Page 142 of Revealing Fate

At the mention of his name, Saul released another haggard cough. Beulah rushed to support him before he could stagger forward.

“Mr. Kaine has a talent for exaggeration,” Lucien said flippantly, waving a hand as though to stave off a malodorous fume. Felíne’s gaze snagged on a cluster of blisters reddening the skin beneath his sleeve. “The Carrow brothers generously volunteered to invite these two truants back within the confines of Meressian law. Something we all agreed was necessary.”

“They attacked us!” Felíne cried.

Lucien pretended she’d never spoken. “They were murdered. Innocent men. Lawful men. The Conclave must not permit such blatant disregard of our canon.”

“Lucien—” Saul barely managed the one word before he collapsed against Beulah in another coughing fit.

The look Lucien gave the Conclave’s unspoken leader was withering. “Dear Saul, you’re in no state to speak for this collective. Beulah, why don’t you help him into his chamber? He is in dire need of rest.”

Beulah’s expression darkened, but she couldn’t very well leave Saul gasping in the corridor. “They’re not to be harmed, Lucien,” she said, voice grave. “We will decide the matter together, once Saul’s regained some strength.”

With a final concerned glance in their direction, she helped lead Saul through the doorway, leaving Felíne and Kal in the hands of new captors. Felíne’s heart dropped as the door clicked shut, their only hope at fair treatment withering like a dying bloom.

“Come, Mr. Harless,” Lucien said, attention settling once more on his charge. “Let us escort these brigands to The Hollows for a temporary holding.” Lucien Cross smiled, and the cold, malicious intent behind the curving of those thin lips chilled Felíne to the bone. “Something tells me the Conclave will be deliberating sooner than one might expect.”

Chapter 50

THE HOLLOWS

THE HOLLOWS, FELÍNE LEARNED, LAY within the only public stone structure in Meress. The prison didn’t look like much from the outside, its crude brick walls appearing to have been slapped together by accident rather than intention. Inside, Felíne had expected barred cells with iron doors that could be locked to house prisoners. Not so. There wasn’t a single interior wall in sight. Instead, a line of circular metal grates had been set into the concrete floor.

Felíne was shoved toward one such grate. She blanched, knees locking. Lucien Cross might not have possessed Kalevar’s powerful physique, but he was still stronger than she was. The grate was hoisted up on screaming hinges to reveal a murky, dank hole in the ground—a hollow.

“No!” she shrieked, fear gripping her in its merciless fist.

Lucien crowded her to the edge. The toe of her boots touched one side of a ladder descending into the hole. “Climb down, madam, or I will push you in.”

Kal loosed a threatening snarl behind her.

Felíne’s manacles had been refastened so that her hands were in front before leaving the confines of the upstairs hall in which they’d been detained. She couldn’t keep from shaking as she stepped one foot onto the first rung of the ladder. Her panicked gaze found Kal. He stood before another hole, Rask forcing him similarly forward. They hadn’t trusted him enough to reposition his shackles, so Kal’s hands remained bound behind his back. Barbaric metal devices still caged both their heads and necks.

“Lay another hand on her, and you’ll learn the taste of your own entrails, Cross.” Kal’s bloody vow was laced with ire. Hard eyes turned to her. “Climb down, Kitty,” he said. “The Hollows are empty. Nothing will harm you.”

“You really shouldn’t offer such empty reassurances, Kaine,” Rask said with a wicked sneer. Then he pushed Kal with more force than was necessary. Kal pitched forward and disappeared into the gaping maw of his pit.

“Kal!”

Rask slammed the grate closed and bolted it.

“I’m fine, Kitty,” came Kal’s muffled, but no less pissed off, reply. “Get in the hollow.”

Felíne forced herself to ignore the screaming terror that stole her breath and rattled her limbs as she lowered herself rung by rung into the dark hole. The scent of stale earth and mildew assaulted her, intensifying her claustrophobia. The iron barbs of the headpiece shifted as she moved, poking into her neck uncomfortably.

When the top of her head reached below ground level, the grate above her shut with a bang. Rask Harless and Lucien Cross left without so much as a taunting goodbye. She heard their footfalls retreat, the slam of a door, and then silence engulfed her.

Felíne felt around the perimeter of the hole with trembling fingers. It was perhaps no more than six feet in diameter with a dirt floor and brick walls. The hollow was deep, but she hoisted herself back up the ladder and shoved at the grate. It didn’t budge, and the bars were too narrow to see anything but the unadorned ceiling directly overhead. Fear choked her. “Kal?”

“I’m here.” His words sounded faraway, but she nearly cried in relief that he could still hear her. “Are you alright?”

“I can’t see anything. It’s too dark,” she croaked, descending the ladder until she reached the bottom once more.

Kal muttered something that sounded like, “I’ll kill him,” before he said more clearly, “We’ll be fine.”

Felíne tugged at the metal collar. “What did they put on our heads?”

“They call it a skullcage. A crude contraption used to keep shurii from shifting to second form. Not very sophisticated, but it’s effective.”