Denizen

Jistan shot out blasts of Will in a desperate cacophony of panic and fear. He fought alone, standing protectively over a slumped body.

He, along with Sackrin and Karrin, had decided retire early. They were all still exhausted from traveling and then holding conferences with the Highness and other important people.

He hadn’t woken up until Karrin started shaking him, screaming for him to move. When he’d opened his eyes, he’d seen her standing over him with a crazed look in her eyes. Alarm horns were blaring.

Then he’d seen the blood. It dripped down from her right shoulder, all the way down her fingertips and onto his bed.

Sackrin was nowhere to be seen.

They’d left their temporary housing in an offshoot from the main palace structure. Outside, they’d immediately run into a large group of Kriton soldiers. Karrin, in her weakened state, hadn’t moved fast enough to dodge the cudgel swinging for her head.

Jistan cursed himself for a fool. He’d left his sword in his room, meaning he only had a knife and his Will to defend himself. Either would have been sufficient in a fair fight.

One on nine was not a fair fight.

***

Joree began to grow more and more agitated as time passed. The hallway outside had fallen eerily silent. He shouted for the guards but no one responded. Had even the prison guards been called away to fight? That seemed like a bad sign. Why hadn’t Arellia quelled the intruders immediately? There was no one with a force of Will strong enough to overwhelm her own power long enough to kill her.

Of course, a knife in the chest while sleeping would kill anyone, no matter how strong their Will power. The thought was chilling. Surely the Fiedons were too competent to allow silent assassins into the palace, right?

Footsteps suddenly echoed loudly on the hard floor outside, causing Joree to tense instinctively. The steps were hurried and seemed light. If it was a guard approaching, they were small and not wearing the typical uniform boots.

Joree supposed he should have felt surprised when Aniah dashed around the corner, short black hair in a wild mess and eyes wide with terror. But after everything that had happened, he was all surprised out.

She met his gaze, and a strange expression flitted across her face for an instant. Then she returned to her usual imperious self.

“The Highness needs your help,” she said, tone not leaving room for argument.

Joree snorted. “She’s a fickle one, I see.”

“Get over yourself,” Aniah snapped, sounding more petulant than authoritative. “This isn’t all about you. If the Highness is captured, we are all in danger.”

“I’m a little busy,” Joree said. “Being in jail. And what do you mean captured?”

“Well, get out.” She said bluntly, ignoring his question. He gave her a dubious look. She tended to have ridiculous expectations, but this was ludicrous even for her.

“How?” he finally demanded after a few moments of silence.

She looked at the ground. To his surprise, he realized she was blushing. “You know,” she said, somehow sounding both condescending and flustered. “Do your…thing.”

“My thing,” he repeated flatly.

She glared at the ground. “Yes. The thing you do that…catches stuff on fire and knocks stuff over…” Her words were halting and uncertain.

“First of all,” Joree replied, holding up a hand. “I can’t do either of those things right now. And secondly, how would either of those things help against iron bars?”

Aniah turned her glare up towards him. “We’re wasting time. We need to get you out.”

“Thank you, I hadn’t noticed.”

“Not for your sake, idiot,” she scoffed. “I need your help rescuing my mother.”

“Go get Sackrin. The Highness likes him.”

Aniah hesitated, uncertainty flashing across her face. “I don’t think Will power is going to be enough this time,” she finally whispered. “We need something…else. Which means getting you out.” Her lips turned down at the corners as if the thought was distasteful.

“Keys are generally helpful for that,” he said, smiling helpfully.

“There seems to be a shortage on those,” she said, glancing around as if expecting keys to start appearing out of the walls. Finally, she sighed. “How can I get you out?”

Joree felt his eyebrows shoot up. Was she asking his opinion? Even his direction? He considered the question seriously, and then sighed.

“I need you to use Will power. A lot of it. As much as you can muster. Throw it at me.”

She frowned. “What? Why?”

“Because,” he said tiredly, “I’m going to try to open this door.”

Her doubtful look almost made him laugh, but he barely had the strength to stand. Finally, she hesitantly nodded.

He focused outward, feeling the surge of Will shoot out of her. It slipped around him until he reached out and grabbed hold. It suffused him, transforming into static energy. He stepped up to the door, staring at the lock. He had created heat before, enough to incinerate a human being completely. He shuddered and pushed the thought away. This time, he was just trying to break some metal.

He pushed the heat through his hands and into the metal lock. At first, it merely began to glow. Then, slowly, the metal started to melt.

He immediately saw a problem. The lock melted in such a way that it simply welded the door shut. Flames, why hadn’t he thought of that? Soon, he had a section of mangled metal that was too hot to touch and a door that was even further from opening.

“Was that supposed to do something?” Narissa asked, her voice innocently polite.

“It did do something,” Aniah grumbled. “Just nothing useful.”

Joree frowned. Aniah’s surge of Will ran out as she extinguished the mind strike.

“Why did I just do that?” Aniah asked, folding her arms.

“No reason at all, apparently,” Joree said, sighing. He turned and looked at the hard stone walls around him. He doubted he could do anything to them. He focused back on the iron bars that blocked his exit. An idea started to form in his mind, but it would take some time. Maybe too much.

“Aniah, Mom,” he said. “I need Will power. As much as you can give me.

***

“Captain Dennison,” the small messenger ran over, puffing and red faced.

‘Dennison’. An amusing misunderstanding, really. He smiled faintly, remembering how it had started so many years ago. Those first ones to meet him had demanded he ‘identify himself’. He hadn’t quite understood the question then, not yet accustomed to the strange practice of naming living souls. So he had called himself a ‘denizen’. They had thought he was giving them his name. He’d gone by ‘Dennison’ ever since.

