Lord of the Night

Chapter 32: Freedom

Three soldiers tackled Isalio. His head thumped the ground, and I caught a low grunt and a grimace of pain before he stifled his reaction. Meanwhile, another two Demons checked the cuffs on his wrists and clapped two larger ones over his ankles.

My muscles twitched with the impulse to protect him, and my tongue moved to protest: 'Is this really necessary?' Or simply, 'Careful!' As if 'necessary' and 'careful' played into their plan. Though I struggled to watch Isalio being tossed around outnumbered, unarmed, and powerless, I knew the impending 'retraining' would be far worse.

I tried to catch Isalio's eye to see whether he was still determined to go through with this plan. If he begged me for help, could I still go through with this?

Isalio didn't look at me.

The Demon in front of me smacked my shoulder. She was the same Demon who had escorted me before, I realized—the no-nonsense redhead.

"Good work, cow," she said, tone more bored than congratulatory. "You've earned your freedom...just as soon as you hand over that key."

Isalio had handed that key to me with so little though. The General's words echoed in my mind: he'll put on one cuff for you, not two—enough to harness his powers but not eliminate them. But the General was wrong. Isalio had put on two cuffs without me even asking, and he'd forced me to take the key even when I refused.

For a moment, the world froze, a multitude of impossible options overlaying the still Demons before me. In my imagination, I would throw that key to Isalio, who would wrench free from the Demons, and then...then his feet would still be cuffed, and my father would still be locked away in the dungeon.

Numbly, I dug out the key and passed it to the Demon before me.

The next moments passed in a blur. I watched them drag away Isalio, and the moment he disappeared through the transporter door, the two remaining soldiers escorted me to a transporter on the opposite side of the room.

A nauseating turn of the gut later, the doors reopened, and a narrow tunnel appeared. I sought out a servant to deliver a warning to the Duchess, but only a long line of restrained Guardian warriors met my eyes. They all huddled in individual cells, staring at the ground, lost in varying degrees of despair.

Zuzette's cell came next. She lay on her back and punched the air with halfhearted jabs, her bent knees swaying side to side. Bored and frustrated, but thankfully unharmed.

And then, my father.

His few remaining gray curls were plastered unevenly across his brown scalp. His filmy eyes fastened on an empty corner of the cell, gaze distant as though seeing nothing or perhaps as though seeing something far beyond.

I half expected the Demons to stop at that point; to require something more from me, or to reveal that this had all been a trick. But the Demon in front of me slotted a key in the door, and a moment later, the soldiers pulled my father to his feet.

Afraid they would damage him further, I jogged into the cell and pulled him out of the Demon arms. "Dad!"

He sagged in my arms, squinting up at my face. "Hef...Hefgar? No...Remgar?"

I squeezed him to my chest, gentle but firm. "I'm here, Dad. I got you. I'm going to get you out of here."

"But...but where is he?" He squinted at the place over my shoulder.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "We need to get out of here, Dad. We'll talk about Hefgar later."

"No, not Hefgar." He struggled against my arms, supporting more of his own weight. "Where is the Lord of the Night?"