Shard, page 6
part #2 of Cruelly Made Series
We file out with the rest of the prisoners, half of which are scratching their balls, and a quarter of which are sporting morning wood, and half of those gleefully point their boners at me.
“You like what you see?” one asks, gesturing grandly to the pathetic tent sprouting from his groin.
At this point I’ve seen so many dicks in this prison I could probably turn them into a really nice set of wind chimes to hang outside the cell. Then every time the crows get to flapping dick-a-ling dick-a-ling. Might be soothing.
Perhaps I should start collecting dicks.
Rot barrels up his fist. “Put that away before I punch it up into your body, runt.”
“Don’t,” I grab his arm. “The Blight will just eat it.”
“Not if it can’t find it,” Rot growls. “I’ll punch him so hard in the dick it’ll make a fresh hole for his cellmates to fuck.”
Smoke watches Reg like he’s observing a wild animal and making notes. Blood’s magic shifts and sharpens, his eyes narrow. I hesitate, then leave Rot and move alongside Blood. I brush some of my magic against him. Just a flicker. Barely enough to send a shimmer over my own skin. “Ignore him.”
He looks at me, eyes red and wide, hard and bright. “What are you doing?”
I pull back. “I—”
“Do not,” he warns me, “do that.”
“Okay, no problem.” I know the rules from my last team. I do not approach. I am approached. My affection isn’t wanted, and my attention will be summoned when desired. Blood might say those rules don’t mean anything, but apparently, some of them do.
I am not his Shard. I am not his Heart. I am not anything but a problem.
We form up two lines. The Warden paces up and down, flanked by two Aether guards, with more guards lining the sloping hallway on the other side of the first gate.
This is different.
“Prisoners!” the Warden says, that constant smile lurking on his face as he paces. “Today is going to be a special day for many of you.”
Right. That many Aether guards and it is a special day? Not in the tea and crumpets sort of special way.
The Warden doesn’t tell us the way in which it’s going to be special, and nobody looks too happy about their special treat. He marches to the first gate. Two regular guards roll it aside.
“You, Fell,” Metal snarls at Smoke. “Front of the line. You,” he points at Blood. “Get to the back. You, get to the back too. You, front.”
“She stays with us,” Rot snarls, refusing to budge.
“Do as you’re told,” Metal warns.
“Or what?” Rot growls back.
“Or I guess we don’t get our special surprise.” I skip to the front of the line and place myself right in front of Hammer, who reaches down to lazily scratch his balls while chewing on his own tongue and groaning softly at me. He hasn’t learned a thing, has he…
Blood and Rot stomp to the end of the lines. Well, aren’t they in a mood. I’ve met cats less fickle than them.
“Forward march,” Metal shouts.
Smoke and I exchange looks. The lines behind us are completely confused. None of them had ever been army. People who do bad things in the army don’t live long enough to get to the Pit. That sort of thing takes care of itself.
Smoke nods once.
We march forward.
“Move, you fucking Blight-scabs!” Rot bellows when the line doesn’t fall in behind us. “You forget how to walk!?”
“Somehow I don’t think we’re on our way to a pardon,” I hear Blood grate out.
The prisoners shuffle timidly behind us. We’re brought up the ramp, through the various gates, and into the courtyard just outside the prison’s entrance.
Half the line drop to the ground in wonder, screaming about their eyes and the bright sunlight. The blazing summer sun instantly burns their pale, gloom-attuned skin, and their eyes scald, but they’re grabbing at the burning-hot pebbles and sand under our feet, and they’re moaning to the gods that had forgotten they exist.
“Move!” one of the guards shouts, kicking a prisoner in the ribs. “Get up!”
“Leave them alone!” I shout. “They haven’t seen sunlight in years!”
Metal shoves the butt of his sword into my diaphragm, hooking it high under my ribs. I choke out some air and double over. Hammer grabs at me with a slurping sound of happiness.
I shove off the pebbles, drive myself into him, and bring up my knee into his crotch. He howls in pain and drops to the ground, one hand grabbing his junk, the other shielding his eyes. His skin smells like its burning on the hot sand and stones.
