I hesitated but gave a curt nod, if only to keep him talking. I cursed the brief satisfaction that flickered in his eyes but heldfirm. I’d given ground but not all of it and I had a feeling I needed to know what he was telling me, that it was, perhaps, what I'd been missing all along. That is, if I determined I could trust him.
“What do you know of your people?” the prince asked then, his head cocked to the side, curious.
I imagined I knew much more than he thought I did.Kleiohad given me the history of the world I lived in, the arrival of theGeistfrom the world they'd fled to before ours, the plight of the humans here, the creation of Sanctuary, of theVerdunn. That is, if any of that was true. But admitting I wasn’t as inept as they seemed to believe wouldn't lend itself in my favor when it came time to negotiate my own release. So, again, I remained quiet.
He watched me far longer than he had before but, when it became clear I wasn't going to offer a response, he sighed.
“You could make this easier, you know,” he muttered, turning away from me and striding to the opposite side of the room. “Very well. I’ll have to start from the beginning and you’ll have to endure whatever you find repetitive. Humans were here from the very beginning. This is our world. It belongs to us. This is our home. TheGeistarrived thousands of years after our earliest recorded histories. At first, we were a wonder to them and they to us. We approached cautiously, engaged carefully, and maintained our separate cultures as best as we could. For a time, they respected that. Some of them even integrated within our villages, making homesamongstus, even breeding with us. But others decided that wouldn’t do, that their superior race couldn't stoop so low as to mate with barbarians such as we were. So war came. We had spears and arrows. They had magic and metal. It was a slaughter.
Our councils met. Representatives of humanity argued about what to do regarding the intruders. Some still believed in thegoodness of theGeist. They were encouraged by those who opposed the war, who still made homes among us and married our women to createhalf-Geist, half-human children. They wanted to attempt diplomacy. They wanted to kneel. Others refused and claimed they would fight until their dying breath rather than become a slave in their own world. And then others, the smallest contingent, ran. They fled across the desert to the sea where they established three separate countries behind walls made entirely ofMavridisstone. You can appreciate the mineral, I’m sure, as it’s what binds your wrists and ankles at the moment.Mavridisstone leeches away magic, bleeds it right out of its host. Only distance will return the ability. So my ancestors built their cities from the stone and hid behind their walls and here we've thrived for generations, untouched by theGeist, unreachable by magic.
The other groups, well, they met with the fates I imagined they expected. Those willing to fight to the death did so on bloody battlefields and in shining halls. Those who proposed diplomacy found it in their own way through the creation of Sanctuary and the continuance of thehalf-bloodline, your line. And so we've remained a world divided. TheGeiston one side of the desert and the humans on the other, each of us hiding behind our walls, waiting for the other to drift into the open. Sure, we aren’t without our own weapons.”
The prince made a pointed glance to theZvernow snoring in the center of the cell.
“These creatures are the finest of our ancestors’ creations.Godskillers, we call them,” he mused, smiling like a delighted parent. “And other such weapons theGeistare aware of and fear so terribly they're willing to stoop to the level of humanity to recruit their warriors, forcing us to fight against our own rather than having the ability to attack them. You wonder why theGeistdon't venture beyond their precious city?TheZverare why. Our riders are why. And the others, the Fallen, they are why. Ah, I see you're not surprised by the mention of the Fallen. You know, then, that your partner lives.”
I mentally cursed myself for giving away what knowledge I’d already had.
“Yes, she lives,” he informed me, reaching down to pat the sleepingZveron the back once again. “In fact, she’s managed to escape her secondary prison, the one you sent her to upon your own victory. TheGeistare going practically mad looking for her, sending out their finest warriors to search the vast desert for the escaped Fallen girl. Pity that our riders will find them first. I never delight in ending more human lives.”
I blinked at him, too stunned to reel in my surprise. He grinned.
“Ah, this you did not know,” he continued, reading my expression easily enough. “What did you think they would do with her? Free her? Send her back to Sanctuary? Please. You had to know that whatever fate awaited her when you plunged her into the abyss would not be a pleasant one.”
In fact, I’d thought she would die. I thought I’d killed her. But I didn't say as much.
“Don’t worry, Victor,” the prince said, his enunciation of the wordvictormaking it seem to be something distasteful he spat out rather than allowing to linger too long on his tongue. “Your partner is resourceful. She’s already made allies of her own. Who else do you suppose could have delivered this knowledge to me?”
I stared at him, trying to process everything he'd told me, everything I already knew. Adrian had escaped from wherever theGeisthad been holding her, somewhere evenKleiohad refused to discuss with me. She was with others now,alliesthe prince called them. Did that mean they were human? Or were theyVerdunnlike us? Had she found other Fallen? Had she foundPrima? I strained against my bonds once again.
“Enough of that,” the prince told me, eyes flashing as he met my gaze from where he stood at the door. “You couldn’t reach her even if you did escape. And if you did, well, can you imagine that would be a very pleasant reunion for either of you?”
I deflated at the truth of his words as he left me behind once again, alone in my dark, damp cell.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Adrian
“There is no higher form of hypocrisy than them executing us for heresy when they are the ones who serve false gods.”
— As Spoken by Wisteria Sallow, Leader of the Origin of Divine Cult
“Sewing,” Zya spoke up suddenly from beside me.
I tore my gaze away fromGryfon,whom I’d been watching as he assisted a group of warriors in tearing down the tents on the other side of the camp, to look back atZya.
“They put me on sewing,” she repeated, bitterly. “Again. Can you believe it? All of that, escaping the Underground and wandering across the desert with total strangers and they make me a seamstress yet again.”
I snorted.
“You have askillset,” I told her. “At least you’re useful.”
“Adrian,” she said, frowning. “Are you attempting to claim you aren’t useful? You freed us from the Underground. You took down the barrier.”
“And where did that get us? Stranded in the middle of a dusty wasteland with a group of people we know nothing about andare playing their cards a little too close to the chest for my liking. Haven’t you wondered,Zya, if maybe we traded one form of captivity for another?”
Zyafrowned but glanced out at the camp around us.
