Solace Curse: Part I

22 - Two More Drops

I took a deep, shaky breath. Bërrha's red-hot blade left a burn on my neck.

The doors clanged shut and ash settled across my lap, and still I sat pressed against the wall. That blade was like nothing I'd ever seen.

Voices were raised outside the cell block, but I couldn't make out the words.

A Naem-shul. A Solace Naem-shul. I shivered. That weapon was its own force, separate entirely from its wielder. Solace magic incarnate.

The thought filled me with simultaneous dread and hope. Was that horrible weapon really equal to the magic suppressed inside me? Or was Bërrha's soul so blackened by death that the Naem-shul was corrupted too?

My head was still spinning. I could have a Naem-shul again.

"Sedris?" said Kiariuni. "Are you okay?"

"I... I'm okay."

"Did he hurt you?"

"He didn't hurt me. I guess I was asking him to though."

"They're going to take me, I heard them."

"They're what? And do what? Did they say?"

Her voice became smaller. "I don't know, something in Baldük, I don't know I couldn't tell."

I swallowed. There was nothing I could do. My fingers wrapped around the cold cell bars. "Just talk to me Kiari. Can I call you that? What do your friends call you?"

"Oh don't you know Sedris, my friends call me Rune, I'm Rune!" Now she was really crying.

"You—! Of course you are! Why wouldn't you be, Kiariuni, Rune for short, why would I believe you saying you aren't."

"They can't take me, I don't want to die and leave Tally all alone, I can't do that to her."

I was scrabbling at the cell walls now, scraping my fingers raw looking for any give. "You won't. She's strong and so are you, we're going to get you out of here. Rune, right here beside me this whole time, I knew it," I said to myself.

The ring. It was the key to it all. The Aelrein were clearly confident I couldn't get it off, but maybe they hadn't held many Solace before.

I set my fingers on it and it was instantly like fire against my skin. I jerked away with a yelp, but dove right back to it, gripping the metal with bloodied fingertips. Vertigo kicked in fast and I landed heavily on the floor. You can do this. It barely moved at all—but it did move.

Another tiny nudge and I was throwing up my breakfast on the stones.

"We can't get the rings off, I've been trying for weeks, I don't know, maybe longer." She was so defeated. "They block your whole connection to your power, you can't use it at all. Someone else has to take it off."

I coughed and pounded the dungeon floor. "Then what do we do." My fist hit the stone and the cell block door rattled on its hinges.

Rune and I both fell silent. Were they back already? Another heavy blow landed on the door.

"Don't go with them, whatever you do," I said.

A third hit broke the lock and the door smashed open with a clang that echoed off the walls.

One Corvel guard rushed through the open doorway—with a Naem-shul?

"Rune!" The voice was unfamiliar, but this was no guard.

"Amri how..."

The Naem-shul hammer was out again and her cell door swung open loudly. Now I could hear commotion in the rest of the castle filtering in through the cell block door. There was more going on out there than just this Animare finding Rune.