5
Alva closed her eyes, her body and mind weary from trying to figure out how to escape her prison. The darkness was all-consuming. No light penetrated the dungeon she now knew was far below her mother’s castle. Maya’s crusade had been planned for a long time. Seemingly, there was no way they could have dug out this much dirt under the castle without the queen knowing, but they had. Someone should have seen the activity and reported it, so what did that say about her mother’s reign? Had all the Huldra turned against her?
After her father’s death, moving back to Aasveigheimr and getting to know her family had been both eye-opening and deadly. She never told her mother about the occasions when her aunts tried to kill her. It wasn’t long after she’d returned that these two women noticed her differences, her revulsion to killing. It was a complete shock, though, that Maya would turn against her like this. While they’d had their moments, these usually ended in a truce. This time, though, she would be hard-pressed to forgive her cousin.
The heavy darkness inside her prison cell weighed on her, and she felt as if the cave walls were closing in, the pressure squeezing her like a vice. Opening her eyes, she thought she caught a glimmer of pale-blue light. Blinking several times, she squinted. She inhaled, choking on the stale air, and coughed.
She forced her tired body onto her hands and knees. After a couple of times getting caught in her skirt, she finally gathered it, haphazardly wrapped it around her waist, and tucked the hem into her back waistband. She resumed crawling over the rough floor, feeling the gritty sand pressing into her skin. A sharp pain stabbed her kneecap, and she yelped, brushing away the offending small pebble still stuck to her skin.
She refocused on the glint just ahead of her and decided to chance standing, praying her jittery legs would hold her weight. “Why am I able to see you in total darkness and why now? Were you hiding?” The tiny blue light blinked, and her eyes widened in surprise. “Okay, I will admit, this is more fun than I’ve had in the week I’ve been down here...at least I think it’s been a week.” Gingerly, she stood and, after willing her legs to stop shaking, she inched closer to the light. “I know someone has left food for me five times, although I wouldn’t really call a plate of fruit and a few sandwiches a meal, but I guess it’s better than nothing.” At that moment, her stomach let out a loud growl.
Chuckling, she held out her arms in front of her, using her boots to feel along the floor for any obstruction, and was rewarded when her fingertips touched rock. She’d made it to the other side of her cell. Several feet above her head, the blue light shimmered. Wiping her hands on the back of her already filthy skirt, she stared up at the beautiful topaz light.
“Now, how am I supposed to get to you at that height? I don’t suppose you can conjure a ladder, can you?” Chuckling again, the sound almost cheery in the infernal darkness, she let out a small sigh and put her hands on her hips. Her neck cramped from looking up, so she took a step back while rubbing the knot that had formed at the base of her skull.
Her fingers slowed to a stop, and she frowned. “Either I’m hallucinating, or you look lower than you were a minute ago.” She inched backward, but the light didn’t seem to move, so it wasn’t because she had. Stepping forward again, she blinked. The blue glow was now even with her face. “Oh, this is so strange. I’ll admit, it’s interesting, but still strange. What are you?”
Reaching out, her finger hesitated just before touching the blue surface. She swallowed. “If I touch you, I won’t lose my mind, dissolve in a gooey puddle on the floor, or die, will I?” The light blinked. Before she could change her mind, the tip of her finger pressed against the object.
The pale-blue surface was freezing but smooth, reminding her of ice. Thankfully, nothing happened other than her fingertip going numb from the cold. Sticking it in her mouth to warm the skin, she used her other finger to trace the circumference. Her excitement grew. “You’re a stone, aren’t you?” The light blinked. “That’s so weird. It’s almost like you understand what I’m saying.” The light blinked again.
Dropping her hand, she stepped back again, noticing the cell had brightened enough for her to see the vague outlines of the walls and the iron door. She hated iron. It didn’t burn her like it did the elves, but instead felt like a painful itch under her skin...an annoying sensation she couldn’t scratch. Even standing close to the cell door felt like she had tiny bugs crawling underneath her skin.