“I’m not your captain,” he replied coolly. The messenger frowned slightly but didn’t argue. Dennison knew that the King tried to label him in order to assert some sort of authority over him. But Dennison was no more a part of the Kriton Empire than he was a southern islander. King Abicotta was not his liege.

“Well, sir, the Commander said to tell you that the prisoner is secured, but the heir has not been found.”

That was irritating, but it would be remedied soon enough. “Tell him to keep looking.” They would do what he said, even if he denied the titles the King tried to impose upon him. Maybe even because of that. No one could tell where he stood in the command chain, and thus were never sure if he might be their superior. That meant they stepped lightly and rarely gave him direct orders.

The messenger scampered away, his gangly little body too tall for his skinny limbs. Dennison turned away from him, looking back out across the city from the palace’s highest balcony. He wished he could say it was a stunning view, but nothing in this land was stunning. It was all mundane, with muted colors and inferior architecture. It was as if the gods had run out of material, or perhaps patience, after crafting Arkadia, and this land was the result.

Far below, small pockets of those Scythes still resisted. But the plan had worked perfectly. They wouldn’t hold out much longer, not without their Highness.

***

Jistan let out a ragged scream as the mind strike hit him. It was barely powerful enough to make him flinch, but even tiny slices can eventually drive a man mad when added up by the thousands. His Will was growing weak from overuse right alongside his body, and his mind felt as though it was being repeatedly bitten by insects. It had started out as a mere nuisance, but now each tiny sting was a sharp burn.

Karrin hadn’t stirred. Her limp body beneath his feet was the only thing keeping him upright anymore. If he fell, she would too. He was bleeding from multiple shallow cuts, but those were nothing in comparison to the mental strain. Still, he fought on. As soon as he fell, both he and Karrin were dead. So what did he matter that he kept fighting? What were a few extra moments in the end?

He finally admitted to himself that, deep down, a sliver of his soul still held out hope that they could survive. Somehow.

***

Joree had slumped to the ground long ago, barely able to lift his head. Still, he continued to channel Will into the metal bars. He was almost done. Starting from the top, he had melted the metal down so that it all sunk to the floor. It was almost low enough that he and his mother could step over what remained of the warped bars. Assuming he could get his legs to move.

“Hurry,” Aniah prodded. Her Will had slowed to a trickle, which in turn slowed his progress. Of course, she still blamed him.

“So sorry,” he grunted, gritting his teeth. “I’ll try to make my mystical powers work more conveniently for you.”

“Less talk, more work,” she snapped.

“Wonderful advice,” he rasped. “You should try it.”

Aniah let out a huff but gave no other response.

A few moments later, Joree released the Will and let out a long, ragged breath.

“That’s all I have in me,” he said. “Hopefully it’s enough.”

Narissa looked doubtfully at the mess of melted bars. “That stuff will be extremely hot, Joree. We can’t risk touching it.”

Flames, she was right. He was a complete idiot. How had he not thought of that? He realized suddenly how hot he felt standing so near the bars. Sweat dripped from his brow and evaporated before hitting the floor. Aniah’s face was sheened in sweat as well.

Narissa, who had been silent for a while, finally spoke. “Aniah,” she said slowly. “Do you know where Lanae is?”

Aniah’s face twisted into a grimace. “I think it got put in a holding cell nearby while Arellia decides what to do with it.”

Joree bristled at her tone and the use of the word ‘it’, but Narissa continued unfazed.

“So she’s a prisoner too?”

Aniah shrugged. “They keep a watch on her, but she isn’t locked up.”

Narissa nodded. “Go get her.”

***

A few minutes later, Aniah prodded the creature towards Joree and Narissa’s cell with the butt of a walking stick that had been discarded by a wall. The Delani didn’t protest or even look irritated. It was unnerving and unsatisfying.

“Knock it off,” Joree said testily. “She’s not cattle.”

If he didn’t look so sickly and pale, she would have berated him. As it was, she decided to show mercy.

“Alright, I brought it,” she said, looking pointedly at Narissa.

“Thank you.”

Aniah scowled. The woman was so polite it was insulting.

“Lanae,” Narissa said calmly, pointing to the hot, melted bars. “These are too hot to touch, but we,” she gestured to herself and Joree, “need to get out.”

Aniah snorted. “First of all, she can’t understand you. And second, what could she possibly do about it?”

“The Delani draw energy from the world around them in order to create bursts of power,” Narissa said, acting as though she had given a relevant explanation instead of stating an obvious fact.

“So she can blast some fire at the already scorching metal,” Aniah said, rolling her eyes. “That hardly seems useful.”

Narissa gave a small, patient smile. Joree, for some reason, was grinning. And the creature looked…hesitant? Was that right? It stepped forward, examining the bars with a look that could have been trepidation on a human face.

“Direct the blast away from us, if you don’t mind,” Joree said.

What? Aniah’s brow knit in confusion.

Then the air began to grow very cold. Aniah shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. What was going on? Was the Delani doing this? Was she going to strike? Aniah almost attacked her with Will, but then hesitated.

Narissa had tentatively stepped forward and placed her hand near the melted remains of her cell door. As the air grew progressively cooler, Aniah could almost see the bars solidify.

With a strangled grunting sound, the Delani spun towards the stone wall to her left and released a burst of heat energy. It splashed against the wall, leaving little more than scorch marks. The heat washed over Aniah, too hot to be comfortable but not hot enough to scald her exposed skin.

Aniah stared at the blackened stone dumbly until a hand clapped on her shoulder. It was Joree, supported under one arm by his mother.

“Okay,” he said cheerily. “We are ready to aid the Wraith Queen who put us here.”