I spit out some extra moisture onto the sand, insides throbbing.
“Want another?” Metal asks, hand on his weapon.
“I’m afraid you’ll enjoy it too much, Aether.” This scene is like watching human bacon fry. The prisoners’ skin is so damaged from being underground on the first level that the summer sun is just baking it like eggs on a griddle, and their eyes are scorched.
I glare at the Warden, who is standing off to the side with some more Mages, and they’re all just watching the first-level prisoners squirm in the sun like a bunch of salted slugs.
Smoke catches my eye and mouths do nothing.
“On your feet!” Inferno shouts. “Let’s go. Forward!”
The two stumbling lines are led towards the arena.
I balk instantly, heart beating, and magic surging like a geyser trying to burst through rock and dirt. Just outside the arena—the gates are closed—we’re greeted by several stablehands with a wagon pulled by a long-suffering donkey.
Three soldiers hand out pick-axes and sledgehammers and shovels from the wagon.
“Prisoner Crystal,” the Warden says. “You left behind a mess after your last outing to the training ring.”
What? I did what? A jolt of terror hits me. Is ScatheFire waiting in there? Or a Blightling who had once been ScatheFire?
“I need all the crystal chipped off the arena and shoveled into buckets!” the Warden shouts at the scraggly lines of half-blind, half-burned, and totally confused prisoners. “You’ll understand when you see it.”
“I’m not going in there!” Reg shouts. “There are Blightlings in there!”
“There are no Blightlings in the arena at this moment,” the Warden says. “And I promise I won’t unleash any on you while you’re in there.”
“I’m not doing it!” Reg shouts. A few other people throw down their axes and hammers.
“Then I will throw all who refuse down with the Blightlings,” the Warden says pleasantly. “Guards, make a note of everyone who isn’t holding a tool and—”
Everyone bends down and picks up their tools.
“And no killing each other. It’s a clean up mission, not a battle royale,” the Warden adds. “Or else the Blight-bugs might start biting.”
The gates to the arena open. I try to steady myself for whatever is on the other side.
“The hell,” I whisper. Blood and Rot come up behind Smoke and I, and we all stare at the arena.
On the battlefield, the products of Aether magic dissolve. Ice melts, water soaks up or evaporates, fires burn themselves out, storms dissipate. Big, hastily conjured spears and such dissolve quickly after a battle, especially in the presence of Blight.
But what greets us in the arena is like walking into a cave full of prismatic crystals.
Every prisoner tip-toes into the area. One pokes a huge crystal spear with the butt end of their shovel handle. Another smacks their bucket against a crystal.
Blood steps up alongside me, and asks out of the corner of his mouth, “Maybe you should tell us why your crystals didn’t dissolve.”
“I… I don’t know.” It’s been days since the ‘incident.’ How many I can’t say since sloppings are unreliably timed just to fuck with us. But it’s been at least five days, so everything should be dissolved into the sand. Even the Blightlings disintegrated once their life-will was broken.
Rot scuffs the sand with his foot. “Everything else dissolved.”
The Warden observes from a seat in the stands. “Get to work!”
Rot swings his sledgehammer over his shoulder. “Let’s work on the crystals where ScatheFire got taken. Better us digging into it than these assholes just in case something is on the other side.”
We hadn’t gotten the portcullis down and locked because the Storm team had abandoned us. The only choice had been me to cover the opening with crystal. The crystal blocks are the only thing keeping it closed. The Warden would want it cleared.
Dazed, I follow the Fells to the cursed gate. Layers and layers of crystal crust the outside of it and penetrate into it like a cork, but some small part of the tunnel is visible.
There’s a bloody handprint. A burned, bloody, smeared handprint.
7
Crystal
Rot swings his hammer onto the crystal.
It cracks and splinters.
Smoke heaves his pickaxe over his head and brings it down. The crystal cracks! with a strange sound.
“Ow! Fuck!” Hammer nearby yelps, dropping his own shovel to hold his hands over his ears.
