Page 94 of Beneath the Veil of Tides
I hope the pain and memories of the injury haunt him.
The corridors beyond the ones lined with prisoner cells were illuminated far more than expected. Pristine, white, gleaming walls starkly contrasted the filthy, grime-filled stone chamber inside my cell. A silent message that spoke volumes.
“Walk faster,” the guard grunted, shoving me forward. I tripped over my weak ankles, having sat on them against stone for hours.
Where was he taking me?I kicked back but only hit air.
My shackled hands reached at my sides like muscle memory, only to find emptied sheathes. I awoke to my blade gone. Duscharne wasn’t stupid enough to leave me armed. Figures.
I lunged forward, but the shackles dug deeper within my skin. My feet shoved backwards again, any attempt to catch the man’s ankles, but he jumped backward, his hold on the chain firm. He let out a harsh, guttural laugh, low and ugly, like something pulled up from deep in his chest. He stepped past me, circling my flailing, writhing body, then used the chains to drag me along as I fought against them.
We rounded a corner and approached two guards perched outside a set of wooden double doors. Scowls were permanently implanted on their faces as they stared straight ahead, staffs in one hand and grasping the hilt of their swords in the other. The left armored one beat his staff along the lower etchings of the door, and they opened as if conducted by magic.
Glass cylinders dotted the vast room, each one filled to the brim with still, lightless water. Inside, merfolk hung suspended near the surface, unconscious, unmoving, limp bodies pressed just behind the glass.Men, women, children.I couldn’t tell if they breathed or lived, onlythat at the end of the line sat a cylinder devoid of a body,and I was sure it had my name etched in the glass.
I stood slowly, nose twitching.
Fuck this.
The guard shoved into me, his fist meeting my shoulder blade, but I pushed back.
The tubes were how the Royal Vanguard powered the Oricaan beasts. It was how they harvested my people’s powers,leaving them dried out like husks. It had to be. Duscharne worked for them, betrayed me, along with Laziel for their own selfish reasons.
“No, no…. no,” I breathed. It was the first words I’d said in hours. I writhed against the buckling strength of the male, but he overpowered me, spewing curses as he slammed his fist into my spine.
My body whirled from the guard’s strength as he pulled me through the threshold, my feet and knees dragging behind. My shoulders screamed back, nearly disconnected from the joints.
My heart shattered as we passed the second glass prison cell holding a mer child. Her tiny eyes barely cracked open as she drifted to sleep. I prayed to the gods it wasn’t permanently. Her freckled skin was ghostly pale, riddled with red, veiny lacerations. She was covered in them from her hairline to the cartilage of her semi-translucent, sick tail.
I shook violently, pulling at my arms to be free, but the man held firm.
The third held a silver haired mer, the same veiny gashes across his body. The fourth carried a middle-aged lady mer. I stopped looking after the twelfth, eyes focused on my feet as they bounced over the cracks in the flooring. It was much worse than I’d ever imagined. The reason Jun couldn’t speak of it…
All the way in the back of the room—in solidarity—was the empty glass cylinder. Flashing white lined the hinged door that creaked as it opened by magic. The guard threw me inside, one hand gripping around my throat and the other around my ankles. I crashed into the solid metal ground, and the door sealed with me inside.
This couldn’t be… no…
I scrambled to my feet, pounding on the glass cylinder that became my new prison cell. My fists beat the glass column relentless for an hour, skin splitting and bruising with each strike,but still no one answered the call. The merfolk around did not wake. I was left alone, breathing labored, hands aching, sore from the lack of fingernails and my useless attack on the cell.
I collapsed, metal fittings digging into my backside.
Would they come for me? I told myself they wouldn’t—that they shouldn’t—but the thought of them not coming hurt worse.
Water exploded into the tank in a single, violent heartbeat, flooding in from below like something alive forcing its way through. It roared upward in a choking surge, slamming against the sealed roof in a deafening crash as spray burst outward in frantic, chaotic sheets.
I panicked. Water alone would not kill me, but what approached just might. Icy cold bit into my skin, and I shivered as the water raised past my waist. My legs dissolved, merging into my cobalt scaled tail.
The chamber filled, the water sealing me inside it, complete and inescapable.
Muddled footsteps sounded, nearly incoherent in the cylinder. I frantically searched for their whereabouts.
“It’s so good to see you again,” Raoku drawled, the words slow and slithering.
I’ll kill him.For everything he did to Jun. For everything he did to anyone.
“Let me out,” I seethed, but my confidence waned.
“I don’t think that is going to be a possibility. You know, I did offer you that choice weeks ago. It really is a shame you didn’t want to fight on our side.”
