Finally, the day of the escape had arrived—a day I had anticipated with a hunger that rivaled my literal starvation. I could only hope that the "Council of Idiots" I had assembled wouldn't screw it up. Especially Darren and Ziole. Those bastards were as unpredictable as they were pathetic.
By 4:00 PM, the final hours of my captivity were bleeding away. I sat in the corner of my cell, nursing my bruised ribs, knowing that soon I would no longer be the living punching bag for the trader's thugs.
The plan was a mess of desperate moving parts: Telodia was supposed to steal the keys to the beast cages to cause a riot; Zune was tasked with distracting Ellery—the sadistic, golden-boy son of the slave trader Joshua; Ziole was meant to sabotage the auction schedule; and Darren... well, Darren was supposed to summon the Knights of the Crimson Lily.
But luck has never been a lady to me; she's more like a spiteful hag.
Telodia was caught almost immediately. The sound of his capture echoed through the stone halls, and the others, those sentimental fools, refused to leave the "mountain of muscle" behind. Then there was Zune. After being forced to fulfill Ellery's disgusting whims just to get close to him, she snapped. She started spiraling into hysterics, threatening to reveal everything just to burn it all down. I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze until the silence returned, but Darren—the naive romantic—insisted we keep her alive. Apparently, six months of slavery had made him fall for her.
To make matters worse, Darren's signal to the Knights was botched. They were heading to the wrong location, likely miles away while we were being cornered. The only one who actually did his job was Ziole, that arrogant Elf, but his "diversion" was so masterfully executed it only served to alert the guards that we were organized.
I crouched behind a cold stone pillar, my mind racing. Why me? Why is it always me? I could have just kept running, but the walls were closing in. Two guards approached my cell. Darren was shivering beside me. I needed power. I needed a blade.
"Hey Darren," I whispered, my voice a low, deceptive purr.
"What?" he hissed, his teeth chattering.
"You were right before. I don't have a lick of Healing Magic," I confessed, watching his eyes flare with a mixture of superiority and rage.
"But," I added, leaning into the lie, "I am a master of the Shadow Blades."
Distrust clouded his face. "Why should I believe a rat like you?"
"Because it's the only way Zune lives. And because I'm the only one who will kill Ellery for you."
"Why... why would you do that for me?"
I felt like vomiting. The words tasted like ash. "Because you're my friend, Darren."
The idiot actually beamed. "You know what, Celosia? You're my friend too."
His belief was the spark. Darkness coalesced in my palms, forming two jagged, obsidian daggers that hummed with a murderous intent. I didn't just kill the guards; I dismantled them. The Shadow Blades sliced through their leather armor like hot wire through fat. I snatched the keys from their cooling corpses and ran for Ziole and Telodia. I needed them—they were my batteries for Ice and Lightning.
We fought through the corridors. Six guards tried to block us; I left them in heaps of severed limbs and shadow-burned flesh. But the moment I broke the locks on the next cell, Telodia—that dwarven ingrate—lunged at me. I didn't have time for a brawl. I drove a Shadow Blade through his chest and twisted. As he slumped, I felt my connection to Lightning magic flicker and die. Ziole screamed, cursing me. It turned out Telodia was from the Dravejio Kingdom, the very people who had slaughtered Ziole's White-Blood tribe.
We moved deeper into the bowels of the dungeon to find Zune. Ten more guards fell. The air was thick with the copper stench of blood and the acrid, chemical smell of poisons brewed by the Assassins of Juhola. I had met their kind before—poison-mongering bastards, the lot of them.
Finally, we reached Zune's cell. Standing guard was Felis, the bloated pig who had first put me in chains. He didn't even draw a weapon. He just swung a meaty fist into my jaw. The world spun. He beat me for what felt like an eternity, his fists like hammers. But I waited. When he grew winded, I struck.
I drove a Shadow Blade into his right shoulder, then sank another into both his knees. He fell to the ground, blubbering and screaming. It was a symphony to my ears. I leaned down and carved his throat open with a slow, deliberate stroke.
"You... you creature..." he wheezed, blood bubbling in his mouth. "Fifty more... are coming..."
I ignored him and opened Zune's door. She didn't thank me. She tried to claw my eyes out, calling me a monster. I had to feed her more lies—"I'm sorry," "It was the only way"—just to get her to follow.
But as we reached the exit, the air grew cold. Ellery stepped out from the shadows, his eyes glowing with the pale light of Telekinesis.
Without a word, he flicked his wrist. I was yanked through the air like a puppet. I saw his sword aimed straight for my heart. I twisted my body mid-air, a desperate lurch that saved my life but cost my shoulder. The blade sank deep into my left deltoid.
"You dare defy your master?" Ellery sneered.
The pain was a white-hot explosion, but I snarled back. I summoned a Shadow Blade from his blind spot, but he sensed it, tilting his head just as the obsidian edge grazed his ear. I didn't stop. I channeled Cryokinesis, freezing the air around his right hand until it was encased in a block of jagged ice. While he stared in shock, I grabbed a discarded sword and, with a guttural scream, hacked his hand off at the wrist.
He didn't scream. He just looked at me with a terrifying, calm hatred. He caught me in a telekinetic grip so tight I felt my arm bones snap. It felt like being crushed by a mountain.
But then, a surge of warmth hit me. Healing Magic. Darren was watching from the shadows, his doubt that I could be beaten so easily accidentally fueling my recovery. I played into it. I feigned agony, letting Ellery get close, letting him grin. And then, I unleashed every Shadow Blade I had left, impaling him from behind. He fell, but I didn't stay to check for a pulse.
We ran, but Felis hadn't lied. Fifty guards stood between us and the gate. I was exhausted, my vision blurring. Ziole tried to buy us time, but he was cut down in a hail of steel. With his death, my Ice magic vanished into the ether.
We reached the final threshold, the scent of night air tantalizingly close. But standing there, his silhouette framed by the moon, was the man I hated more than death itself.
Cassian. The "Hero."
He drew his sword, the steel singing in the moonlight. I had five options: Take my companions hostage, run back to the fifty guards, surrender to the block, or fight a God-tier swordsman with a soul that was falling apart.
I looked at Darren and Zune. I looked at the Hero. And I realized... I wasn't going back to that cage. Even if I had to lie to the world itself.