Rot smashes the cracks and the crystal collapses.
Blood squats down and picks up one of the razor-sharp chunks. He turns his hand around. The light catches it, causing splinters of bluish-purple-pinkish light to reflect on the walls and sand. He stands, curls his arm back, and lobs it against the wall full force.
It chips, cracks in the center, but doesn’t shatter.
“I would not want to get hit with a spear of this stuff.” He picks up the slightly damaged chunk with great care. He tosses it into his bucket.
“Most normally don’t.” My spears penetrate bodies. I can run a bear through with one if I wanted. Made for an interesting game of darts. But it still doesn’t explain why the conjured crystals were still here.
“I’ve heard Crystal Mages are very effective battle Mages when they aren’t a Heart.” Blood picks up another piece, this one small and wicked enough to be an arrow point. “I wonder what would happen if they could forge weapons from this stuff.”
Plink.
“You don’t think he’s going to try.” I lower my voice.
“I would.”
“But this isn’t supposed to happen!” I hiss, gesturing to the mass of crystals.
“Clearly, it has,” Smoke says as he swings his axe again.
“Aren’t you being a bit calm about this?”
“No,” he says. “This is just more confirmation that we have to get you out of here as quickly as possible and ensure that we remain in the field far from anyone’s immediate grasp. How you did this is irrelevant and does not matter.”
Easy for him to say when he isn’t the freakshow that can do things nobody should be able to do with magic he can’t control.
Blood hands me his shovel. “Trade with me.”
“I can swing a hammer,” I say. “You scoop, pretty thing.”
“You think I’m pretty?” He runs a hand along his neatly plaited white hair, and tosses his braid like a horse’s tail. He bats his eyelashes at me. Then his grin turns devilish, and he touches the tip of his very red tongue against his lips.
I do not understand this Mage. I turn back to my work. I’ve still got callouses on my hands from riding and training. I can handle the heavy hammer. I only look delicate.
He slides behind me as if moving past me, and—is that his cock brushing my thigh as he passes? Not fully hard, but not the soft little poke that happens because dicks don’t hang straight down.
“Pervert,” I whisper, confused and expecting him to snap at me.
He whispers back, “I might be letting myself get a bit hard. I’ll bet you’re damp. And not from the sweat.”
I elbow him in the abs. “Sorry, darling, it’s only sweat.”
“Don’t leave a single scrap!” the Warden calls from his seat, where he’s sitting under a small valance that shields him from the sunlight. Positioned around the arena are the Aether Mages.
“It itches!” one of the prisoners, soaked through in sweat and blistered from the sun, and his hands bleeding, shouts at the Warden.
“Very interesting,” the Warden says, nodding. “You can blame Crystal for all this mess. You’re just cleaning it up.”
Everyone looks at me, just like when I’d had a teacher call me out in the Academy for being the reason the class had to run extra laps, do extra reps, more homework, or clean up some mess. Except this time instead of a bunch of pissed off Aether-brats, it was a bunch of Blight-infected prisoners. The sunlight reveals the Blight’s insidious influence: softening, pale skin, elongated limbs, bowed-out legs, sunken eyes that seem gooey in their sockets.
“Ignore him,” Rot says under his breath.
“Already am.” I swing my hammer again. I bring it overhand for a third strike.
He catches my wrist in one big hand and slowly lowers my arms. Then he nudges me aside and takes his turn. I watch the chunks tumble away. I just shouldn’t be able to do that.
We’re at the final barricade.
“Fuck it,” Rot says, pulling his hammer over his head. “Everyone ready? Might be a Blightling on the other side of that.”
My magic bubbles up to my hands. I grit my teeth and draw protective wards under my Fells, and pull up like I was trying to capture them in a net. Ghostly magic fingers brush my senses.
“Wait,” Blood interrupts my casting. “Rot, try to disintegrate the crystal. Use Fell magic on it.”
Rot lowers the hammer. He gives me an uncertain look of concern, brow furrowing. “I don’t know, Blood. Let’s not push her too hard.”
