Chapter 49

(Skye's House, Meybury)

Outside the walls of Meybury and the mountains it resides in, Cordea and her siblings finish their dinner of oven-roasted, herbed chicken with flaky biscuits and soft carrots at Skye’s house, and she is assisting Skye with the sordid dishes. Her youngest brothers require a bath after playing in a muddy field, and she does too for being in the crossfire, so she prepares one before they go to bed. Even if she is clean, the triplets have a history of trashing the bathroom when they bathe together back at home, so she still has to keep an eye on them to prevent them from repeating it in Skye’s house. Since she’s the oldest member by blood, she assumes the role of mother to her younger siblings, and it’s an arduous task to perform since her twin brother doesn’t assist her.

Steamy mist fills the bathroom, obscuring parts of the triplets' bodies and hers as two of them splash water on each other in a fight. Stray liquid particles manage to hit Cordea while she bathes with them to rid herself of the mud, and she shields her face with her hands. She notices Lupus is not as enthusiastic as his brothers.

“What’s wrong, Lupus?” Cordea inquires as she washes his hair.

“I want home,” Lupus responds. “I want mommy, daddy, and Barri back.”

“I want them too, but bad people are after us. Mom, dad, and Barion want us to stay here.”

“How long?” Roffe asks. He and Royd cease their splashing.

“Until it’s safe. For now, this is our home.”

“No, it’s not,” Royd replies with conniption, splashing the water in remonstration. “I want home, too.”

“Me, too,” Roffe responds.

Sighing, she pauses for a minute. I can’t blame them for desiring home. No matter how much we try to adjust since living here days ago, it isn’t the same even with mimicking parts of our life. Truth be told, I’m sick and tired of living here. There’s a strange presence that’s unsettling me, and I suspect it’s from the wall up north. Soldiers are more active and plentiful here, and I assume they’re distressing the triplets unknowingly, maybe the neighbors beyond the barrier too. The worst part is not knowing if father, mother, and Barion are alive, and the threat is gone. “We just have to wait a little longer, and we’ll return home faster than you think. By staying here, we’re helping them do their job faster.” Multiple bubbles ascend to the water’s surface and burst around Roffe, and the triplets laugh. “That’s enough bath for you. Let me dry you off, and you dress yourselves in your PJs for bed. Maybe Bomo and Muffie would like to read you a bedtime story.”

“Yippie,” exclaim the triplets, and Cordea averts her eyes as Royd inadvertently reveals his intimate organs to her by jumping for joy.

Cordea dries herself and her siblings off one at a time, assisting them with their pajamas when they encounter problems and dresses before leading them to their bedroom. She reveals two grey sock puppets, one with green hair and the other with blue hair and a red nose, from her clothes and initiates a story. To show their enthusiasm, the triplets clap and engage actively with the story. Booing ensues from them when she reveals another puppet that is red with yellow hair called Rudis. They persuade her to perform an extra account before she tells them to fall asleep, although their languor did most of the convincing. A lullaby is the final nail.

Alone in the living room, sitting on a couch, Cordea retrieves a book she’s currently reading off a shelf and resumes where the bookmark is. The book is thick with a blue and gold cover and The Dragon Maiden's title by Anmariwyln Issarin. Barely four pages in, she slams and discards it in disbelief and disgust at a scene, and she relocates to the front porch for fresh air.

A gentle breeze graces Cordea’s skin as she sits in a wooden rocking chair. She notices the lights farther ahead behind the mountains, representing the city of Meybury. The explosions throughout the day in the distant mountains cease for the night. Since the skies are clear, she decides to locate any constellations she recognizes. Let’s see, there’s the warrior, so that means that the wolf should be in the immediate vicinity. There he is. I also notice a two-headed sea serpent, a crab with four claws, and an insect. Wait, do those stars form a mix of…?

“It’s awfully belated for you to be up,” Skye speaks and disrupts Cordea’s train of thought.

“I was about to go to bed,” Cordea replies.

Hand out, palm forward, Skye gestures Cordea to silence. Her eyes shift side to side on alert. “Collect your siblings and bring them to the shelter.”

In futility, Cordea scans the landscape. “I don’t see anything. It must be your imagination.”

