Page 8 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams (Fated to the Sun and Stars #3)

Morgana

T he darkness is good. It dulls the edge of the pain, and when I emerge from it, blinking in the weak light of my cell, it doesn’t hurt as much anymore. At least, not physically. I can’t stop replaying the sound of Kit’s screams and the look on his face as I killed him.

The memory catches me like the sudden slice of a knife. For a moment, I feel nothing, and then the sensation comes: a deep, throbbing grief emanating out from my chest. It knocks the breath out of me, and I know if I don’t focus on something—anything—else, I might forget how to breathe altogether.

I sit up, examining myself as a distraction, concentrating on the minute details of my skin.

The Temple must’ve had some healers look at me, because the wounds from my torture look old, either scabbed over or pink with fresh skin.

They itch, which is a small price to pay after the agony of the torture, so bad I must’ve passed out from it right after?—

Again, I pull my thoughts back. Away from that painful place. If I linger on it, I won’t be able think clearly enough to make a plan.

I’m going to find a way out of here.

If Caledon had me healed, it means he wants to keep me alive.

Probably so he can keep pressing me for information.

I already told him about the potion, but maybe he’s after details about the rebels, or even my trip to the Filusian court.

I have to make sure I don’t give him the chance to take anything else from me—especially since, without Kit, I’m not sure what he’s got up his sleeve to make me talk.

There I go again. The name of my friend lurks in the shadows of my mind. If I’m not careful, it’ll drag me down to some place I’m afraid I won’t climb out of.

My stomach rumbles, and I’m shocked I can still feel hungry.

But it does tell me one thing. Even if I’ve only been passed out for a few hours, that makes about one full night and a morning since I last ate the dimane-laced food.

And my hands aren’t bound, either. Maybe their healers advised against it.

Which means that the dimane bars on my cell door are the only obstacle to me using magic—and they’re not infallible. The mineral makes your magic difficult to access, like a sleeping animal that’s hard to rouse, but you can push past that, if you have enough power.

Closing my eyes to focus better, I reach inside of myself. For a few miserable moments, it’s like groping at thin air, then I find it. A thin sliver of power waiting, ready for me to grasp.

I don’t touch it yet. I’ll need to make sure I use it wisely. I might only get one chance. I rise, gritting my teeth when the motion makes one of the scabs across my stomach crack, then shuffle as quietly as I can toward the door.

I peer out through the bars, spotting a red-robed figure in the corridor.

He’s standing several feet from the door, and I wonder if the clerics have been warned not to get too close to me.

Or maybe he’s just afraid. Any solari, even one who’s locked up and poisoned with dimane, must seem a scary prospect to these brainwashed sheep.

The cleric shifts his weight from one foot to the other, setting a ring of keys at his waist jingling. The sound fills me with a small surge of hope. If I can get free of the dimane bars, maybe my sliver of magic will blossom into something more. Then I’ll really stand a chance.

I try to calm my excited heartbeat, double-checking that shred of magic is still there. Then I step closer to the door and call out .

“I have a message for the Grand Bearer.”

The cleric’s head snaps toward me, and he wavers, unsure whether he’ll get in more trouble for responding to me or ignoring me.

“He wants answers from me, and I’m ready to give them,” I continue.

“What kind of answers?” he asks warily. He takes a few steps toward me, and I can see his face more clearly now. There’s definitely some curiosity there—a touch of eagerness. I’m banking on the idea that an opportunity to impress Caledon will be too good to resist for him.

“Information about the Hand of Ralus,” I say. “I know who their leader is, and I’ll tell you. As long as you promise to take the name to His Grace.”

It works. He quickly closes the gap between us. As soon as he’s close enough, I unleash my orbital magic, curling it out through the bars, down toward the keys at his waist.

“Who is it?” he asks, his face alight with excitement.

“You’d be surprised,” I say, trying to stall for time as I try to work the catch holding the keys on his belt. It’s not easy. My magic is used to moving things toward or away from me, not fiddling with complicated mechanisms.

“What do you mean?” his eyes narrow.

“Well, they’ve been right under your noses,” I lie, trying not to show the triumph on my face when the key catch slides loose at last. I’ll have to give him a name just to get him to leave so I have a chance to use the keys.