She heard a low hum but couldn’t tell where it came from. The sound of a nearby door slamming startled her, and she jumped.
“Are you still alive, cousin?” Maya’s voice carried through the dungeon. The stone blinked off, and Alva was once again doused in total darkness.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Maya, but yes, I am. You’re doing a good job starving me to death, though.”Alva heard metal clanking against metal and knew her cousin was gripping the bars of the door. Maya’s love of gold had been evident to her from the moment they’d met. She never took off her cuff bracelets, and when she wasn’t hunting, she sported large golden hoops in her ears and strands of the precious metal woven through her hair.
“Then I guess I will just have to stop sending down meals.” The sneering tone in her cousin’s voice filled the small cell. “I thought you’d like to know your abduction hasn’t even fazed your mother. I thought for sure she would care enough about you to, at least, form a search party...something. Instead, she’s all consumed with Anders—as she usually is—to the detriment of our people.”
“I told you it wouldn’t work. Kidnapping me was a stupid move,” Alva said with as much bravado as she could muster. “My mother has never listened to me, so why would you think imprisoning me would make any difference? I would like to know, though, what is so special about Anders. The few times I was around him, he seemed rather ordinary...annoying, really. Everything revolved around him, and when it didn’t, he threw temper tantrums.”
“In this, it seems, we are in complete agreement. Anders is an imbecile and, by proxy, so is your mother. The elders’ stores of life energy are under lock and key for their use only. With fewer men to draw from, the younger Huldra are wasting away.”
Alva crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, maybe if Huldras stopped killing their food supply? I mean, even the tiniest animal realizes that’s a death sentence. We should take only what is necessary to survive. Now, if the source is completely beyond redemption and evil, then kill him.”
“Would you say the same if we lived off women?”
Alva tilted her head, pondering her cousin’s question. The process of drawing a person’s life energy didn’t have anything to do with love, so it shouldn’t matter if the precious energy came from male or female.
“I know this might surprise you, Maya, but I am an open-minded person. It shouldn’t matter which sex the energy is drawn from. While the entire act of stealing life energy is distasteful to me, I do understand.”
Alva used the barely there, blue glow coming from the wall and stepped up to the cell door, carefully avoiding touching the iron bars. “I agree that changes need to be made. My mother should become more attentive to her people or step down as queen. I also agree we should allow the collection of both male- and female life energies...just stop the killing part. There is no reason for people to die. Vampires no longer kill their prey. We shouldn’t either.”
“Tell that to the succubi and incubi.”
“Yes, well, that is for their king or queen to deal with.”
Maya tilted her head as her shadowed gaze bored into Alva’s. “You surprise me. I figured you would raise hell and stand with your mother.”
“I guess you don’t know me as well as you thought. Maybe next time, strike up a conversation instead of resorting to something as low as kidnapping. I have never been your enemy, Maya. We’re family. We may not always agree nor get along with one another, but we will always be cousins and, I hope, one day, friends.”
The surrounding air shimmered, then seemed to shatter, as if a thousand glass shards burst apart between them. Wide-eyed, they stared at one another. Before either could say anything, a loud scream splintered the silence and was followed by more screams and shouting. The clanging of metal striking metal could be heard overhead as a massive boom vibrated through the dungeon.
A tingling filled Alva’s head. The headache she’d been nursing earlier returned, erupting into a blinding pain like a white-hot poker stabbed at her eyes and brain. Clutching her temples, she bit back a whimper, the room darkening around her.
“Freyja is here—hell hath no fury like an angry goddess. Go, Maya! Take your unit and disappear for a while until I can calm everyone down.” Her cousin stared at her with a confused expression and a hint of fear in her eyes. Forcing one hand from her head, she laid it over Maya’s white-knuckled fingers, which were still wrapped around an iron bar. Alva’s skin tingled and began to itch, but she ignored it.