Page 13 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams (Fated to the Sun and Stars #3)

Morgana

“ Y ou mean you’re not allowed to see your family ever again?” I ask incredulously.

“No. You have to act like they’re dead or something,” Lafia’s voice floats up through the grate. “They try to avoid posting clerics anywhere close to where they grew up. And if you ever run into someone from your family, you’re both supposed to pretend you don’t know each other.”

Her voice is flat, ground down by reliving some of the worst things the Temple puts acolytes through. In the last few days, our whispered conversations between the cells have kept me sane, and I suspect the same is true for Lafia. Still, I may have pushed too hard with my questions.

“I’m so sorry, Lafia,” I say.

Being shut away from a family I couldn’t remember was bad enough, but being taken from a family you love and being expected to forget them seems unbearable.

“It’s not your fault,” she replies.

“I admire you, though,” I say truthfully.

“They tried to make you totally dependent on the Temple, completely brainwashed into loyalty and obedience, and you still came out of it able to recognize something was wrong about the lies they were feeding you. It took the truth basically hitting me over the head for me to even begin questioning things like the potion my nursemaid gave me.”

As the hours and days have stretched on, I’ve told Lafia more and more about my life. Nothing that Caledon would want to torture out of her, of course—I wouldn’t risk that. But plenty that I never thought I’d willingly tell a cleric.

“But that makes sense,” Lafia says. “It sounds like she actually?—”

She stops mid-sentence, interrupted by the clunk of a door and several sets of footsteps, and lets out a sharp gasp. I know she’s frozen with terror, wondering which of us is about to say goodbye to the other, because that’s exactly what I’m feeling too.

By the time the footsteps stop in front of my cell, my heart is hammering against my ribs. The barred opening at the top of the door darkens for a moment, and then a voice sounds through the gloom.

“Didn’t I say I’d come find you? I always keep my promises.”

Those words—an echo of ones spoken to me in a dream—hit me like a lightning bolt. The heart that was hammering in my chest a moment ago skips a beat, and I release a sound that’s half sob, half delirious laughter.

“Leon?” I gasp, not daring to believe it might be true, and at the same time knowing, deep within me, that this is how it was always going to end. Him coming to save me was as inevitable as the rising sun. There was no other possibility. Not where Leon is concerned.

“It’s me, actual flesh and blood this time.”

He says my name so tenderly, it’s like a balm on my battered soul. His words are followed by a deep rumbling from the earth. My whole cell shakes, and I know what’s coming.

The cell door is thick, and it takes the floor splitting clean away from the frame for a big crack to finally run up the side of it.

No human, no matter how powerful, could use their terrial magic on a door reinforced with dimane, but the Temple forgot to take into account fae when they built these rooms. It only takes Leon and his soldiers a few minutes to pull the loosened sheet of metal out of the wall .

When I see them all standing there in the doorway, I have to fight not to burst into tears.

The weeks—even months, I think it may have been—that I’ve been captured hit me all at once.

I see myself through their eyes: crumpled, filthy, and bloody on the floor.

It makes all illusions of bravery I have break open.

I’m nothing but a terrified, hurting child, desperately relieved she hasn’t been forgotten.

“Phaia, get those chains off her,” Leon orders as he closes the gap between us in two long strides.

He crouches down and pushes the hair from my face, his thumb wiping the stray tear that’s escaped down my cheek.

It’s been so long since I’ve been touched by kind hands that I’m hardly surprised when more tears well up instantly.

“Don’t cry, princess. It’s over now,” he says. His eyes fall lower, taking in my bloody fingertips and the red stains on my shirt. His hands reach out to brush the fabric, and I flinch. His eyes, so soft and inviting a moment before, darken with rage. “My darling, what did they do to you?”

But before I can answer, Phaia is gently taking my wrists.

“Sorry, Ana, I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.”

She wedges something small and sharp into the hinges of my cuffs. A stone, I think. Then she holds my arms away from my face, and there’s a sudden ping as the hinges snap open.

Losing the weight around my hands makes me feel oddly unreal, like I could float wrist-first off the ground. I suppose I’m a bit delirious, and I feel even more so when Tira kneels beside me, pulling me into a hug so tight the breath leaves my body.

“I’m so sorry, Ana,” she squeals. “I’m so sorry I let us get into that stupid fight and?—”

“We need to go,” Damia snaps. “Even if they didn’t hear us destroying the door all the way down here, it’s only a matter of time before they find the bodies.”

Leon wraps his arm around my back and carefully starts to lift me, but I put out a hand to stop him.

“Wait. We can’t leave without Lafia.”

“Who?” Stratton asks .

“In the cell beside me. The Temple threw her down here when she worked out Caledon’s a solari.”

Leon hesitates.

“Please,” I beg. He meets my gaze and must see how important this is to me, because he nods.

“Alright, come on,” he says to his soldiers. “Check she’s safe first.”

He helps me stand and guides me as we leave what remains of my cell. At last, I get a sense of where I’ve been all this time. We’re definitely underground, in a corner of a corridor that slopes steeply upward into a set of steps. Lafia’s cell door sits right next to mine.

“She’s not chained,” Alastor says, peering through the barred opening at the top.

