Hope

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Enlightenment and Escape

We were creeping down one of the jail cell corridors when the alarm bells rang. I mentally cursed their bad timing in my head and wrapped Tasha and myself in shadows as some guards came running down the hall, shouting and waving their weapons around. Once they had passed us, I dissolved the shadows and we continued down the corridor. The corridor was long and dark except for torches in the walls. Towards the back, the cells looked more like cages than cells, as there were only bars separating one cell from another instead of rock walls. Most of the cells were empty. Some contained skeletons. One or two contained a living person, all looking like they had been there awhile. Once we got to the end, it became obvious that no one we knew was here.

"Where to now?" Tasha asked, worry in her eyes.

"Next corridor," I replied briskly. "They've probably scattered the group all over the dungeon to keep you guys from plotting. There are a lot of cells in here. It makes me wonder if they're expecting an uprising or something."

Tasha gave a short laugh. "They probably are. A lot of these cells look new. I wouldn't be surprised if they were made in the last twenty years when things really started to go downhill."

Tasha and I then made our way back up to the main hall and went down another corridor. In the distance, I could sense a guard. I wrapped some shadows around Tasha and myself again and we proceeded as quietly as possible. My shadows couldn't mask noise.

The guard was standing in front of a cell looking very bored. He then started talking to himself. I paused and listened. "Yes, you can just stay here while the rest of us take care of the dangerous escaped prisoner," the guard muttered. "I knew I should've been a teacher! I just knew it! I get no respect around here!"

I peered into the cell he was guarding and I was surprised to see many shifters in there. As far as I could tell, they were all cat-shifters. And to my delight, I saw my three brothers!

"We need to get that guard out of the way," I whispered to Tasha. "Got any ideas?"

I had made sure that my voice was quiet, but the guard had heard me anyway. "Who's there?" he demanded, pointing his pike in our general direction.

"Wonderful," Tasha muttered. "We have the guy with elven-ears."

"Shifters hear pretty well, too!" I shot back.

The guard started. "What did you just say?" he asked, wild fear in his eyes. His pike was getting dangerously close to catching me. I decided that I'd had enough.

"I said that shifters hear pretty well, too," I replied, suddenly stripping away my shadows.

The guard's eyes widened, but he kept his wits about him. "No, what the other one said." He looked very tense. His knuckles were white from gripping his pike shaft so tightly.

I then took away Tasha's shadows since there was no point trying to hide her from him. Tasha looked at the guard with puzzlement. "I just said you had hearing like an elf."

The guard backed up, his pike still raised threateningly. His face was white. "How did you know?" he demanded.

"Wait, what?" I asked. "Know what?"

The guard pointed a finger at Tasha. "How did she know I have elven blood? No one knows that!"

"How much elven blood?" Tasha asked quietly.

"A quarter." The guard's voice was shaking. "Tell me, how did you know?"

"I didn't," Tasha said. "I just used that analogy because I happen to know an elf and he hears a lot of things he's not supposed to."