“I’m dead serious. Do it, now.” Cordea notices that Skye isn’t joking, so she obeys.

Now in solitude, Skye stares out into the void towards the source of her increased vigilance. From the cardinal road to Meybury, cloaked individuals on horseback gallop closer to her house. In total, thirty members are advancing. A horse accidentally triggers a trap, and giant, thorny vines erupt from the ground, ensnaring, lifting, and puncturing it and the rider, and the remainders halt. The blood trickles down, saturating the soil. Forgive me, majestic horse.

“Tread carefully,” one of the men utters.

“Consider it your first and only admonishment,” Skye forewarns them. “Proceed further, and you’ll find nothing but travails more afflictive than the vines instead of your prize.”

“You must be the Paranoid Trapper,” the man comments. “The boss mentioned about you.”

“Then you know that I abhor people, especially those that trespass on my property.”

The leader extends his left hand. “If you hand us the juvenile Beastmen and Beastwomen, then we won’t exasperate you further.”

“I’m afraid I must reject your proviso.”

“After her!” He orders his henchmen, pointing at Skye and the house.

He pulls out a revolver and aims it at Skye. A metallic click immediately follows him cocking the hammer manually, and a flash materializes with a boom echoing as he squeezes the trigger. The wood rains splinters on her as the bullet grazes a stanchion and forms a hole in the wall. Unhurt, she retreats into her hearthstone to the basement and actuates the security expedients.

The door dislodges from its hinges, the windows shatter as the criminals enter inside. In an instant, two more intruders succumb to Skye’s trap as they enter through an aperture. A magical ward activates beneath their feet, unleashing a portal on them. They fall in, and the leftovers hear primal screams of fear and agony mixed with unearthly sounds and dismemberment before it disappears.

“Fuck this shit,” another member says in a Gerridan accent. “The children aren’t worth it, Callek.”

Callek gestures towards the door with his revolver, appearing stoic. “There’s the door, Leonan. If you want to prove to the world you’re a pussy and don’t want the payment, leave. Enjoy the traps outside.” Before Leonan completely steps off the porch, he shoots the black man in the back and glares at his henchmen, showing them a visage that is cold-blooded. “Anybody else want to leave,” he asks over the moans of Leonan crawling away. “Opportunity is still there.” Nobody dares to accept his offer.

With his minions in line, Callek rummages through his gear and uncovers a scroll. Glowing in his hands, it activates, which results in all of its contents fading after activation. “Art of Abjuration: Dead Magic Zone!” Dead energy engulfs the entire house and the surrounding areas in a sphere, deactivating and negating any form of magic within a radius of a hundred feet.

“Now we only worry about mechanical traps for an entire day,” Callek speaks, and he chortles briefly. “As if it’ll take us that long to complete our objective.”

Callek and his grunts scour the entire property within the boundaries of the spell, circumspect of their movements. Narrowing the options down to one, they descend to the cellar and behold an open passageway. Upon stepping foot into the path, a razor-sharp blade swings out from the side of a wall in blinding speed and cuts a man in half. Thanks to the laceration, his body staggers forward, activating another trap that causes a giant mace to swing and knocks the top half off.

“You’re out of your bailiwick,” Skye taunts somewhere. “I possess knowledge of the entire layout of the labyrinth years in designing. Your group will reduce to nothing before reaching your objective. You should’ve kept my wards.”

“Be extra careful,” Callek warns.

With the rude awakening in mind, he and his men tread carefully over the corpse and down the hallway, deactivating tripwires, pressure plates, and other mechanical triggers. The single path expands into a sophisticated labyrinth, starting at a chamber. Dividing into groups of five, they proceed farther.

Group A walks on the edge, encountering a door in front of them; a path extends further on the left. Suspecting the doorway is a trap, the man in the front turns left and activates a pitfall. The pit contains spikes, and the four men observe him in pain as the rusted metal sinks deeper into his flesh and bone. The male Shaidun with dark crimson skin next in line decides the door is the true path, so he opens it. A blast of white flames blows a hole in the wood and his chest and propels him backward; the culprit is a blunderbuss. The sound masks the sound of Skye dispatching the first victim with a crossbow bolt, and she disappears before the remainders notice.