“I’m fine.” My magic is simmering now that I’ve touched it.
Blood nods, eyes narrowing. “You heard the lady.”
The protective ward circling Rot moves with him as he walks towards the wall of crystal. I channel more magic into it, listening for the moment when his own Fell thread activates. That’s the first step in being a Heart: the moment you can sense your teammate’s Aether activate is how you “find” them, like a lighthouse in a deep fog.
I don’t have a functional connection with any of the Fells, but the wards at least anchor the person in my awareness. If I had a functional connection, the wards would be anchors for more powerful magics.
As much as I don’t want to use my magic, I’ve got to get out of this place, because I can’t be the Warden’s personal crystal mine.
Rot places one big hand on the pane of crystal. I strain my senses, struggling to hear him over the boiling of my own magic.
There!
Aether being activated feels like a spark, flint and steel. Sometimes it feels like a crack of lightening.
Fell thread feels like a shod hoof striking stone, with the same deep, stone crack and sharp ring.
I try to orient myself on the magical sound.
Rot unloads green-yellow-brown magic in one burst. The grim light, like dawn through smoke, permeates the crystal, staining it from the inside.
He steps back, breathing hard.
I touch his forearm gently, heightening the flickering and sputtering connection I sense. My magic boils higher, frothing, looking for somewhere to go.
Smoke raps his knuckles on the crystal. It doesn’t crack further, but it’s clearly stained.
“Again,” Blood directs. “Focus on the Aether.”
Rot hesitates.
“It’s okay,” I tell him softly. “I’ll pull you back out if you go too deep. I promise.”
Rot puts his hand back up on the crystal. I wait for the Fell-hoof to hit stone.
There!
My magic froths in response. I reach for Rot, and it just feels like wings beating against wings, and he’s slipping through my fingers. I extend tendrils of crystal magic after him, trying to net him like I had before.
As I work, he’s pouring Fell Rot into the crystal, teeth clenched, and the Fell thread thunders like a horse galloping across infernal stones.
The crystal wall stubbornly holds, although now it’s stained brown, like burnt citrine.
Blood picks up his shovel and smacks it into the crystal wall.
It crumbles.
Behind us, the Warden bellows, “Don’t taint the crystal, Fells!”
The tunnel stares back at us.
It… smells. And the shadows curling around its surface move on their own, thick and inky-black. Like the shadows on the lower level had seemed alive.
I shudder. The protective wards under all of us burn brighter in the presence of Blight. But no Blightlings charge up at us, and there’s only the hollow, empty sound of wind moving. The tunnel goes down at a steep angle and disappears into total darkness.
Stains smear the side of the tunnel. Years of blood and gore. Deep trenches are carved in the stone that have been painted over with strange wards of the same material that had made up the gem in the restraints I’d worn.
The gate slams down. We jump back.
“You almost ended up on the wrong side of that,” Frost informs us smugly, her fingers alight with frost and Aether.
“You shouldn’t enjoy it so much,” I warn her.
She shrugs. “I’ve been meaning to get that gate back into place. Thanks for the help, and I don’t need you worrying about my soul. That tends to be dangerous for any Aethers in proximity.”
I ignore the jabs and contemplate the gate. I touch it, feeling along it to try to figure out how it holds back such powerful Blightlings.
“No touch.” Frost flicks pellets of ice against me. They sting my skin, but also feel divine in the heat of the day.
“Do that again,” I dare her.
She flings a misty curtain of ice droplets at us, pelting all of us with stinging ice balls that instantly cool the skin.
“Ahhh,” Blood says, throwing his head back and arms out. “Divine.”
I rub the back of my neck while Rot and Smoke shake out their hair. “Thanks, Frost. Feels great.”
Her eyes narrow, and she raises one hand in a cup, ice-shards dancing dangerously on the end of her fingers.
I sigh wistfully. Her ice-shards dance and swirl at her slightest command. I’m queasy myself between the heat and all the unspent magic trying to escape my ham-fisted grip.