“Well, that makes things easier.” Leon grunts, and the ground starts to shake once more. This time, however, the vibrations are much more contained, and only a small section of the floor splits open beneath the cell door. Just big enough for a slight girl to crawl through.

“Lafia,” I call. “Lafia, it’s okay, don’t be afraid.”

Brown hands creep cautiously out from beneath the door, followed by arms and a head of long black hair.

“Here, I’ve got you,” Phaia says, bending down to take the girl’s hands, helping to pull her through the gap.

Lafia gets unsteadily to her feet, and we lay eyes on each other for the first time. She looks devastatingly young even for seventeen, her big brown eyes taking up most of a pretty face marred with healing cuts and fading bruises, courtesy of the “questioning” the Temple gave her.

“Quickly, Alastor,” Leon says.

Magic fizzes in the air, and Lafia’s face twists with confusion.

“Are you a spy for the Temple? Do you intend to harm any of us?” Alastor asks the questions rapid fire.

“No. And no,” Lafia replies, blinking under the effects of his sensic power.

The magic fades quickly as Leon nods, satisfied. “You can come with us. ”

“Thank you,” she breathes, and there’s a catch in her voice as she says it. She’s shaking, and I reach out to squeeze her hand, relieved beyond measure that I’ve been right to put my trust in her all this time.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Leon tells her. “And seeing as I doubt either you or Ana are in any condition to run, please let one of my soldiers carry you.”

Lafia just nods, too dazed to really take any of this in, and allows Hyllus to bend down and pull her onto his back. His head jerks up just as she locks her arms around his neck, and he spins around to look at the end of the corridor. He’s heard something.

“They’re coming, now. They must’ve hidden it with?—”

A flash of fire comes down the corridor so fast that for a second I’m blinded. The fae’s fast reflexes ensure we’re all pulled down to the ground in time for it to fly over our heads, but I feel the heat of it on my skin as it passes terrifyingly close.

“Stratton—” Leon starts to shout an instruction, but the blond fae is ahead of him.

“On it, captain.” Stratton sprints down the corridor, staying low as he pulls a small metal orb from a pouch on his belt. I’ve not seen Stratton use his terrial power in a fight before—I was too distracted at Otscold to take it in—but I know the theory behind it.

The others follow him as Leon swings me into his arms.

“You won’t be able to fight like this,” I protest.

“If you think I’m letting go of you again, you’re crazy,” he grunts.

He sprints after his soldiers, and we catch up to them in time for me to see Stratton throw the orb up the steps.

There’s a second’s pause before an explosion reverberates down the corridor toward us, followed by a series of screams and a cloud of steam.

Stratton is an aquari, and he can boil water on command.

In this case, he heats the liquid in the thin metal orbs until they explode, raining searing water down on anyone in the vicinity .

“It’s clear,” Hyllus confirms, and we proceed up the steps, climbing to the next level of my prison.

I can’t see ahead now, my vision limited by the fae crowding into a narrow corridor. There are more flashes of magic and explosions, and more screams. Hyllus shouts, and I strain to see what’s happened.

“Phaia’s down,” Leon say. “Caught by an incendi.”

Stratton and Damia push ahead, leaving it clear enough that I can see where Phaia’s lying, her silver hair streaming across the floor.

Hyllus stands over her, conferring with Alastor as he swings Lafia down and she clambers onto Alastor’s back instead.

Though Phaia is tall, Hyllus is big enough to easily pick her up.

Half her tunic is burned away, her back covered in blackened skin.

“Watch your front!” Leon bellows to them. I follow his instructions to see a cleaver has made it past Damia and Stratton and is charging down the corridor toward the others.

Tira pushes in front of Hyllus and Alastor, going down on one knee and drawing the bow in her hand. I watch in awe as she releases an arrow that flies straight toward the heart of the cleaver. He raises his hand, clearly intending to block it with some terrial magic.

That’s when the arrow explodes.

A hundred wooden spikes embed themselves into the cleaver, hitting him with such momentum that they rip and tear at his flesh. I’ve seen Tira’s power in action before, but never with something like this .

And I can only watch on, useless, as my friends fight for our lives. Thanks to the dimane I’ve ingested, I have neither the magic nor the strength to defend myself, and have to simply cling to Leon as we follow the others up another flight of stairs.

We’re higher up now. There are actual windows, and the sunlight touches my face, embracing me like an old friend.

It makes me feel faint, as if my body has decided I don’t need to keep fighting anymore—that now, at last, I can rest. I fight the pull of unconsciousness as we leave a trail of bodies behind us, not stopping until we hurtle through a door into the blessed fresh air .

“Back to the horses,” Leon barks. “Steal some if you find any closer. We need to get out of the city now .”

I blink up at the sky, thinking that we probably didn’t leave anyone in there alive to spread the word about us.

As Leon carries me away from the building, I search the windows for movement, my eyes blurring with exhaustion.

There—right near the top, I see a figure.

It’s tall and thin and standing completely still, perfectly framed by the window.

It reminds me of someone. But it may just be the beckoning sleep suggesting that. Whoever it is, they watch us as we hurry away from the building.