Page 55 of The Jester

“I have to see them.” I stand and stride to the door. “Take me to them, now.”

Finn and Briony exchange a look of shock and disbelief. “Alana, that is not a good idea. Not now. Not tonight.”

“If you do not take me, I will take myself.” I throw open the door and run, and I don’t care if they are following me or not.

By some miracle, I make it to the stairs without meeting a single other soul. The castle is quiet. It is as if everyone is mourning, except they are not. No one cared for Kayan. The Sunborne saw his death as simply an added bonus to the night’s entertainment, and the Shadowkind in Eldrion’s employ just sighed and hung their heads. As if they were thinking, foolish boy, we knew this would happen.

The cells are unguarded.

I do not care to wonder why.

I run to the iron bars and shake them. There is silence within. No one speaks.

“What happened? What did you do? I told you I’d help.” I am shouting but still no one answers me. “Tell me what happened, damn you!”

Maura is the one who steps forward. She is not in chains. None of them are. Clearly, Eldrion believes they have learned their lesson. “Kayan...” She chokes on the sob that racks her chest. “He had a plan.”

In the darkness, all I can hear is the sound of the others crying. Holding one another. Broken.

None of us can unsee what we saw tonight.

I press my head against the bars. I want to tell them I’ll still find a way to free them. But the words catch in my throat and refuse to be spoken.

“Alana...” Finn puts his hand on mine, and I flinch. A surge of guilt washes over me as I think of what I did while I was watching Eldrion.

“It’s all my fault,” I whisper. “All of this. It’s my fault.”

Finn tweaks a finger beneath my chin. “Do you want to help them?” he asks quietly.

I frown at him. “Of course, I do.”

He glances back at Briony. She is guarding the door.

“Then there is something you can try. I’ve seen empaths do it before.”

I let go of the bars and turn away from Maura and the others. “What can an empath do to get them out of here?”

“It won’t set them free of the dungeon, but you can set them free of their pain.” Finn presses his hand to my chest, above my heart, and smiles a slow smile. “You can take their pain from them. Absorb it from them.”

“All of them?” A violent shiver snakes down my spine.

“It’s a lot, but I believe you can do it. If you weren’t powerful, Eldrion wouldn’t have brought you here.”

I close my eyes, breathe slowly and steadily, then push back my shoulders and take his hand. “How? Show me how...”

“I can’t,” Finn says, his lips twitching a little as he almost smiles. “When I saw another empath do it, they closed their eyes, waved their hands and –”

I laugh darkly. “And what? Sparkly lights flew out of their fingertips?”

He shrugs. “Something like that. Their wings glowed. The air started to glow. It kind of spread over the person –”

“Person? Just one person? You saw an empath do this for one person, and now you expect me to do it for twenty?”

Finn’s eyes soften. He looks a little bit like a child, as if I just reprimanded him, and he feels embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

I take his hand and squeeze it tightly because he is the only person here who sees me for who I really am, and who wants me anyway. “I just don’t know if I can.”

“Alana,” he leans in close, whispering into my ear, “Eldrion would not have brought you here if he didn’t believe you were special.”

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