“You boys ready for a night you’ll never remember?” I asked.
“Don’t you mean, never forget?” one replied absently as he dropped his pants.
“No… I do not.”
I put the three of them to sleep.
I found the keys and unlocked the door. There was no light within. I brought in a lantern from outside and hissed when I saw the limp, naked, beaten and filthy form on the floor.
“Myel?” I whispered, shocked. I shouldn’t have been, I’d known what he was going through.
The form cringed and whimpered and tried to roll away.
I went to him.
“Myel, it’s me!”
But he still flinched when I touched him.
It was only as I sent soothing healing through him that he blinked open what had been swollen-shut eyes and looked at me.
“Who?” he asked, confused.
Oh… right.
I shifted my form back to myself.
“Izzy?” he breathed in surprise. “You came?”
He’d doubted me. Though perhaps I’d doubt everything if I’d endured what he had. I didn’t blame him.
“Yes, I’m here,” I whispered. “I’ll be right back.” I rose and checked outside quickly. No one around but the three guards. I quickly positioned them so it looked like they’d fallen asleep naturally, one slumped in a chair, one sitting with his torso over the small table, the last leaning against the wall in a corner. Then I closed the door of Myel’s cell — ensuring I still had the keys — to make sure no one saw what we were about to do. To make double sure, and to block out any noise, I also raised a stone wall in front of the door on the inside.
There. We were safe, blocked in, but safe.
I returned to Myel and finished healing him.
I didn’t know if it was the intense magical training I’d done or the supposed power I possessed, but I wasn’t winded at all after: putting the guards to sleep, healing Myel, and using earth magic to block the door.
Hopefully that meant I could do what I needed to do tonight.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Myel whimpered, seeming like a shell of the man I’d known only a few days ago: so weak and uncertain.
“And me you,” I said, as I stood back and summoned water to douse him. I did it several times, scrubbing off the filth in between showers to get him as clean as I could. His clothes were shredded, no longer even worth calling clothes, so he’d have to remain naked.
A drain in the floor collected the water I’d summoned, and a byproduct of having cleansed him was a semi-clean area of stone floor as well.
“I don’t know how long this is going to take, so I shouldget started,” I said. “I’ll explain as I go,” I added at his confused look. “The gist of it is, I’m going to enhance you, make you stronger and tougher and faster… and if I’m able… I’m going to turn part of you into steel. Then I’m going to undo the binding on your collar so you can use all your powers tomorrow. Got it?”
He looked baffled. “How…?”
“I’m still working on the how, so bear with me.” I tilted my head, sweeping hair off my neck. “And you should drink. You’ll want to be strong for what is to come. We have a long night ahead of us.”
MYELAS
As I drank from Izzy,the delirium in which I’d floated, a place of weariness and pain and confusion, slowly dissipated as my body regained strength, feeling whole again. I was still exhausted, not having slept more than an hour or so at a time — and probably not more than five or six hours total — over the last few days. And I’d only gotten that much sleep because of the laziness of my three captors. They’d taken a few too many breaks. A tiny blessing.
But now Izzy was here, looking like something from my fevered dreams in that lacy black “dress.”
