Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 36

Sewage soaks the hem of my dress, the same dress that I wore to the markets and wasted away in a cell in. The scent burns my nostrils, my eyes, churning my stomach as I slosh through the tunnels. The underground network of pipes runs through the city, collecting human waste. I assume I’ve reached the end of the palace’s network of pipes, spilling me out into the rest of Raith’s underground. Chutes of sunlight peek through the openings above me. The light is blinding, making it impossible to gauge my position under the city, so I keep going.

Indecision and desperation whirl in my mind, clouding every thought but the ones that sing in my blood do not stop. Do not play the hero. Get out .

Every instinct I have agrees with this command, even as my heart cries out in betrayal. Every step I make away from Fionn damns me further.

But I will go.

I will go and I will find help and I will bring them back here and get him out .

I will get him out.

I will get him out.

I will get him out.

The thought punctuates every step as I wade through the tunnels until I reach the end—an end. I’m unsure if it is the end. Or if I just have to find another route.

My heavy breathing echoes in the endless cavern of possibilities.

One deep breath helps me calm my racing mind and heart. Where am I going? How will I find the others? People will take one look at me, covered in filth and sewage, starved and feral, and report me.

There are no answers to my problem in the wastewater beneath my feet, nor in between the streams of my racing thoughts, only more problems.

Where is Aine? And Elva. And Armund and Konan? They could be across the world by now. Or they could be seeking ways to rescue Fionn and I. They could be dead. I have to find them too.

I shake my head and resolve to keep moving forward. Just keep going.

The door to the world above is rough under my abraded fingertips as I push up, standing on my tiptoes to reach it. My arms quake, every meal-less day trembling in my bicep as I budge it upward with everything left.

I will get him out.

A sob tears from my throat as the door slams back down. I’m too weak. I curse myself up and down—why couldn’t I have eaten that meal with the king?

I take another deep breath and reach.

My body and soul are so weak—both muscles themselves, unfed, unrested, and unused for god knows how long we have been held prisoner. But even as I feel my mind quiver in exhaustion, I feel it pull on those little sparks of energy in the air. I feel it reach for the weeds that grow between cobblestones. I feel it consume them, powering itself.

It feels like a breath of crisp morning air after a long night. I’m unsure what those cells were made of, but they kept all of this from me—kept me chained in my own body.

It’s strange. I’ve spent nearly my entire life without having exercised my abilities, yet after just a few months, I have gotten so used to wielding that the absence of it feels like having a hand tied behind my back.

I look back up at the world beyond the sewers and I take another breath.

Pulling everything to one fine point, I direct the air to push that door open.

It feels just as heavy in my power’s hands as it did in my own, but I have more to give now, if only slightly. The door wobbles as it lifts to reveal more light, scraping the ground as it moves over, revealing blue sky and gray brick.

Do not stop. The king’s words resonate.

I pull myself up and out of the tunnels below.

The tunnels stop at the outer edge of the middle-class district, this amenity belonging to only the wealthy. Unfortunately for me that means I need to traverse an entire third of the city before I reach the walls.

Luckily, I’m in a side-street, an empty one, with nobody lingering to see me crawl from the underground.

My hem drips waste, leaving a trail behind me on the dry summer streets. I keep to alleyways, melting into the stone with every step. I pull down a dress hanging from a line, threadbare and fluttering. I know its owner has almost nothing from just the look of it, but somehow I’ve gotten to the point where I need it more than she. Donning my clean attire feels like a fresh breath, though I fear I may never be clean again beneath the threads. I snag a light headscarf from a different clothesline to cover my damning hair. Not only is it filthy beyond belief, but I can see the white-blonde streaking into the hair by my cheekbones now.

I turn my attention to the next step. Where would the others have gone? I know little of their times here from the past. I doubt they would return to the inn we had stayed at that first night here. Did they take that ship to Ashvynd?

Bringing my hand to my mouth I almost chew on my nail before I see how disgusting my hands are, then I jerk it far away from my face.

Every second I spend breathing free air is another that Fionn sits inside a cell. Seconds that Gyddeon gets to play with him, set his nightmare hound on him. Precious breaths that the Pretty King gets to use Fionn as a pawn to meet whatever sick end he has in mind.

I will get him out.

At any cost.

The thought rumbles underneath my pounding purpose, another slithering along beside it. That I might be leading the king directly to the rest of the Fianna. That perhaps I am the trap.

Who else do I have?

I search the cloudless sky for answers, if only for a moment, as I quickly walk through the streets of Raith.

Maroon.

The color flashes through my mind.

Maroon.

I chase it through my mind until it appears in front of me in the form of a door.

The madame .

The door to the pleasure house feels like the entrance to a tomb now.

Feel free to return when you have a real answer to my question, Alyxara.

I think I have her answer. I just hope she has mine.

The door opens to a room of fine silks and incense. Men drape themselves over couches of velvet, nude women draped over them. Some nude men draped over men. Rooms are created with flowing fabrics and smoky beams of light.

I keep my eyes searching for her—for that being that was something other. Searching through bodies, taking one another carnally in every position. Moans and exaggerated shrieks float through the hallways. One woman holds a leash of a man on hands and knees. They both gaze at me in interest as I bypass them, keeping my eyes sweeping for a woman cloaked in red with the eyes of a snake.

A rough hand grabs me by the upper arm. I immediately try to jerk out of it. “You’re disrupting the guests,” a voice growls. A brutish man leans into my face. “If you’re looking for employment you must ask at the door.” He begins to drag me away.

“I’m here to answer to the madame. She has a question for me!” I hiss.

He freezes in his step. “Your name?”

“Alyxara.” My full name feels wrong in my mouth. I don’t feel like her anymore.

