Artemis and Caspian: The Spy

Chapter Forty Six

When the dust settled, there were a thousand bodies laying at his feet. Caspian stared in horror as the carnage laid itself before him, stretching for miles on Calatan's grass. Hesitantly, he tested the reality, pushing softly against a corpse with the ball of his foot. To his immediate relief, the foot passed through the body, untouched against the hard earth. This was a vision.

Pushing through the nausea and unsettling feeling that was gnawing at his insides, the warlock pushed on, stopping every so often to remind himself that everything wasn't real. The only thing keeping him sane was the same stupid logic that'd gotten him into this current mess. Whatever he saw was only a probability, a possible future out of thousands that could come true, but he kept on high alert. Unless the sun god possessed a sick sense of humor, he had an important reason to show him this. Trying his best not to look down, Caspian followed the sounds of distant wails carrying through the air. They were sharp, sudden, then over too soon. Whoever was responsible for murdering Calatan's entire army was disturbingly efficient at it. It was making him uneasy.

The warlock narrowed his eyes as the sounds became louder, the screams echoing hollowly in his ears. He could sense an energy, an energy too familiar for his liking. There was a pain to it. It seemed oddly sad and emanated fear, but it was powerful, destructively so. He'd only felt this energy once before. No!

Forgetting his surroundings, the warlock picked up his pace, breathing heavily as a steady jog turned into a desperate run. It wasn't long before he was fumbling over himself frantically searching for the source of those anguishing screams. On a normal day, he would stop to observe the irony of it all. What person standing in a field of corpses would run toward the source of devastation? Only him. Of course, he'd be the one crazy and dumb enough to do such a thing. Shaking his head, he tried to focus, stopping once when the screams died down. Everything had gone silent.

His chest heaved up and down as he tried to quiet his breathing, letting his ears prick up at every small sound. All he could hear was a soft wind whistling through dead armor. Another scream. Sighing he hit the ground running, laughing despite himself. At least he still had his humor intact. He chalked that up to logic too. Visions weren't real so even with the horrific circumstances, he could still find the time to be himself. He skidded to a stop when he came close to the source of the screaming. It was practically in his ear now, coming just beyond a few trees lining Calatan's battlefield. Caspian's stomach turned when an arm behind a tree fell at his feet. The energy he sensed earlier now had a death grip on his heart. He knew better but that didn't stop him from pretending he didn't know who was responsible.

Taking a deep breath, he placed one hand on a tree branch, pushing it aside. This time a new scream echoed out, filled with a fury and fear he'd never heard before.

Artemis stood there frozen, letting her primal wail finish. Then she opened her eyes, grabbing hold of his throat.

"You may see the prisoner now."

Caspian's eyes snapped open. He sat up coughing, gasping for air. A guard stood at the entrance of his room, a torch already lit for his visit, a scowl painted on his face. He, like many others at the castle, didn't understand why the warlock wanted to see the witch in the first place. After taking a few seconds to steady his breathing, Caspian stood, avoiding eye contact with the guard as he rudely snatched the torch from his hand.

The pair descended the stairs to the dungeon in relative silence, the guard making his disapproval perfectly clear with occasional grunts and gaudy eye rolls. Caspian ignored him, trying his best not to trip down the narrow staircase. He shuttered to think what Artemis was going through. It was nearly pitch black down there. Caspian had to wave the torch in front of him just to see the next stair. Other than that, the pair were surrounded in darkness, with only a little bubble of light to protect them from being swallowed whole. Caspian picked up his pace. As the sun god's reincarnation, hating the darkness was a natural instinct.