little butterfly.

Scorne hissed, “I can hearrrr you, king,” and grinned his psychotic grin. He shoved Elijah to his back and then climbed onto his chest.

“I am getting good at killing kings,” he said.

Alina’s tears flowed as she watched helplessly.

Scorne cocked his fist back and hammered it down. Elijah’s feet bounced from the ground with each blow, until they lay flat and twitching. Alina turned her head away but could not escape the skin-crawling sound of metal clunking against meat and bone. She stared at the ceiling, trying to tune out the heart-wrenching sounds without success.

When she built enough courage to look at her father again, she saw what no daughter should have to see. Elijah lay on his back, breathing in shallow, rapid gasps. Blood bubbled from his mouth with each dying wheeze. He choked and coughed, sending blood into the air like a volcano. The murderer, Scorne, was nowhere to be seen.

“Monster,” Alina screamed without volume but with plenty of hate.

She turned her head away from her father’s broken body. Scorne startled her, standing, smiling at her side. He raised his knuckles to his lips and stained his tongue bright red. He took a deep quivering breath and his lips trembled with sick joy. His eyes rolled back into his head and his body shivered in apparent ecstasy. He exhaled short, stuttering bursts of pleasure.
No death is quite so sweet as a king’s.
He turned his head toward Alina.
Except maybe a princes-s-s-s-s-s-s.
He flashed his yellow-stained teeth.

Alina looked to the ceiling.
Rasi, I need you.

Rasi stood outside of the Lactnee warehouse. The streets were empty. The suns grew black as if in the throes of an eclipse. A slight ring of light peeked around their dark edges which illuminated the land in a dull haze. He considered hiding in the shadows until the suns were completely gone, but he no longer cared for stealth. He was there for blood and if his enemy saw him, it made little difference.

The doorway had three pieces of water-logged wood stretched across it to give the impression of vacancy. Rasi yanked the wood from the frame to the squeaks of bending and twisting rusty nails.

It was dead inside. The mostly empty warehouse smelled of glue and chemicals and even whiffs of burned wood after all these years. The interior was colossal, much larger than the exterior fascia would lead one to believe. Bird nests littered the open rafters. A small bird, maybe a sparrow, dove for Rasi’s head and swooshed past, narrowly missing.

The ceiling was more hole than roof, allowing the dimming suns’ light to shine plaid patterns onto broken-down, coal-burning machines. He couldn’t believe it; he thought he was so close.

It was empty.

It was a dead-end.

It was over.

Rasi slouched, defeated, and dropped to his knees on the soggy wood. He pictured Alina’s face, hoping whatever foul acts her kidnappers had planned would end quickly and without pain. He allowed himself one last hope that he would be able to find the criminals before the authorities did so he could dispense his own punishment for whatever they had done to his love.

Then, as he knelt on the warped warehouse floor, he heard the most wonderful voice in his mind.

Rasi,
the voice said.
I need you.

Alina?
He was breathless.

It wasn’t empty.

It wasn’t over.

She was near.

Rasi stood up, his chin raised and his chest puffed out. He shed his cumbersome fur, exposing his bloodthirsty straps. His teeth nearly ground their enamel away; his muscles flexed eagerly.
Where are you?

Oh gods
, she answered.
I don’t know. I’m in a dungeon. Or … Or … a basement.

Rasi’s anger poured out of him with a roar that reverberated through the vacant warehouse. He lost control of his senses. With a strenuous grunt, his straps overturned a giant machine. He crashed his fist through old wooden crates and kicked them into splinters. “Aaaaaahhhhh,” he screamed loud enough that the gods, along with Alina’s captors, must have heard.

Almost at the brink of insanity, he saw the faintest speck of brass on the farthest wall. The dim lighting struck it perfectly. It was there the whole time, screaming, “This way.” It was a doorknob. And it was everything.