Crescent (Book 1)

+ 18 +

As promised, there's a knock at my door later that day. A woman walks in, boredom- or perhaps indifference- smoothed into the sharp planes of her face. She's ghostly pale with dark eyes that dig into me even from across the room. Her fiery hair is swept back into a braid, and she tilts her head, assessing me. "Well?" It's my turn to tilt my head. I don't recognize her at first, but the longer she looks at me, the sooner everything clicks together. She was the one in the meeting room: Saren. "Do you move?" She leans against the doorframe, revealing that the guards usually posted outside have been dismissed. Somehow, knowing that Ceth trusts me to be alone with her is a threat in itself.

"What are we supposed to be learning exactly?" I ask.

She gives me the same blank stare, and instinctively, one of her hands grips the hilt of a longsword sheathed at her side. "If you moved your ass, you'd know."

I blink at her, animosity rising in my throat. She's part of Ceth's court, I remind myself. She'll report to him if I fight this. I can play this game. I stride past her, and she pushes off the door to direct us to the first floor. Flowers, petals slouching toward the stone floors, still decorate the stairs, but the sunken blooms are the only evidence the party happened at all. The lights, the decor, the tables have all been disposed of. Saren takes the path between the stairs that leads towards Jackaby's offices.

I assume after having been down his corridors that I've seen everything stemming from his offices, but Saren leads me to the entry to his main office. Instead of entering it, we wander to the wall just past it. Her fingers trace the wall, and the black stone melts into haphazard cobblestone before my eyes- a door opening inwards. A lantern hangs inside, and she steps toward it, expecting me to follow. I do.

The door folds back into the wall it appeared from. Mud sloshes beneath my feet, and light disappears completely. Only faint shadows outline Saren's silhouette as she walks. We walk for a long time before nearing the end of the winding path- more than five levels into the bedrock. A wooden door, cracked and worn with age, stands at the end of the path. The door shudders against a howling wind.

"Your first lesson..." Saren reaches into her pants, withdrawing a ring of skeleton keys. She easily slides one of the black bits into the lock of the door. The door opens with a hiss. Inky darkness slithers out. "Magic." The cold beckons me deeper into the room. I step across the threshold.

Wind tugs at the still air around me, and like a reaction to a line pulled taught, the door clangs shut behind me. Saren bangs against the door outside as if she hadn't been the one to lock me inside. Her banging becomes distant, echoing slowly as if the sound is miles away. Alone, cold, confused, but somehow, I'm not scared.

"Foolish," a voice hisses from the corner.

The air vibrates around me, and some otherworldly sense tells me that the room has no true walls. Just a circular enclosure of brick and cracking mortar. Sand covers the ground. A flame flickers to life- a single candle just a few feet away from me. A trick. A beacon, a test. Something to lure me farther into this room. Ceth is rather fond of tricks. Maybe this is just another one of his games. The candle flickers a little bit brighter, the air reeking of magic.

"Closer, foolish girl," an ancient voice hisses.

I don't move closer, but I ask aloud: "What are you?" Wind coaxes the flame a little higher.

What... am I? That voice whispers. The flame halts in time. I am alone. I feel that presence, so similar to the one in the woods, swirling around me like smoke. What are you...? It asks.

"Brenna," I whisper back.

"Brenna... "it whispers. "You are like me too... You are alone." Chains rattle through the sand, and I realize someone is crouching low in the center of the room. The chains rattle again as they creep closer. It's a woman, covered in filthy rags. The flame suddenly flickers out, and the woman's looming presence seems to seep away slowly. "Come back and play again soon, Perdita. Leave that wench behind next time," the woman's voice says.

The wooden door creaks open and Saren nearly tumbles inside as if she'd been banging and shoving on it all this time. She huffs a breath of relief, but I doubt it has anything to do with my safety: "You're not dead." Is that the point of all of this? To kill me? "What did she say to you??" Saren says, and I barely have a second to reply before she drags me out of the room. "Let's go," she barks, slamming the door shut and yanking the keys out. She tucks the ring back into her pants.

"Who was she??"

"She usually doesn't take kindly to visitors," Saren spews.

Realization hits me. Magic. Witchcraft. "Why is she locked up?"

Saren's brows furrow as if I stunned her. "You really don't know, do you?" She takes another look at the door before turning on her heel, dragging me along with her. "It doesn't matter. That wasn't part of the plan."

I yank my arm out of her iron grip. "What was the plan then? Why did you bring me down here?"

She shoves me forward a step. "Start walking, princess. You've got a lot more learning to do before I tell you anything." I don't fight her. I walk two steps ahead of her all the way up to Jackaby's corridors. When we finally make it to the door, two guards are already waiting. "We'll continue at sunrise. Get your rest because tomorrow..." Her eyes are hard as she looks at me. "You start shifting."