The affiliates of group D hear the commotion, their dithers increasing. They aren’t positive if the shadows and other noises are genuine from Skye or their ideations. A sharp pain in the back of the last man in line from a dart causes him to pivot around and fire twice at nothing. The other members turn at him, ready to fight, but he defuses them by waving. Searing pain spreads from the point of impact until it anguishes his entire body and perverts his mind. Now, he interprets his brothers as his enemies, filling him with an ardent lust to murder them.

Immediately in front of him, a masculine Dragonkin with gold scales falls dead after the corrupt individual stabs him in the heart, the blood saturating the dirt, turning it into mush. Hearing the corpus’s thud, the three males realize the perfidy and engage the traitor. After their words yield no success in converting him, they escalate into a fight, leaving two survivors.

Meanwhile, in group B, the members are also on edge with sounds and images, especially after losing a man to a falling bear trap. Scouring every inch of floor, walls, ceiling, and wooden support structures, they travel at a snail’s pace, unaware of Skye stalking them from above. When they are in an optimal position, she removes the barrier near a support beam and drops two vials before sealing and vacating. The glasses shatter, and the liquids oxidize into poisonous gas. It swiftly scars the tissue in their windpipe, blocking vital air into their lungs no matter how hard they try to breathe, and they succumb to the gas.

In group E, the associates dread each step because it could be their last after hearing their comrades’ fates in the different groups. They agree that the children aren’t worth the vexation and can locate jobs elsewhere outside Adoran. However, they are lost in the pernicious maze. 

The chosen path leads them to a chamber. As soon as the last masculine individual steps it, the course collapses behind them, trapping them in the section, and pillars of spikes rise from the ground. There’s barely room to navigate, and it shrinks to the point where each step from the men results in lacerations. They elect the skinniest member to move ahead by walking sideways, hoping he would find a mechanism to drop the columns to liberate them. Even with his slender characteristic, the space constricts enough to where he suffers cuts on his body, but he successfully makes it out alive. Two buttons greet him on the wall in front of him; the markings above them are scratched out beyond recognition. In addition to the buttons, the path continues near the left button. Leaving it up to kismet, he flips a coin, heads for left and tails for right. The outcome is tails, and it is the correct button. The columns sink into the ground, liberating the other four, and they resume their escape. Transitioning from a curve, they walk into a straight hallway, oblivious to the signals from the wood that it’s straining to contain the mass. It collapses, and they plummet onto a bed of spikes.

Back in Group A, the three remaining affiliates press on beyond the blunderbuss and are extra observant in their surroundings, even managing to diffuse a couple of traps. They discover Skye ahead, initiating their pursuit recklessly. Instead of fleeing or hiding, she waits around the corner, listening intently to their footsteps to gauge how near they are. Detecting they’re within range, she detonates explosives and collapses the tunnel, burying them with one flaccid, bloody hand protruding from the rubble.

Each time Callek detects his men succumbing to Skye’s traps, his choler escalates. He and one other man are the only survivors of group C after one member dies from a flying barrage of nails and the other two parishes from acid. The survivor number increases when they merge with the exhausted and bruised group D in a room with a stone door, the first instance within the death maze.

“We made a terrible mistake coming here,” one of the men from party D huffs. “We should leave.”

“No, Martis,” Callek replies. “I won’t allow some homeless hag to get the best of me.” To prove Martis’s point, a projectile from out of nowhere lodges itself on the throat of another man, and Callek responds by shooting in the direction of the bolt at a retreating shadow. “Reveal yourself! Enough hiding in the shadows!” He curses when he notices a possible secret entrance.

“Here I am,” Skye replies.

Callek turns to face her. “Finally, we can have an honorable combat instead of resorting to unethical tactics.”

“I warned you,” Skye utters. “You had every opportunity to leave.”

Callek draws his blade and revolver out. “Well, now here we are. I’ll gladly end your existence.”

Her response to his challenge is hurling a grey vial straight to the ground, shattering the glass. A thick brume spreads across the floor from the epicenter, obscuring the vision that Callek can barely discern his scimitar in front of him. In a flash, he hears the shrieks, blood spilling, and a collapsing body from one of his surviving minions to his right and then another array to his left.

