Princess of Nothing — Chapter 10
A fantasy tale of magic, struggle and survival — Draft 1
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CHAPTER 10
I finish describing the creature to her: the oversized, horse-like body, the needle-like teeth — so long it cannot fully close its mouth, the cork-screwed antlers with many thorns of bone branching off them.
She stares at me in horror.
“You don’t have carnavorces in The Fae Wilds?” I say, my surprise evident. I thought The Fae Wilds would have every manner of creature — things even more outlandish than those in the rest of Midhaven.
The gilded fae scoffs as she paces her cell once more. “Light of Nivea! Of course, we don’t!”
I look at her blankly. She stops pacing, staring at my confused expression. She raises her pale, manicured brows. “Sun Goddess of The Fae…”
“Never heard of her.” However, I don’t know how I feel about the fae having a sun goddess since UV rays burn my skin.
Her mouth pops open for a moment. She’s quick to close it and fold her arms. “I suppose that means vampires raised you.” Her voice is stiff. “I hear they don’t like to discuss anything fae.”
A shrug from me in response. “Maybe. Or perhaps it’s another lost memory.” I’m not sure if she meant that as an insult or not — I’m just happy she no longer thinks my ignorance is an act.
“The good news is, you’re far more agile than a carnavorce, and far more intelligent — you shouldn’t need magic to beat it in a fight. Your recruiter was kind to you.” Probably because it’s her first match. “I imagine he’ll be watching to assess your strengths and weaknesses tonight.”
“If you believe this is him being kind, then I don’t even want to know what your recruiter’s like.”
My expression sours. “No. You don’t.” She stares at me like she expects me to say more about him, but I don’t feel like discussing all the repulsive, heinous things Rec likes to do. “Carnavorces have a soft spot on the back of their head, right between the base of their antlers. If you can, jump on its back as you would a horse, and use your weapon there. It’ll be a quick kill.”
“How do you even know all this?”
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “I listen.” That, and some of the knowledge I seemed to retain from my time before. I know facts about creatures — about the various races of people. I know a lot about a lot — but hardly anything about The Fae. “You’d be surprised what people will say in front of you when they feel you don’t matter.”
Her brows draw together. “But we do matter.”
Our eyes meet. “Yes, but not to them. Once you’re in this place — once you’re in a cell — you are a commodity, not a person. Never a person.”
Her throat bobs. “Well…then we will have to remind them.”
It’s the last thing I expect her to say. She has hope — it’s as refreshing as it is foolish. No one has hope here. The last time I dared to hope I was in that tunnel wearing the D’jinn bracelets, and look where it got me. Still, I can’t help my smile.
“What?” she asks.
I shake my head. “It’s nothing…”
“Will I get a weapon?”
I nod. “Someone in the crowd will likely throw you something, but it could be anything: a club, a spear, a knife, a sword…just pray to your goddess that whatever it is, it’s something sharp.”
“Alright.” Her full lips press into a thin, determined line. “I can do this.” Her bravery is admirable.
“And whatever you do — don’t let the carnavorce get you with its antlers. The thorns on them are poisonous.”
“Burning Hellias…” She murmurs.
“ Zigzag a lot. Attack where I said, and you’ll survive.” I jolt when a door at the far end of the corridor bangs open. Two male guards: one Lacerta, a species of lizard-folk that looks like a bipedal chameleon — independently moving eyes and all — and one who appears human, but from the smell of him, he’s a demon descendent.
Both males stop outside her cell.
Rec’s being overly cautious with his newest potential toy until he knows exactly what he’s dealing with. He’ll attempt to trade Magnus something or someone for her — I know he will.
One guard scans his yellow tattoo on the panel and it opens.
She casts one more look my way before they uncuff her and yank her out. “Remember to mind the thorns!” I shout as they muscle her down the hall, one on either side of her.
When the door shuts behind them, my ears hone in on the resounding growls and cries of the other captives. There are so many. Funny, how her mere presence made this place feel less awful. Less suffocating.
That creature to my right suddenly speaks into my mind — a thousand voices in one. Young and old, beautiful and ugly:
Foolish half-breed, you waste your breath. The fae will die.
Time passes. All I do is pace.
And pace.
And pace.
It’s not the first time I’ve desperately wished for a clock in my cell.
