Chapter 13
Cambria
––––––––
The changelings don’tturn on us the second we’re able to finally pull it off like I thought they would, the expanse of the prison now laid out before us. They just look...defeated. Like they reveled in their freedom while they could because they knew it could never last, that they’d be forced back here eventually. They’re still in their demonic, true forms; all of their excess energy sacrificed to create the ring that would replenish the wasteland, bringing it back to what it once was.
Crouching down, I offer a hand, palm up, to Loki. “You three and Atlas did the hard part, so I’ve got some extra to give.” I glance at Raziel and Azazel, jerking my head towards my hand so they know they’re included. “Can’t have you going hungry, now can we?”
As if expecting it to be a trap, none of them move at first. Azazel finally crawls forward, the mist of a tongue flicking over the tips of my fingers like an arctic wind. Closing my eyes, I channel the energy thrumming through my veins into my hand, grateful that I have the ability to do so and they don’t have to latch onto me like vampires to suck it from my blood.
When some of the solemn air surrounding them dissipates, a bit of hope that they won’t be sentenced to another twenty-four year stretch of living in a state of starvation manifesting, I gently withdraw my hand. I can’t feel the connection to Faerie anymore, too far removed from the earth despite the floating island we’re standing on. Whatever magic surrounds this prison to ensure the changelings usually can’t escape, it also severs that tie to the steady source of energy we all need to thrive; like they wanted to keep my ancestors from growing too powerful as well.
“No wonder they couldn’t create a ring to escape,” I murmur, brushing my fingertips over the dust laden stone beneath our feet. “It’s a miracle that they managed to survive on the scraps Elorie threw them long enough for the barrier to fade and still managed to fight their way through it.”
Lucien wraps a hand above my elbow to help me up, hovering close by when he releases me as if he expects me to collapse. “Who knows if they were the only thing in this prison, though? Before we let our guard down and start figuring out how we’re going to round them back up and herd them here, let’s make sure it’d even be sustainable long term.”
Dorian tries to make it sound less daunting than the situation really is, but misses the mark epically. Everything is looming over our heads and each step forward feels like three steps back when we glance at them from a new angle. “And honestly, it’s only a matter of time before Elorie sends someone to check here for you, after word gets back to her about what happened in the shadow court and you sympathizing with the changelings. She’ll assume you’ll have figured out what she did to you and that you’d want to see where you were born.”
“If the magic could be used to keep the changelings inside though,” Atlas points out, “then logically, we could adjust it to keep everyone elseout.”
Finally, an actual solution. A solid plan. The rest of the world thinks of this place as a prison, but we can turn it into our safe haven.
The changelings’ forms shimmer before they don my form and I cringe. “Yeah, I could do without that.”
Dorian barks out a laugh. “Hottest version of Clone Wars that I’ve ever seen.”
We take our first good look around and I know mine isn’t the only jaw that’s dropping. We’re high up on a stone platform, surrounded by an iron guardrail like a massive balcony. The stone tapers off into a metal skywalk that extends a good stretch on either side before curving into a massive oval without an end in sight, hovering above the labyrinth two stories beneath us. Shadowed hallways of pitted stone, so similar to that in the mountainous terrain that we just left, it leaves no doubt in any of our minds.
“The wasteland was their home.”
Lucien puts a steadying hand on my hip as he steps up beside me, gazing down at the maze. “They likely didn’t even need to cry to create the ring.”
I simply nod. “They were just mourning the home they hadn’t seen in centuries and what it had become.”
Atlas throws his arms up in the air, but doesn’t seem genuinely upset, just annoyed. “Of course,” he mutters to himself before becoming just as engrossed in the sight as the rest of us.
Dorian rests his arms on the railing, attention rapt on the unconventional habitat. “Likely the two courts fought over expanding their territories and drove them out, starting this whole mess.”
Lucien’s thumb strokes over my hip in a steady rhythm. “And they had to get the energy to create the prison and barrier from somewhere. It was likely a final ‘fuck you’ from Cambria’s ancestors to take it from the land that started the chain of events and leave them with only a pile of ash to kill each other over.” We simply stand there for a bit, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
I trace the path of the maze from what I can see from this angle. There aren’t any cell doors, nothing like the prison I’d imagined. Above the labyrinth is a metal grate that acts as a lid above the entire thing to keep them trapped inside, now slid back just far enough for wraith-thin bodies to escape. Deep grooves are clawed into the stone where they scrambled up the walls to fight with the grate, prying it free of where it locks into place; a stark reminder of their brutality and desperation as they withered away, forgotten.
As we start making our way across the skywalk, the changelings drag their feet, attention rapt on the sight beneath them, like they’ve never seen their prison from this angle before. Fates’ only know what memories are racing through their minds right now, what horrors they’re reliving.
I glance at those obsidian eyes trapped in nightmarish memories, not so different from the face I saw in the mirror the first time I was released from that silent room beneath the castle; half mad, sick, and so damn hungry. Not for food, but the will to live, for the energy that I didn’t realize I was being deprived of. They were suffering up here while I was rotting away in that room. So close, and yet an ocean may as well have separated us.
We could have helped each other, if only I’d known back then that I had something to fight for. That I had people counting on me to fight for myself so that I could get strong enough to fight for them too.
I’m pulled right back to Dorian’s lament after laser tag, when his past had such an unyielding grip on his mind that he struggled to stay in the present. So, even though it might be a foolish waste of my power when we don’t know what’s waiting for us, I start to hum softly as we walk. Not enough to counteract the onslaught of emotions, but just enough to take the edge off, to make things more bearable. Nobody questions it and we carry on the long stretch with only the soft sounds to counteract how ungodly silent the place is; abandoned of all but the haunted history still clinging on, a malignant absence of energy like a void.
Eventually we get to a fork in the road, where the skywalk connects as a bridge to the other side of the oval surrounding the pit beneath us, continues ahead, or branches off into the darkness at our right, into a tunnel in the earthen wall. Lucien veers for the shadows without a word and the rest of us follow behind him. We need to understand everything we have to work with here no matter how creepy, and the center space is clearly reserved to hold the changelings. And if that’s the case, then my ancestors had to have living quarters somewhere else in this place.
We’re forced to trek slowly, running our hands along the stone walls in the dark to find our way. After a few minutes, I bring a soft glow to my hand, aiming to conserve as much of my power as I can, but needing to not break my neck either.