“I thought we agreed to not use poltroon methods,” Callek speaks. Only silence answers him. Instinctually, he dodges an incoming crossbow bolt, and he detects it bounce off a wall and clatter on the ground. “Fucking bitch.” He wonders how Skye can spot him through the mist while he can’t. Additionally, he needs to devise a way to even the odds. All he can do right now is avoid her ranged and melee attacks, sometimes suffering gashes from them.

Behind the stone door, Cordea and her siblings wait eagerly for Skye to give a signal it’s safe. It is dead silent in the secure room that some believe that the rest can hear their heartbeat due to their adrenaline. Deryn becomes impatient, so he decides to exit the hideout.

“Where are you going?” Cordea inquires.

“Towards freedom,” Deryn answers.

“Why are you so defiant?”

“Because I’m sick and tired of being in here and Skye’s house in general. I find the whole protection bogus, to begin with. Stay here if the house is under siege. Don't leave your bedrooms after 9 o'clock. Skye's stringent rules are mind-numbing.”

“You saw the condition mom was in when you left early at home. You know that someone is targeting us because of her and dad. Someone powerful.”

“I’m positive they dealt with it by now and wanted a vacation from us. Just as I’m sure, Skye took care of the intruders and forgot about us. If you want to rot here for a few extra hours, be my guest.”

Cordea attempts to seize Deryn’s arm. “Deryn…” He shakes her off and continues walking. “I’ll tell mom and dad that you are disobedient and have you face Usse.”

Deryn stops and faces his twin sister. “You’re not as intimidating as mom. I know that you’ll keep this a secret from them or else.”

“Or else what?”

“I’ll spoil the entire story of the Dragon Maiden.”

“I highly doubt that.” He has to be pretending. There’s no way he would willingly read a romance book. Maybe it’s a sign of the apocalypse.

“Try me.” Buy my bluff.

There’s one test that’ll prove that he’s feigning knowledge. “If you read the book, then tell me the details from the beginning to page 112.” That’s where she’s currently at.

How lucky am I? That’s around where I discovered my mistake and ditched the book. “It starts with…. Around the page you’re currently at, Prince Haemir just ordered the execution of Shael’s brother, Vulluin. Do you believe me now?”

Cordea’s jaw is wide open from hearing his recount of the tome. “I can’t believe you actually read it.”

“If you continue to try to stop me, I’ll ruin the rest of the book. If you wish to follow me or remain behind, then suit yourself.”

The other siblings try to persuade Deryn to not leave and risk his life but to no avail. Against her urges to stay put, Cordea follows him silently after a minute of his departure, and she orders her younger brothers and sister to remain behind.

Deryn arrives at the entrance. His eyes behold mist bleeding through the gaps in the door, disappearing immediately when it ascends. Gulping, he opens the door to the misty room. The fog flows forward, creating an alluvion similar to water flowing after a dam collapses. After walking his first steps, he pauses in hopes he can adjust his eyes to the obscuring gauze. Panic ensures as a wrinkly, bony hand materializes suddenly and covers his mouth.

“Return to the secured room this instance,” Skye hisses in a low register. Definitely Aila’s offspring. I don’t want any distractions remaining when the mist depletes its time very soon.

Detecting the seriousness in Skye’s voice, Deryn nods his head in understanding; a gun fires, and he feels blood and the sudden gain in weight he has to bear. The brume lifts, revealing Skye’s bloody body and her shooter. Before he can escape, Callek overpowers him and attempts to flee with him through the secret path. Spotting Cordea’s shadow, he shoots again as cover fire while Deryn yells for help.

When it’s safe, Cordea emerges and notices Skye’s lifeless body. Tears down her face, she attempts to revive her, refusing to believe the worst outcome.

“Hang in there, Skye,” Cordea sobs. “Don’t die on me. Don’t die on me.”

Hope fades when Cordea’s revival attempts result in blood on her hands. No pulse. No breathing. No heartbeat. No life. Abandoning all sense of reason, she pursues Callek for retribution. Outside the shed, she notices him fleeing with her twin brother and Leonan still crawling away. She storms towards him and drags him back to the house while he moans in pain. “You have questions to answer.”