Agatine (Terres book II)

Chapter Thirty Six

Phina could not get Wren's retreating back out of her head. She braced against the tiny passageway as they moved through it, and the walls seemed to move and undulate under her grip. She was not sure if it was out of fear, or because she could no longer ignore the agony that was her shoulder.

It took her nearly until they'd gotten to the exit and prepared to leave that she remembered. Marion. And the girl, the one they'd found on the streets two weeks earlier. Phina was not sure of her name, but she realized now that her crying had stopped some hours ago. She massaged her shoulder joint and turned back down the hallway. The other three stopped, and the one with blue eyes and a large pair of red wings stared at her.

"We need to go," he hissed.

She shook her head. "We wait for her. And while we're down here, we look for Marion." She did not wait for a response, but sighed a little in relief when she heard the footsteps of the scrawny one following behind her. They squeezed down the passage and back into the large room, where rotting wooden doors stared them down like adversaries. She did not know how she knew that one would hold a terrible secret.

A guard sat in the corner, slumped over his own weapon. A thin stream of coagulated blood fell from his mouth. She nudged his hand out of the way of his pocket and fished through it until a slim metal keyring caught her fingers. She smiled and clutched it in her hands like a prize. There were only two keys, one of them had to unlock these doors. 

She tried the first key in the first lock, twisting it until the metal gave a dull ping. The door opened away from her, and the smell of dry air and rot permeated her nostrils. Phina let her eyes adjust to the dim light. Her heart sank when she saw the room held nothing but old bones that kicked up little clouds of fetid dust at her feet when she stepped inside. 

"We haven't heard a sound from these rooms," Elyn said quietly. She turned to him, eyes like daggers, glare meant to quiet him, but he was already quiet. He held his elbows in his hands and looked at her as if she were a kicked kitten. She said nothing in return and tried the next door. It slid open more easily than the last, as if someone had oiled the hinges.

The smell of old blood curdled in the air like spoiled milk, and sun poured in over the floor from the one tiny window. The girl's body laid crumpled on the floor, shoved into a corner like a forgotten plaything. Both of her wings twisted in unnatural angles, and blood and fluid congealed on her naked back. Her skin reminded Phina of candle drippings. 

Marion sat in the corner, golden curls uncoiled from her head and spread across the floor. She did not move. Crimson spilled from her nose and down her chin. An empty goblet half-hung out of her hand, filled with wine Phina knew was not actually wine. With any hope, her death had not been painful.

She slumped down against the far wall and covered her mouth. The corners of her eyes burned. She remembered Marion's words, when she plucked her off the street and put her to work scrubbing the floors and baking the bread. This is not a safe life. 

For so many years, she'd gone on not believing her. The work came easy, and friends came easily, and when she got older and the men came, and they were easy, too. She had long ago abandoned the notion that anything about Marion represented safety, but she could not ever have imagined her dying like this. She wondered how long Seltus had let the girl scream before he killed her. If he had in fact just left her until she was too weak to cry out on her own.

She turned out of the room and let the door fall shut behind her. None of the other three would meet her eyes. She did not blame them, because it was a terribly sad thing. But for reasons she could not place, it annoyed her in that small way that one is annoyed when someone treats them pitifully. 

"I'm sorry," the dark-haired man said, the one with the scruffy beard. She couldn't imagine he knew of what he spoke. He was far too innocent, too young, and he would not understand, even if she told him. She regarded him as if he didn't exist.

She turned her head and listened. The sound of running footsteps came down the hallway, like a frantic animal running for escape. The fair haired man with the red wings drew his weapon, but she placed her hand upon his arm and walked toward the sound. 

Soon it changed to frantic breaths. Wren's head come out of the darkness, like she knew it would. Phina allowed herself to exhale. She hadn't realized she'd been worried. The relief was instant, profound, and more than she could ask for.

 Wren skidded to a stop in front of her, eyes wide with terror, red patches staining her clothes. Her hands shook, and the dagger was still clutched in her hands and slick with blood. She grabbed her gently by the forearms and plucked the dagger out of her hands, then cleaned the blood off it with her skirt. 

Phina examined the blade. It was not the one she'd given to Wren, it was far too fine for that. The handle was carved in intricate layers of silver. Marion had given it to her as a gift, shortly after Seltus had started arriving at the brothels and asking for her. She did not understand at the time why she'd insisted she learn to use it.

Having it again made her whole in ways she could not describe. She tucked it into the waistband of her skirt. Wren opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again. Phina sighed again in relief.

"Are you all right?" 

Wren nodded her head, but she was lying. Her eyes were dilated pinpoints, and they darted back and forth throughout the passageway as if she expected someone to jump out of the walls at any moment. Phina took her hand and steadied it for her.

"He's dead, he can't catch you. Come on. We need to leave." She tugged her down the hallway. Wren's spine snapped backwards like she wasn't expecting the movement before she consented to follow. Phina pushed down a spark of annoyance and let her feet carry her as fast as they would toward the door. She did not regard the others, except to see that they were moving away quickly enough that they did not impede her. 

The passage through the underground maze of hallways seemed to take forever, and thinking about what lay on the other end sickened her. More guards. Seltus' accomplices. Any one of a number of horrible things that could mean more or less to her depending on whether or not they knew Seltus was dead yet.

Finally, after many breaths, when her legs were just ready to give out, someone pushed on the door and welcome, golden light spilled into their passageway. Phina struggled to push her way outside, then took a deep, heady breath of fresh air. She closed her eyes and leaned against the building wall, then jumped back when something touched her foot.