Icy dread prickles my spine every time I think about it — what that thing beside me said. What if it’s telling the truth? Can it see into the future? It’s been too long. She should have returned by now.
The shouts and jeers from the pit have been echoing through the cell block for what surely has been at least two hours.
When finally, the crowd explodes in a culmination of stomping and claps and screams — like an awful grand finalé — I know it is finally over.
It took her longer to kill the thing than I had expected. But of course, she won —
My stomach knots. She must have won.
The fae will die, that terrible, beautiful voice says again.
“SHUT UP!” I snarl.
Think — even if the carnavorce got the upper hand, surely they would not let her die on her first match. Like me, she is too valuable. How often do they get their hands on a fae? No. They would save her to fight another day. She isn’t dead.
My eyes flicker to the mimic. Currently, he looks like a shadow-elf with mid-length jet-black hair and chrome-colored irises. He watches me crane my neck, attempting to get a better view down the hall.
“You can’t believe what it says.” Despite wearing a different form, his tone and cadence are the same: low, even, and slightly rough. Did he keep it the same on purpose? Or is that one thing he cannot alter?
My focus shifts from the empty hallway back to him. He jerks his chin to the cell on my right, indicating the being behind the opaque ward.
“So you heard it, too,” I say, so on edge, that I can’t even appreciate that he’s talking to me again. “I wonder how many other creatures in the cellblock can hear it speaking into their minds.” Or for that matter, what it might be saying to them.
This time, I don’t so much hear but rather, feel a rumble of dark, horrible laughter emanating from the thing. It’s listening, even now.
The mimic and I stare at one another. He shifts forms literally in the blink of an eye. I startle. One moment he’s the shadow elf, the next he’s an eldraki: dark-skinned with small, curved horns and a tail — the same race as Magnus, the recruiter with the orange armband — but the mimic’s features are different. His face is…nicer. His eyes aren’t crimson, but the deepest shade of indigo. “Bored of the shadow-elf already?” I say, attempting humor. My voice quivers too much to be convincing.
I take it you don’t know the eldraki have telepathy.
I jump when I hear his voice speaking inside my head in the same way the being beside me had moments ago. It’s not a bad voice…
I’m surprised I didn’t know that about the eldraki.
They don’t like to advertise it, he says.
I startle again, not realizing the mimic heard my last thoughts.
He pretends not to notice, saying, All it has to go on is what it overhears. It can speak into our minds — but I don’t think it goes both ways. At least, not yet…
Yet.
The single word chills me with the implications.
It likes the taste of fear. Hopefully, with that ward in place, it will never reach its full potential, the mimic adds.
What is it!? I ask, this time deliberately thinking my words back to him.
It’s better if I don’t tell you, the mimic says with a level of certainty that has me believing him.
So if we communicate like this, it can’t eavesdrop, I say.
That’s my understanding.
My lips form a small, mischievous smile. Well, if we’re going to test this theory out, let’s really go for it.
Hey you,! Beside me! You’ll never get out of here, you know that don’t you? Be as heinous as you want — but you’ll rot down here just like the rest of us. You’re a caged animal now. How does it feel to be nothing and no one?
A shock zips through my system — not from me — but from the mimic. I can feel his feelings, too!?
Careful, Nyxalia.
I can’t help the widening of my eyes. The feeling of delight at the fact that he used my name. It feels so, so nice to finally have a name — a scrap of myself to cling to.
The mimic frowns as he quickly looks away.
I…I didn’t think that to him, did I? Gods, I hope not — I’m not exactly sure how this mental bridge between us works.
The mimic looks at the cage to my right and together, we wait with bated breath to see if the thing responds to my taunt.
It doesn’t.
Well, I guess your theory is correct, I say, trying to put a smile into my mental voice.
A dip of his chin. Then he says, You were right earlier, about the fae. She should be able to outmaneuver a carnavorce, especially because of her wings. She could fly above it if it charges her.
That’s if she’s strong enough to fly after being injected with lead, I point out. They didn’t even wait for it to wear off some.
Many fear the fae. They are wary of her potential.
Not Rec. He’s not afraid of anything, I say.
Everyone’s afraid of something. The mimic glances at the cell to my right, so quickly that I nearly miss it.
The door at the end of the hall opens, and I hear the slide of heavy limbs against hard stone and jagged bits of debris — the sound of someone lifeless being dragged.
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