“The four of us will stay in the shadows.”
Her heart stuttered, and her eyes searched the shadows, flaring her senses, unable to detect any other aura. “You’ve rescued your people already?”
His head canted left in acknowledgment. Then shadows covered him, and he vanished, but she knew he lingered.
Shilah opened her telepathy, touching the thoughts of all four hundred and thirty-seven captive souls in the dungeon. “I am Princess Shilah, ruler of Dxyriah, kingdom of Serange,” she said softly.
She felt them, each individual’s shock, agitation, wariness, and curiosity as her voice touched their minds. There was little fear. And she sensed that almost all had given up hope and quietly waited to die.
“I’m here in the dungeons with you, also a prisoner of the empire. I am a telepath, and I speak to you all at the same time,” she said, ensuring she projected into her sister, Kamu, and Thyon’s minds as well. She’d found the Darkans’ pathway and went only surface deep so they could hear her, but not that she was tainted by the malevolence of whatever beast they possessed. “I am outside of my cage.”
As if a hive, each mind paused at that implication, taking it apart and testing it. Hope and despair in equal measure flooded her senses. Then questions and confusion came. She carefully sorted through their thoughts, picking up the most insistent worry they had.
“Yes. I am in the tunnel of the lower floors. If you wish it, you will be transported from your cages into the corridor, and we will all attempt a rescue. Most of you are weak and hurt, so we must help each other. Some of you might die, or all of us might die if we are discovered. The battle will be fierce if we are found, and the empire will not show mercy. If you wish to come with me on this escape mission, step from your cage when it opens. If you wish for the relief of death instead…”
She took a deep breath, hating to offer it, but already sensing there were those so broken they had no will to live. “If you long for death instead, it will be rendered. I also offer another option. I am a telepath, and I have the power to remove the pain and the memories of your time here. If you so wish it, it shall be done.”
10
Shilah held her breath waiting for those who would accept death and those who would fight to live. She felt a wave of profound relief that battered her senses, and then the resolve of those who wanted to die. One hundred and eighteen souls wished to perish. A peculiar agony clawed through her as she arrowed in on their thoughts. She flinched at their silent screams, trying not to weep at the terrible cruelty done to them.
“I can wipe the memories away and replace them with good ones. This experience will not even be a shadow in your thoughts.”
She offered this lifeline, wanting to weep at the torment they had endured. Beating and tortures so inhumane she could only brush against the surface of their memories. Reaching for Lachlan she showed him those who wanted to escape and connected to him on such a profound level, she saw as he used the shadows and transported each prisoner from their cage into the corridors of the tunnels. His speed as he wielded his natural element of darkness and shadow was a force to behold, and she found herself reluctantly impressed by his strength. They did not even have the presence of mind to be shocked by being out of their cages without their bars opening. A few minds struggled to understand, but she could already sense the renewed purpose filling their hearts from being out of their cells.
Trusting Lachlan to do his part of the job, Shilah turned her thoughts to those who did not desire rescue. “Please,” she attempted once more, speaking into their minds, searching for that part of their will that wished to survive. “I can remove these terrible memories. They will not haunt you, or shape you, and I can replace them with good ones.”
It would take an enormous amount of energy to build new memories for so many people in the little time they had to escape, but she needed to try. Shilah bit her lips hard when no one took her offer. Instead, their resolve to die and escape the shame and degradation flooded her senses, and her throat closed.
She connected deeply into their minds, holding onto their thread of life, uncaring tears streamed down her face. Her lips parted, and yet the command for them to sleep eternally would not spill from her mind to theirs. A harsh breath escaped her, and Kala and Kamu pressed closer, an unexpected wall of silent support. Thyon she saw was carefully removing the stitches from Raven’s mouth, murmuring soothingly each time she flinched and whimpered.
There was a stirring in her mind, and then Lachlan spoke, “I will kill them for you.”
“No!”
“Then why do you hesitate? Time is of the essence.”
In his voice and heart, she sensed no hesitation. Death was such a natural part of him, and she recoiled from the awareness. “I…I am not a murderer.”
Suddenly he was there, a whisper of breath across her nape. Shilah did not scream when darkness coated her senses, and he took her into a world of murkiness, where everyone disappeared, and everything seemed as if they were in another dimension. With a gasp she stepped forward, reaching out to touch her sister who was glancing around frantically searching for her. And Shilah understood then she was in the shadow space, a world within their dimension that no one else could see or hear…unless they were a Darkan.
His arms clasped her hips firmly from behind. His strength was enormous, nearly crushing her bones. Instantly he relaxed his grip, rubbing the spot above her hips soothingly. Swallowing down her nerves, she twisted in the cage of his arms and faced him. The world he cocooned them in wasn’t pitch black, but shades of silver and grayscale, and she knew he was the one to control how deep the shadows went. The shadows painted him in a silver shade as if moonbeams kissed his skin. He was so savagely beautiful, a blend of elegance and untamed beast. Something quickened inside her, and she wetted her lower lip, hating the sudden dryness. “Why did you bring me here, Lachlan Ravenswood?”
He used a single finger and lifted her chin. His touch was possessive, even intimate. Her eyes collided with his.
“Taking their lives woul
d be an act of Mercy.”
“I can take the memories of their torture,” she desperately argued, hating the uncertainty that rioted through her at stealing their choices. They wanted to go to the beyond abyss, and she was thinking to deny them even that after countless months and years of cruelty.
“I am no better than the emperor, they have hungered for death and even that peace they were denied,” she whispered to Lachlan, unable to understand why it was he she reached out to and not her sister. “Thinking to take away their choice is despicable, but I have the power to save them…and just perhaps they could go on living.”
His unblinking eyes on her were those of a waiting predator. There was no judgment or censure, and it occurred to her then how much a man like Lachlan would not be guided by what was deemed right or wrong. What did he act on? What was his guiding force? And how strangely curious she wanted to know more about the dark, mystifying creature before her.
The shadow space melted away, and Shilah slowly walked along the corridor, touching each of the minds who wished to die. Pushing away the discomfort she started to plant the first memory in a male captive. The mind pushed against her intrusion and a wail of anguish vibrated through her as the man realized she was taking his choice. She burrowed deep inside his mind, and a raw gasp escaped her. The threads connecting his thoughts and life forces were a twisted, tangled mess, pulsing with a dark red aura of agony. She could find no white thread of good memories to study and supplant with the dark ones, it was as if his soul was fractured, and nothing remained but the need to end his torment.
The dark memories crowded her thoughts, ugly and brutal, his pain rising inside to swamp her senses. She eagerly clasped onto a memory she found, of him walking with a small boy atop his shoulders, and a woman beside him, laughing lovingly up at him. Shilah took that memory and pushed it at the forefront of his thoughts, trying to use it to bury the terrible agony writhing inside them. His mind was too broken to accept her illusion.