EVERYTHING HURT.
It wasn’t the same pain from when my leg had been ripped to shreds. This was a deeper pain. A soreness that went all the way to my bones.
Without preamble, I rolled to the side and vomited.
A lot.
My throat was on fire. I wiped my mouth and tried to open my eyes. As soon as I did, they were on fire, and I could see nothing but shapes through a white haze.
“One’s up,” someone said.
A moment later, there was the sound of someone else retching and a small whimper. Several more of the bodies around me moved and retched in the next minutes.
Blinking as much as I could to clear the crust and dirt from my eyes, I felt my vision clearing. I narrowed my eyes and tried to look around.
The walls were cold stone gray. Thick, angry bars of dull gray metal formed a three-sided cage around us. The stink of old, dead blood permeated everything. There was no light except that from torches burning on the walls.
That at least explained the burning sensation in my throat and eyes. Torches.
I sat up carefully and checked to see where my vomit had landed.
On Carolee’s shoe.
Gross.
Nothing else was much better, though. There were druids and vomit all over the floor.
Roran was on the other side and Vitas near the third wall of bars. The other soldiers were trying to assess their situation, and eventually, everyone moved to the edges of the cage, away from the stench in the center.
I desperately wanted to run to Roran, but I could see his direction in his eyes: Don’t move.
We couldn’t let them know who meant what to whom. I had to stay near Carolee, Vitas and several of the others.
“They’re all up!” one of the guards outside our cage called.
There was a clank, a bang and then water fell from the ceiling in a torrent, rinsing all of our vomit down to the center where there was a drain. It took a few minutes for the floor to be clean, but it was gone, and so was the stink.
We were all drenched in the process.
I had to stay alert, pay attention. Like a desperately intricate sword fight, I needed the details of the fight.
First, they must have knocked us out in the forest. Probably with blowguns and darts and fast-acting drugs.
Next, they moved us here.
Wherever here was.
Then they knew when we woke up, everyone down to the person would vomit. That meant they knew this drug very well. And knew what it would do to people. Druids.
I wondered how it would work on vampires.
And last, this was not their first go-round, because they had a drain in the floor and a water system in the ceiling for rinsing out the puke.
Carolee jerked away from the bars in the next instant and rubbed her arm.
“What?” I asked quietly.
“It’s…galena. It’s coated in galena.”
All of the druids in the cell heard her quiet words while a shiver of fear ran up my back.
If the bars were coated in galena, they really knew what they were doing. This was a holding cell to beat all holding cells. It was designed to keep a magic wielder from their magic.
Galena never responded to magic. Ever.
Every druid child knew that.
No one went near galena. The scientists at the university called it an ore, a chemical mélange they could boil down and extract a dull, malleable metal named lead from. It was useless and dangerous.
Vitas’s head swiveled around to the door next to him. There was a handle, but nowhere to put a key.
The guard laughed and tapped the wall next to him. “Don’t bother. The lock is over here.”
Vitas and I shoved our magic at the keyhole and—
Nothing happened.
The entire locking system was laced with galena—lead. Nothing would obey us.
This was a vampire jail.
The vampires couldn’t affect it, either.
They hadn’t seen druids in as long as we hadn’t seen vampires. So whatever they used on us would work on them.
I cursed that I didn’t have a notebook to write all this down. Dorian and the rest of the temple masters needed all this information.
Just as I was going to move toward Roran, the guards in the room snapped to attention.
A tall, lithe, tanned vampire with exotic looks, waist-length black hair, and bottomless black eyes walked into the holding area and looked around. His shoulders were wide, and his entire being sparked with power.
He’d just had blood.
My stomach twisted.
Dressed in black from head to toe, his coat had just a few epaulets on the breast pocket. A sword rested on one hip, with a scabbard that curved just enough to be noticed, and a bright metal object rested in a holder on the other hip, both just peeking out as he walked into the room.
“My Lord Knight,” the one guard said, with a stiff bow.
“The king wishes to see them,” he snapped.
“Which ones, my lord?”
“All of them.”
“Allow me to get more handcuffs, then, sir.”
The lord knight nodded sharply, and two of them ran out of the room. Walking slowly, he traced the outer perimeter of our cage, studying us.
“Have they said anything, captain?”
“The two females over there were mumbling to each other, but I didn’t catch what was being said.”
The dark man walked toward Carolee and me. I heard Roran and Vitas growl, and Carolee shot both of them a look, cutting them off.
Cocking his head, he looked us over from top to bottom. “I’ve never seen a druid before. I didn’t expect that you would look so… common.” He tossed a look around at the other in the cell with us. “Judging by the clothes you wear, you are not soldiers like the others. Some kind of civilian leaders, perhaps?”
His hand snapped out and grabbed Carolee’s wrist. Vitas was next to us in the next moment, snatching her back from him.