“Hey!”

Another cleric is striding down the corridor, outraged.

“What are you doing talking to the heretic?” she demands.

The first guard goes to step away from the door. I try to pull the keys under it before the second cleric notices them floating there. I have to move too fast, however, and the keys clang against the bars.

“She’s using the gods’ magic!” the cleric shrieks as she rushes to the door, pushing the other cleric out of the way and throwing up her hands .

I see the intense rage and fear on her face for a moment before I’m thrown back by a shockwave of aesteri magic. I hit the wall, my head smashing against the hard stone. Stars blossom in my eyes, then the darkness comes for me again.

My head feels like someone’s split it open. I can’t think beyond the throbbing behind my eyes. I swallow, and my attention moves to a burning at the back of my throat. When I part my lips, I taste something bitter.

They must have force-fed me more dimane while I was unconscious.

At that thought, I remember my attempt to escape, and before, in Caledon’s sanctuary…

I open my eyes, hoping to see something other than Kit’s face twisted in pain or my hands red with his blood.

I’m in another cell now. This one is darker and colder than the last. The door is solid and thick—no bars to talk through this time—with only a small opening near the top.

Not that I could reach it if I wanted to.

That’s when I see the body lying on the other side of the cell.

I jolt backward and the chains wrapped around my wrists clank. They’re only a few feet long and bolted to the wall, meaning I can barely move, let alone escape the awful stare of the corpse in front of me.

A wave of nausea hits me when I recognize the face. He’s been stripped of his bright red robes, but the cleric I tricked in my escape attempt stares back at me, pale and glassy eyed. Deep purple bruises ring his graying neck, and his tongue hangs from his mouth, swollen and black.

I turn my head and vomit onto the stone floor. I’ve not eaten proper food for a while, so it’s mostly bile, the acid burning my throat as guilt gnaws at my insides.

They killed him. He’s dead because of me. And now they’ve left him in my cell to haunt me. He looks startingly young out of his uniform, and his expression is vaguely surprised, like he too can’t believe all the life he had ahead of him has been snatched away.

Will I look like that after Caledon drains me ?

A grate is set against the wall to my left, which I suspect is meant to act as my toilet.

That, at least, I can reach, though every movement makes me wince and curse.

However they transported me here, they weren’t gentle.

My body is a map of bruises, and my tunic is brown with dried bloodstains.

Yet I’m still alive to feel every wound and relive every memory.

I expected to be dead by now; instead, I’m slowly shattering apart, piece by piece.

I try not to look at the body, but my eyes keep being drawn back to it, the horror calling to me.

The young man’s face morphs into Kit’s, into mine, and all my nightmares start to bleed together.

I’m gasping for air as Bede holds me down at Gallawing.

I’m running for my life through a forest as I’m hunted down by monsters.

I’m watching my childhood friends being dismembered during the Otscold purge.

The bodies pile up in my mind—joining the very real one in front of me—corpses of people I loved and loathed, seared and stabbed and cut in two. And that’s just the start. Caledon will take what he wants from me. Then he’ll go after my friends.

I’ll never see Leon again.

I let the tears come, thinking of the strong warmth of his arms around me and how they made me feel like the safest person in the world. Like no one could touch me. Except him, of course.

When I consider having to live one more day knowing what I’ve lost, I can’t bear it. I’m not like Leon—I can’t keep going through a haze of pain and death. I’m too broken to put myself back together. If Caledon tried to pull more secrets from me now, I don’t know if I could resist him.

“Finish me.” I throw the words into the darkness.

My voice reverberates off the walls, echoing back and hitting me in the face.

“Caledon,” I choke, knowing that the bastard can’t hear me and yelling anyway.

“Kill me!” My voice breaks as I sag against the wall, sobs interrupting my words.

“Take what’s left of me and be done with it. ”

“He won’t take your magic yet.”

I stop mid-sob, wondering if my mind is so broken that I’ve imagined the voice. It’s soft and female, talking as if from far away.

“Can you hear me?” the voice speaks again. I search the cell, wide-eyed, for the source, half believing I won’t find one .

Then my eyes fall on the grate.

“Say that again,” I call, dragging myself over to the rusty, stained metal.

“I said, can you hear me? I can hear you.”