He looks me over, face scrunched in disgust. “You could have at least bathed before seeking out the madame. She does not take kindly to street rats ruining the ambience.”

I look down at my skin, covered in filth. I haven’t had time to find a mirror, or the care to look into it.

He leads me through a side door despite my foul appearance, which leads straight into a familiar torch-lit hallway. A short jaunt down the hall brings me to her office.

The room looks the same. The madame looks the same, but swathed in emerald green this time, nails still painted that vivid maroon that flashed in my head.

She looks me up and down, scrunching up her face as the man before her did.

The silence hangs between all three of us, the room being completely devoid of ambient noise from the world above.

She dismisses the man who brought me with an elegant nod, maintaining her gaze looking down at me.

“I see you did not heed my advice, healer.” Her voice holds an edge. She folds herself into her plush lounge chair.

“And I paid for it.” Oh, how I did. How I still am.

She smiles coyly, too-sharp teeth flashing. “And yet, here you stand. Clearly you did not pay for it as I had imagined.” She lets the statement hang as she searches my body for answers before she asks, “How?”

I ignore her question. “You knew. Who I was. You called me a healer. You called me a liar. I did not know then that you were right. I just can’t work out how.”

She looks at me in pointed silence.

“An answer for an answer then?” I propose, unwilling to answer her initial question without a bargain.

How? She had asked. How indeed. I’m still unsure how I get so lucky yet unlucky at the same time. What cruel fate frees the body but leaves the heart locked in a cell?

“Quick learner.” She nods bluntly, lighting up another rolled bit of herb, perching it between her two elegant fingers. “You have yet to answer my earlier question.”

Who are you?

The truth comes up like shards of glass.

“I am a product of two peoples. Of three really. Child of Irene, healer of the Fae and the king of the Fomorians… My re a—my mother sacrificed herself in some way, to get me here, to get me out of Danu. To save me from them. I… is that the truth you wanted?”

I couldn’t say it. Real. Could I cheapen my mom’s place in my life like that? All the pies and laughs? The endless love and devotion, there one moment, and then inexplicably gone?

She swirls her goblet, maroon liquid whirling within. “I suppose that will do. For now.”

“Where are the rest of the Fianna?” I ask, swallowing back the chasm that looms, waiting for me to stop moving.

“Where are they? What a question. Smoke on the wind, I suppose. Once their ride across the sea fell through, they fled to other corners. Fionn, I fear, will never see the skies again.” Her tone is almost soft at the end.

What spies does she have? How can she know everything?

She must have seen it all on my face because she gives me a feline smile and taunts, “Ask it.”

I narrow my eyes at her. I will not be side-tracked.

“How do I get someone out of those prisons? The cells. The castle. There must be a way to do it quietly. Especially for a wielder.”

She takes a long drag before answering.

“Many have asked that question and to them all I have said this: it is impossible to get out once you get in—not without the king knowing. He has power beyond what other Fomorians have. He has it beyond what the Fae have. Something about the mixture of the two… very rarely born, but very powerful beings once created. But to you, I say this: you are the only one in this realm who could be his equal, but you are not yet, clearly.” She waves a sardonic hand at me. “If you go in now, it will be a waste of the freedom you we re somehow granted. You will not come out twice.”

My teeth grit. “Fionn does not have time to wait for me to practice until I am more powerful than the king. This is not an option. You have resources. You have ears inside the castle. There is no other way you could know what you do. Help me. I will give you anything. Anything.”

“I would not compromise my position—sacrifice my birds for the life of one measly Fae male. Especially one who has spent so long doing so little, even if he is stunning.” She grins knowingly at me. “You will not find that kind of help from me. But perhaps there is another that would find that sort of thing amenable. And I could help in a more discreet way.” She looks as though she has backed me into the corner she wanted me in.

“Who?” My nails dig into my palm.

She shakes a condescending finger my way. “I believe you owe me another answer.” She takes another drag; clouds of smoke billow out of her red lips before she adds an addendum. “Two actually.”

“Ask.”

“Who let you out?” Eagerness lightens her feline eyes.

Limits. She has limits to her little birds, and what they know.

“The only one who could.” She knows I mean the king. I have no loyalty to him. Fuck the fact that he let me out; he kept Fionn. He kept him in cruelty.

Her eyes widen in amazement and suspicion.

A pounding fist bangs behind the bookshelf in the corner.

“Madame! Madame, the Crows are out. They conduct a search, say they are looking for a certain prisoner. If you wish to gather the ransom or get her out, we must act.” The voice of the man from earlier rumbles out through the wood.

Blood drains from my face. Whatever dregs of energy remain in my muscles and bones rile up. I prepare to wield for my life.

She sighs deeply, as if in aggravation of being interrupted right when we get to the good part. “Well, I suppose you aren’t keen on being thrown back into the cobalt cells, are you, Alyx? Would you like my help?”

It feels like a trap. This whole interaction has shown I am already in one.

What choice do I have?

“Yes,” I grit the words out. “Yes, I would like your help.”

“Perfect. I’ll have my men get you out of the city.” She rises from her plush seat, looking perfectly bored at the turn in events.

“Who?” I ask one more time, knowing she will catch my meaning.

She rolls her feline eyes. “You are racking up quite the bill.”

“Who?”

She glides to the door, all inhuman grace, every inch of her, other. “The mounds of Dun, I suspect might hold some allies. Ones that live under the mounds.” She gives me a pointed look, knocking on the door that leads to the hallway. A figure dressed in night-black clothes answers the call. She whispers something to them. Turning back to me, she warns, “I always collect on my debts, daughter of lost worlds, even if I have to cross rifts to find you. Do not forget it.”

I don’t think I ever could.