“Ah, a pair! Interesting. You don’t need to fear me, druid. I’ve fed and have no interest in your woman’s blood.” He grinned, a mouth of pearly white teeth. “Yet, anyway.”
Carolee punched Vitas’s shoulder. He’d given away that they were paired off.
“I wonder if you can even understand me. We’ve separated for millennia. You may not even share our language.”
Still, no one spoke.
“Sire, we heard them in the forest,” one of the guards said. “They were plotting to blow up the armory at the Crossing.”
He chuckled. “Indeed. I suspect they understand us perfectly.”
We held our silence as the two guards ran back in. “My lord, the handcuffs.”
He looked at the fourteen of us shoved into the cell. “Each of you will come forward and put hands out through the slot near the door. Once you are all secure, you will be taken to see the king.”
The man’s eyes burned red. “Do not attempt to use your magic for any reason. We have been told to execute you if you try anything.”
Just a few minutes later, we had all been shackled with galena metals, and the door opened. Filing out, we made two straight lines, and everyone seemed to understand Carolee and Vitas, and then Roran and I were to stand together.
“March,” the lord knight commanded.
We were led through the winding halls of a cold, cavernous building. It felt as though there were spirits trapped in the walls, screaming for help. The torches fell away after two levels and were replaced by small shining globes that held no magic but put out a tremendous amount of light.
One of the guards behind us chuckled. “They’ve never seen light bulbs before!”
Another guard chuckled. “I heard they don’t have electricity, either. Just some basic generators that don’t work well.”
“Quiet!” the lord knight snapped. “No gossiping! No rumors! Do your jobs!”
“Yes, my lord,” both guards answered.
We continued the walk, up more stairs, down more halls, through more doors.
They were leading us around so we couldn’t figure out the layout of the building.
Smart, really.
Moving through the rooms, I wasn’t able to shake the feeling that someone was watching us. Not just the guards, but something…else.
I glanced to the left and saw a statue in a cage.
It blinked.
Jerking, I stumbled into Roran.
“What?” He was on alert, ready to attack.
“The man in that cage…”
Roran turned and looked at it. Slowly, the statue’s mouth dropped open, revealing fangs. The smell of death wafted across the hall.
Then, I smelled blood.
Roran looked down as we walked. Our feet were leaving bloody footprints on the stone. The man in the cage groaned and reached for us.
“Get back!” the lord knight snapped, slapping the hand back inside.
“Sadistic, controlling bastard,” Roran grumbled. He helped me regain my feet, and we continued.
“They don’t trust anyone,” I said in a hushed voice.
“Probably not even themselves.”
Massive wooden doors appeared at the end of the newest hallway. Intricately carved, they swung open as we neared them. They revealed a massive, gray room, with bright red and gold curtains at the far end.
We were marched directly in front of the curtains where a man sat with a dark crown on his head.
The same man who had ripped out Argo’s throat.
He stared at us, bored. “Bow.”
Not one of us moved.
Quirking an eyebrow, he didn’t look quite as bored this time. “I said, bow.”
No one did.
“Lord Knight?”
A bright white steel blade appeared at one of the soldier’s neck. “Bow.”
His terrified eyes flicked over to ours. Roran nodded imperceptibly, and we all went to one knee.
“Better.” He nodded at the lord knight to put his sword away. “Stay there for now. It amuses me to see you druids brought low. Now, why are you here? Why did you try to sneak into my lands?”
“To steal your weapons,” Roran stated.
The king started laughing. “Ah, refreshingly honest! Did you really think you would get away with stealing and blowing up my armory? So close to the stronghold?”
“Maybe,” Vitas answered. “One could hope.”
The king continued to chuckle as he stood up. “Such lovely naïveté. Truly. Also, impressive that you managed to get over that pile of rocks in one piece. I hear tell you are all pampered and lazy over in the west.”
Slowly, one deliberate step at a time, he moved around the group. He studied us, but it was the observations of a man who had forgotten how to do anything for himself.
“My men tell me the Breaker is among you.” The statement was threatening. “Here’s my deal to you. First, if the Breaker steps forward, I will release the rest of you. Second, if they do not, I will kill all of you. One at a time.”
“Why would you want to talk to the Breaker?” one of the soldiers asked. “The job is done. There’s no significance to the title.”
“That’s a foolish thing to think, druid.”
It was?
The king moved to the throne again. “So. The Breaker can step forward, and I will let all of you go back to your council, temple, king, whatever, or you can remain hidden, and all of you will die one by one. Including the Breaker.”
Roran spoke. “We demand to see the overlords.”
The cackle he unleashed was disturbing. “The overlords? Why of course! Why not? Old fops have nothing better going on right now. General Odom! Let them see the overlords.”
A man in a gray uniform walked to the side of the throne’s dais and pulled on a rope.
I fully expected a bell to ring, or a door to open. Something to summon these overlords to the room we were in.
Instead, the curtains lifted.
On the wall behind the throne were six vampire heads.